Hello!

I'm Sam, and I'm an college student and avid knitter. I've forgotten how exactly I got involved in this Knit along (I have a tendency to not knit from patterns, so knit alongs are a rarity.) My thing, such as it is, is stranded color work and sweaters. No other kind of knitting has held my attention or interest like this ever. Much of the time I just design my own sweaters using books of charted designs, an Excel spreadsheet, and a few hours. I tend to use some sort of basic drop shouldered gansey-type pattern, which looks pretty good on me, I think being skinny and male is a good thing too.

When I joined, I was finishing up another Starmore sweater, the Faroe design from her Fisherman's Sweaters collection. I really like the two color-work sweaters in this book, and have made them both basically as they're written. I've actually made Faroe twice, the most recent time was a little different in a couple of places, but nothing that anyone would really notice. I changed the Norway a bit to "butch it up;" I wasn't terribly fond of the flowery bit in the ribbing or the horizontal pattern band at the bottom of the sweater.

I guess I should back up a little and say that, I spent a few weeks this summer just starting projects so that I'd have a number of projects on hand to work on during this semester (when I'm applying to graduate school) that I could just pick up without thinking about it. Faroe was the first of this kind of project. The second was a coat that I designed myself, knit in black and grey Patton's Classic Merino, using a Turkish color-work pattern that I got from the "Anatolian Stocking Knitting" pattern book. It's my first attempt at a cardigan in a long time and I hope to god it turns out, because I'm running out of a need for pullover jumpers. I've finished the sweater body, and the collar, and about 2/3s of the first sleeve; this leaves the cardigan band, and a sleeve and some change. The only real thing I have yet to figure out is what kind of closures I want to use.

But anyway, this isn't the Fisherman's Sweater's KAL or the Sam-Knitting Channel. Why is this Tudor Roses related?

Well, because the next sweater I knit is going to be the Henry VIII sweater from Tudor Roses that I signed up to this KAL to knit. My scheme is/was to knit it as a two color design. In part this is because I'm color blind and keeping lots of color changes under control is my idea of a nightmare. Also, probably as a corollary, I'm really drawn to strong contrasts and bold lines, so two-color is really the way to go. From an artistic point of view, I've been calling this a version of the "peasantry." Taking the idea that fashion proliferates down the social hierarchy, but in doing so it changes. I'm also doing this in earth tones to help this aesthetic goal out.

I chose KnitPicks Gloss, which fits my college student budget and fibersnobery. I think it will work out just great. I'm hoping to start some time during the thanksgiving break, but it might not happen till after December 10th (when the University of Chicago's application deadline is).

Thanks for reading this.

Cheers,
Sam