Just returned from the Greatest Photoshoot in History.  Ok, it was my first one, but I am sure that it was the greatest.  Wonderful team, perfect weather, fun times.  If the perfect light for photography wasn’t at sunrise, meaning a 5:30 am call time, it would have been better.  But, I quibble.  There will be more on the shoot later, but let’s get to the important stuff – Photoshoot knitting!i

I finished Levana, and remembered to take unblocked photos, this time.  I’m pretty sure that I have it upside down on the mannequin, so forgive me.

Levana was fun to knit, and I have a feeling that it is going to be very big when blocked! I had enough yarn and beads to do an extra repeat on each side of the shawl.  This was great for when I could sit at a table with my charts and beads.

For walking around and photoshoot knitting, I needed something more portable.  And I knew just the thing.

Mithril is a sweater that I designed several years ago (2008?  Time flies), a result of a dare.  Sandy Bingham challenged me to come up with a sweater pattern that would work with Habu Silk. I swatched a bit, and ended up working with the yarn doubled, and size 5 US needles, for a shiny drapey fabric that I loved.  This became Mithril, for my daughter, who models it on my Ravelry page.  A few years later, I submitted the design to Twist Collective, and it was selected for their Spring/Summer 2011 issue.  They asked me to re-knit the sweater in Lorna’s Laces Honor, which is a really lovely yarn. The Twist version of Mithril is a soft, cozy sweater, but it lacks the lightweight shine that inspired me to name it after Bilbo’s armor in the Hobbit. My daughter made the mistake of leaving the original sweater with me when she went to college, and between the two of us we have done our best to wear it out.  There are spots that are getting thin and threatening to shred, but silk is amazingly strong.

Mithril is an easy knit, because the texture comes from a one-row cluster stitch.  It is simple, but effective, which is a combination that I like.  The sweater is light enough for me to teach in, and casual enough to be very comfortable.  It is one of my favorite sweaters, and I have a stash of Habu silk to make a replacement once it wears out.

At the Plucky knitter retreat, I spied some Plucky Singles in the Medieval colorway, and immediately thought “that looks like Mithril”.  So, for the Photoshoot, I brought the yarn and needles, and started to knit my next favorite sweater.

I’m going to keep knitting, while Sarah and Bill start sifting through the thousands (I am not kidding) of photos from the photoshoot.  I can’t do it, because I go “ooh, ooh” at every one of them.  They threw me out of the room (here, I am kidding!)