Anatolia from Rowan 54 - And More New Orleans Tips!

Throwing all modesty out the window: I've knit a lot of beautiful things over the years, but I'm not sure I've ever knit something as breathtaking as this! 

As I am just a poor knitter, a slave to the written word (!), we must give all the credit for this beautiful design to Marie Wallin, for her razor sharp eye for colorwork and unrivalled talent for romanticism in knitwear.

This is Anatolia from Rowan Magazine 54 (see my Ravelry project here), using seven colors of Rowan Felted Tweed DK (50% Merino, 25% Rayon, 25% Alpaca).  In my opinion, there is no yarn that looks quite like it.

Warning!  The photograph colors shown in the magazine were off.  The pattern calls for Damask, but in the photo, it looks like Peony is used.  If you buy the same colors, you will be in for a surprise!

Right is my Photoshopped version to be more accurate

Many many people have written to me, "I love the colors you chose, they are so much better!"  But can you believe that I only changed one?  Yes!  I simply replaced the Damask purple color with Rage red.  

The difference is palpable, it sings festivity!  Suddenly, the flowers are poinsettias, who would have known?  I had created the perfect Christmas sweater.

The pullover is stranded, that is, colors are held at the back the entire time. While some of the bands look like traditional fair-isle, they smash apart the rule that you must only have 2 colors per band.  The designs use up to 4 colors stranded at once.

Some of you may have your mouth agape -- yes, I agree, it is rather impossible to demand stranding 4 colors at once.  

With two colors, I use both hands to knit.  With three, I try to have the dominant color in the right, and the two others in the left.  Honestly, in the end, I don't know how I managed it!

So how on earth to do four?!  One of the ways chosen by knitters is to do "duplicate stitch" over an empty 2-color background.  After knitting, you come back and embroider knit stitches on top.  I decided to do "intarsia" for the small motifs, basically cutting pieces of yarn and only knitting with them when I came to them.

Here is what the intarsia pieces looked like in the back:

The pattern is written to be made flat and sewn in pieces.  This presented a problem, as it meant that the wrong side had to be stranded in purl.  I don't mind doing this for two colors, but for 3 and 4, no way.  So, I converted the pattern to do it in the round.

Note: the yoke is already written in the round, so you don't have to change that.

One of the problems with knitting motifs in the round is the "jog".  Knitting in the round is a big ole' spiral, so when you get to the new row, the color bands shift up by one.  There are many ways to try and avoid this, none are really perfect.

For the body, I kept two solid stitches at the seam, thus disguising where the colorwork meets.

For the yoke, I tried something a little different.  A long time ago, I learned that if you knit into the stitch below after one row of a new color, you can disguise the jog.  However, this doesn't really work for colors that have just one row, because you make a bit of a mess trying to put in the new color so soon.  So, I made something up for the one row color that separates every motif, and I was pretty pleased with the seam (it's in the center back of the yoke).

Knit one row with the new color.

Attach the next color(s) and knit the next row.

Do not knit the last stitch...

Instead, insert needle into the stitch below the next stitch (which is actually the first stitch of the round) and knit it together with the last stitch of the round.

The ends are all pulled in here, to make it neat.

Not bad!  You can occasionally see that the stitch stretches over two stitches, but the jog is fixed, at least.

Now, the pullover wouldn't be a ME pullover if it didn't have some visual modifications.  You can tell that I removed most of the ribbing from the sleeves and body, and replaced it with repeated motifs.

Because I didn't want to be wrong about how much length I needed, I cast-on everything provisionally, finished the entire pullover, and then knit downwards.

You can see that the whole thing was super short after following the pattern!  My row gauge was clearly off.  I had to add almost a whole sweater's worth of motifs to the sleeve, whoops.

The other small mod was to reduce the length of the ribbed boat neck collar.  Felted Tweed can be scratchy on the neck, so I needed to get it lower down.  Anyway, I really love the low collar, very elegant!

I scrambled like a total nut to get the sweater done for my trip to New Orleans on December 17.  My husband was down there for a conference, and we had such a good time earlier in the year that I flew down to join him.  

Luckily, he left before me, so with 48 weekend hours and many instant dinners, I managed to get it all done!  This is just a representation of the ends from the elbows down... I wish I had saved them all.

Even I didn't realize how perfect New Orleans was to photograph this beauty.

Some photos were taken in Lafayette Cemetery #1.  Yes, it's a bit odd prancing through a cemetery in a joyous sweater!  Truth be told, I tried to spare you the photos where I was giggling, out of respect for the patrons who had been lying there for hundreds of years! 

B. tried to get me to be penitent.

The following one makes me laugh, because it is ridiculous.  I was trying to be serious, this vault is for a 16 month old girl who died in 1863.   So, why do I look like I'm in a Personal Injury "Attorney" ad?  When B. saw this photo he said, "You never ever make that face in real life."  A compliment?

The rest of the shots are taken in the Garden District, amongst the ironwork.  Go ahead, hop on the St. Charles trolley, get off around Washington and turn north, you won't be sorry.

I call this one "Garden District Spooky".

Some of you may remember my trip to New Orleans earlier in the year. Well, there were a number of tourist tips in that blog post, but of course we discovered some more.

This time we spent quite a bit of time in the Warehouse District.  A fabulous lunch at Cochon (book in advance and order the blue crab salad on the johnny cake, please do):

A jaw-dropping not-to-be-missed exhibit of Edward Burtynsky's newest arial photos, "Water", at the Contemporary Arts Center (the show goes until mid-January, but will appear elsewhere I am sure):

The dark boudoir of Bellocq for their specialty drinks, vintage "cobblers":

And a stop at Kiefe and Co. for some Herbsaint, Bourbon and Maraschino for "import".

I love Po' Boys, like, insanely.  I've confirmed that Coop's has the very best lightly breaded shrimp ones, there really is no comparison.  But it's oyster season in New Orleans in the winter, and the fried oyster Po' Boy at Mahoney's on Magazine Street was killer!

Not hard to believe that the first thing we bought when we got back on Christmas Eve was a box of Prince Edward Island oysters to play with.  :)

Mmm, good eats in the New Orleans Warehouse District!

Anatolia has been an adventure!  I cast-on the moment I received the winter Rowan magazine... but guess what just came in the mail?  The Spring/Summer 2014 one!  What delights will I find inside?

Or rather, what delights will you find?  

See my Anatolia on Ravelry

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