Inspirational Knitting

This weekend a friend asked about my well-being since I hadn’t shared any new knitting around here for a while. Ouch. Apart from the regular everyday stuff like work, family, the house, friends and whatnot there has been knitting going on, of course.

Inspira cowl knit with Drops Delight yarn

Inspira as a kids poncho

The first Inspira was intended to end up as a small cowl or neck warmer for me. The pattern was a bit difficult to figure out and adjust at first. That’s probably because the instructions are more of an entertaining guideline than a clearcut pattern. It took some frustrated ranting but in the end was possible to put two and two together. The photos and project descriptions on Ravelry helped, too. The pattern in combination with the lovely Drops yarn made for a lovely end result. Unfortunately I couldn’t enjoy it for long. The girl laid claim to the cowl declared it a „kids poncho“ and off she went 🙂

Well, there was nothing to do but sit down and knit another Inspira to have one for myself. This time larger and with random variations on the stripes. It turned out just as lovely as the first one. And the simple stranding over only two stitches worked up nearly as quickly as plain ribbing. Who would have thought it?

Inspira shoulder wrap

This is definitely one of those knits that look much more complex than they actually are. In this one a traditional knitting technique paired with a modern yarn combine to the best effect.

Drops Delight self-striping yarn

Along the lines of those two projects I also discovered a new yarn that I hadn’t worked with before. Drops Delight is one of those new yarns that are clearly inspired – I hesitate to call them poor copies – by Noro’s trademark color gradations. For all intents and purposes Drops Delight appears as a soft singles yarn while a closer look shows that there might be more to it. The 75% wool, 25% nylon content suggests that it would also be suitable as a sock yarn. If knit on a somewhat tighter gauge it might actually hold up against harder wear. I haven’t tried that myself though. In those projects I worked the yarn on 4mm neeedles producing a slightly looser gauge while still resulting in a nice, coherent fabric with a bit of drape. And while the yarn imitates Noro yarns to a certain degree it’s an entirely different thing to knit with. Much softer, not as much knots or slubs and not half as much vegetable matter. Cheaper, too. On the other hand it’s absolutely clear that nobody can imitate Noro’s vibrant, unique color schemes. The same item worked in Noro yarn will always stand out in a crowd. So it’s not a real competition at all.

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