F.O. Hamble by Isabell Kraemer

Pattern:  Hamble

Hamble 

Designer:  Isabell Kraemer

Yarn:  
Rosy Green Wool Cheeky Merino Joy (100% Merino)
Colourway:  Edelweiss (1 skein)

O-Wool O-Wash Sport  (100% Merino)
Colourway: Cuckoo Flower (2.5 skeins)

 Pigeonroof Studios Silky High Twist Sock (80% Merino, 20% Silk)
 Colourway: Railroad Stake (held double)

Needles: 3.5mm

Ravelry:  my notes

Added Notes:

1.  Designer Isabell Kramer is popular for a reason.  Her patterns are well written, fun to knit, and produce a garment that fits well.  When Hamble was published I happily cast on, knowing that this sweater would get a lot of wear.  I have to admit that I am delighted with the finished result.  The hardest part about this pattern was knitting the neckline.  There are increases on both the purl and knit sides, and the increases I made on the purl side were creating holes in the fabric.  I found a great tutorial that demonstrated how to do this properly.  Once the neckline was created the pattern was straight forward. 

2.  I played around with different colours for the contrasting coloured stripe before I picked the Pigeonroof Yarn.  For example, I loved how these two skeins looked together, until I started to knit the stripe and realized that there was not enough contrast between the two. 

Old Rusted Chair Sock Yarn: Colourway Spring Forward

I tried several yarn combinations until I found the fingering skein of Pigeonroof High Twist Sock.  I have been holding onto this skein for sometime as the yarn is gorgeous, much too beautiful to knit into socks.  As this is a fingering weight skein I doubled it, and it worked perfectly with the sport weight yarn.

Much better!

3. The Yarn:  This was my first time using Rosy Green Wool and the experience made me want to knit a whole sweater's worth. It is the softest merino I have ever felt. It's one of those yarns that you want to keep squishing as you knit with it.   O-Wool, a yarn I bought at Rhinebeck a couple years ago, is a lovely yarn too, and was a good match with the Rosy Green Wool.  Look at the variety of colours that are available.

O-Wool Sport

O-Wool is certified organic by the Global Organic Textile Standard.  You can read more about what that means on the O-Wool website.  If you are lucky enough to go the Maryland (this coming weekend) or Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool festival you can see O-Wool in person.  If you want to try either yarn the owner of O-Wool sells both yarns online.  Trust me when I say both yarns are worth buying.

4.  I was halfway through my second sleeve when disaster happened.  I spilled the remains of a Tim Horton's coffee on my sweater and the coffee seemed to hit every inch of my sweater, especially the cream upper body.  Luckily I was just entering my house when it happened and I was able to submerge it immediately in water, so thankfully no lasting damage was done!

I love the feeling of getting a sweater off the needles.  Since this is a sport weight sweater I still will get a lot of wear out of it before summer.  Instead of focusing on the two remaining sweateres I have on the needles I promptly cast on another one.  I have so many projects on the needles at the moment.  But I am enjoying every one of them.  More on that later....

As a side note I have been quiet on my blog recently as life has been extremely busy.  I hope to get back to a regular schedule soon, so thanks for sticking with me.  

Happy knitting!