Someone Else's Pattern

David and I were supposed to leave for New Hampshire yesterday, but we are still at home. Why? Well, it turns out that on top of the car accident and the lost day job, the fates also decreed that our building would be broken into twice over the course of two days, and my brand-new bike would be stolen. And also that Mr. Bingley would come down with some kind of stomach ailment and run around throwing up all over the house. So we pushed back our departure in order to get the security and health issues sorted out before flying all the way across the country. (Not to worry, though: unless some other, unforeseen catastrophe hits, we will still be in Boston for the trunk show on the 29th.)

So, not to indulge in a pity party over here, but I am SO EXHAUSTED by everything that's happened over the past two months. Seriously guys, so very, very tired. As in, wake up at 9, then nap from noon to 3 tired. I'm deeply in need of some down time, hours and days in which nothing is expected of me and I am not dealing with crisis upon crisis, planning a huge project, or even being held responsible for dinner. Just...time to relax.

So I've decided to indulge in a major personal luxury and knit someone else's pattern while I recover and continue working up the accessory patterns that we're releasing in the fall. I hardly ever do this anymore, but when I do I always find it useful. I'm drawn to patterns featuring intriguing techniques or shaping I'd like to dissect (and perhaps transform into something I can use in my own designs!), and following a really well-constructed pattern is always such a good reminder of how to write one myself. In this case, I'm returning to an old, old favorite: this is the back of Kim Hargreaves' lovely Darcy jacket, worked in Manos del Uruguay in a beautiful variegated green, and only a bit modified to accommodate a slightly larger gauge.

Kim Hargreaves and Eunny Jang are the designers who inspired me to try my hand at putting together knitwear in the first place, and their patterns are still an endless source of inspiration for me. I adore all the shaped short-row peplums in Kim Hargreaves's Heartfelt collection, and I'm excited to finally work through one for myself. In fact, in addition to welcoming the ease of working Someone Else's Pattern, I'm generally excited to be back in Kim Hargreaves's world. I really love the way she writes her patterns; they just gel with my mindset, somehow. In fact, I'm planning to do a few posts on the actual pattern and all the things about it that work for me (and maybe the one or two things that don't). Sort of a play-by-play pattern appreciation and consideration society, and a chance to think about what I look for in a knitting pattern.

This yarn has an interesting history: it was originally purchased by my mom, in my junior year. Of HIGH SCHOOL. She was planning a sweater for me as a high school graduation present, and was actually about a third of the way through a pretty cabled pullover when life got in the way and the project was stabled. Then she tried to resuscitate the project when I was about to graduate from college, but realized that she didn't have quite enough yarn for the sweater she'd started, and that her gauge had probably shifted in the five years since she stopped knitting, and in any case that the size she had begun knitting to fit my high school body would probably be a bit tight now that my, uh, "assets" have matured. So the sweater pieces were stashed away again, and when I started the Family Trunk Project, she offered it to me instead. Thanks, Mom! I think the seed stitch really shows it off nicely.

So that's what I'll be working on as I fine-tune and format the rest of the accessory patterns - the third of which will be posted pretty soon. Wish me luck on recouping some serious ENERGY in the coming week, y'all.