My First Welland Sweater

I don’t like this yarn.  I’m just saying that up-front because it’s not the yarn I’d choose for this and I hate for bad yarn to bring a good pattern down.  But I did want to talk about this design.  It’s the Welland Sweater from Tara-Lynn of Good Night, Day and I so enjoyed this project.

It deserves an interesting thick and thin yarn of natural fiber to show off it’s drape and style.  While I’d prefer using yarn like this or this, what I had in my stash was Lion Brand Homestyle.  I needed to start the test knit, so I used what I had on hand.  So, I’m going to call this a true test knit for me.  I now know I like the pattern, and so I just need to find the right yarn for it.

If you’re like the rest of the knitting world, you’ll want wool, and there’s many bulky wool options out there.  But for my Welland, I would like to use a thick and thin in cotton because… it’s cotton, and there’s always a place for cotton in Texas.  I used Asian Trends’ Lecco for the Belleville Shawl and I really liked it as an alternative to a high quality wool yarn, but I think it’s been discontinued and I can’t find anything like it online.  That would’ve been perfect.  So I’m left with  Tahki Rosa.  In fact, Webs has free shipping right now, if I order the bulky needle set I’ve been wanting.  Can you hear the wheels turning?

Okay, but, given that it’s acrylic yarn, doesn’t it look cute?  This is a very flexible shape.  It can fit me at about a size medium or my daughter, who is very tall but also more of an x-small.  I appreciate the flexibility in design.

I knit this with size 19 needles and about three skeins of Hometown. (Is it yarn snobbery for me to  cringe every time I type that?) That is not a lot of yarn for a sweater!

It’s an easy to follow pattern.  I made no modifications, but if I can only find the yarn I like in a bulky weight, I think it would be easy to adapt.  This one will be included in Tara-Lynn’s upcoming book.  It is just days away from being released, too.

Not too many photos for this one.  I love my husband, but he has taken the most unflattering photos of me ever lately.  It’s not that a change in medication has caused a bad breakout, because that can be edited.  No, it’s like he holds the shutter down to get those cheesy “model-in-motion” photos that you see in photoshoot scenes of 80’s movies.  Only, in real life,  “models-in motion” looks more like “town-drunk-unsuccessfully-walks-straight-line.”

(ravelry, kollabora, and flickr)

So, here ya go. These were the most sober of the bunch.  Stay tuned!  There will be another Welland.