The Fiber Sample Sweater

The Fiber Sample Sweater
By Lili Pintea-Reed
@1997

There is sat in an ever growing pile --- the zillions of
yarn samples I had collected over time. They often were of fibers
I could never afford to buy in bulk except at very special
occasions. A tuft of quivit, a tiny pile of silk noils, a little
ramie all tagged and priced in one of the fiber bags sitting in
the cupboard. What ever would I do with all this?? I could never
bear to throw it out. Then finally one day inspiration struck. I
would use them all for a project.

I decided to make a very relaxed TV watching spare time
project out of these little wonderful bits of fluff most less
than an ounce in size. I set the samples in my workbasket by the
couch and started to spin them up a bit at a time. I used a
medium-sized drop spindle and spun a thickness of around that of
baby fingering yarn. After a bit I had a nice basket full of
little balls of fingering weight yarn. I looked at it for several
days awaiting a second attack of inspiration.

I looked at a number of weaving and knitting projects and
found that most would require too much yarn. At last, by chance I
saw a pattern for a nice crop top sleeveless sweater. I decided
that I would do an abstract pattern using the various fibers and
make good use of the multi-hued effect. I set the various colored
balls on the kitchen table and roughed out a color pattern that
looked good to me. I decided to start with the front rather than
the back so my beautiful abstract would certainly fill the front
of my little sweater. If I had to fill in the back with some
larger amount of handspun, it could go on the back. This proved
to be a good idea.

I cast on 60 stitches with size six needles (American) and
did six rows of single rib (knit one, purl one). I knit a couple
of easy rows in one color and then started to work the various
colors in by using a technique with a very scary name ---
instarsia. All this means is that rather than carrying the new
color in back of that being worked on, one over laps the new
color and works solely with it. I kept it simple never working
more then three different colors on a row and slowly built
irregular looking patches of color to resemble the way hues in a
sunset merge into one another.

Working in this manner, I knitted a length of 11 inches,
then decreased 4 stitches at each edge for arm holes. I knitted
another six inches. Then I started to shape the neck hole. From
the center I bound off 4 stitches. I then worked the one side
decreasing one stitch every other row on the neck edge until I
had 15 stitches left. I worked the side until I had an armhole
length of 9 inches. I then bound off seven stitches on the top
row (arm hole edge). I knit a row and then bound off the
remaining stitches.

The back is worked the same way, skipping the neck hole
step, until the arm holes measure 9 inches. Bind off to match the
front. I then stitched the sweater together and worked five rows
of ribbing around the neck and armholes to finish. Obviously you
could use what ever method you want. Crochet would look nice
also.

I found I needed to supplement my store of fibers on the
back with some handspun cotton and also used this for the ribbing
around the neck and armholes. It framed my sunset of sample
rather nicely.

So don't be afraid to experiment and find uses for samples
in your work. A nice project can result.
(Note a special thanks to Jane of Jane's fibers for the mega
samples she sent me. Most of the sweater is from her sample pack.
To get her catalogue email fiber@greene.net.)
Beat to You,
Lili

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