In a recent post I told you about one of my favourite knitting designers, Kate Davies. Another favourite designer is Veera Välimäki. She has designed a lot of sweaters with brilliantly smart and yet simple yoke constructions, preferably using short rows. Many of the designs are in garter stitch which gives handspun yarns an extra opportunity to show their perfect non-perfectness.
My first Veera was a shawl, though, the Color affection. You can read more about it here. I knit it in my handspun alpaca yarn in natural colours and I love the result, it has a wonderful drape.
When I changed jobs a few years ago, my colleagues gave me a gift voucher at a local yarn store (boy, did they know me well!) and I bought the yarn for and knit the Still light tunic, a garment I could live in.
One of my favourite Veera designs is the Shift of focus sweater, which I altered a bit. Instead of a buttoned front, I made it closed and I really loved the result. The yarn was a different matter, though. I wasn’t very used to making consistent grist, so the skeins were quite different in thickness. Also, I had spun too little yarn, so I had to make some more from another fleece. Fortunately I had the same dye bath left, so nobody knows the difference.
Right now I’m working on the Sides and stripes sweater. The yarn is my handspun from Swedish finewool sheep (blue) and Jämtland sheep (orange) and hand dyed with Greener shades.
I’ll show you when it’s finished!
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