The Rocquaine Pullover
My version of Rocquaine pullover was finally finished at the end of February after nearly six months in the WIP-pile, completely missing the self-imposed deadline of the #rocquainealong. No surprise there. I have only now gotten around to write a post about it.
Pattern: Rocquaine
Designer: Christina Danaee
Yarn: Aprox 925 m Madelinetosh Tosh DK
Colourway: Modern Fair Isle
This pattern had been living in my pattern library since it first came out in Pom Pom Quarterly, Issue 18, autumn 2016 and finally called to my attention and knitting queue last August thanks to the knit-a-long instigated by Amy Florence of the Stranded Podcast over on YouTube, one of my favourite knitting podcasts this past year. A knit-a-long I promptly failed to complete.
Finishing woes
What started out as a “fast knit” on thick (for me) needles ended up taking me nearly six months to finish properly. It was four months on the needles and then another two procrastinating having to do the seaming as i had decided to knit it flat. After seaming I promptly tried it on and was gravely disappointed. With everything. The fit was a disaster, the neckline huge and I just wanted to toss it in the bin and have a little cry about it. Now it must be mentioned that it probably was not such a terrible thing as I remember it, but I had been having a post-winter melt down and desperately needed the “quick win” of a finished warming piece of knitwear.
I put the cursed thing to one side and kept glaring at it for nearly two weeks before I decided that this was ridiculous and perhaps I should at least try to give it a block before giving up completely. And it transformed! A good soak relaxed the fabric and did wonders for my clumsy mattress stitch seams. The super-wash yarn stretched out quite a bit and all of a sudden i had actual dropped shoulders and a wide boxy fit around the chest as it should be. The result is a slightly cropped pullover with snug sleeves and quite a wide neckline (I could probably have made this a bit tighter, but hey, I’ll take this as a win).
Yarn experience
The rumours about super-wash are true, it gives when you wash it. A lot. So this time around it was to my benefit, but I will have to be mindful about it so that next time it does not go the other way (looking at you Soldotna Crop). This was my first time knitting with a DK weight merino wool, in this instance Madelinetosh Tosh DK, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The lovely speckled colourway is what attracted me to it in the first place, it had been marinating in my stash for a good 3 years (could it then be considered vintage stash?). The light colour is a bit out of my comfort zone as to what kind of colours I feel I can pull off so I will likely always pair it with a colourful shirt below or a shawl. It is a soft, squishable yarn that felt great in my hands while knitting and cool and soft wearing. I do however already see a tendency to pilling, but that would be mainly be due to the wearer (ie. me) creating friction in places and I should probably not use loosely plied yarns for garments...
Lessons learned
My finishing could certainly be much better, I really must try to knit more garments in pieces so I can acquire a bit of skill points doing mattress stitch. It looks so nice when done precisely. Not at all how I did it.
It’s not over until blocked and dried - and if it still is a mess it can be frogged and turned into something usable. Knits are forgiving like that.
And no, I really can’t pull off beige. Not even with speckles. I am still going to wear it though - but with something colourful between said beige and my face.
