Getting Myself into Somewhat Slanted Trouble?

 

Almost a year ago I started the “Sweater Somewhat Slanted”after a pattern by Sarah C. Swett .  She now writes The Gusset on Substack  which I look forward to finding in my inbox every Tuesday. 

This slanted sweater had intrigued me right away when I first saw pictures of and posts about it, I just love the ‘slanted’ aspect of it. On first sight I immediately thought ‘should be possible to do it all slanted, not only the two large pieces front and back, shouldn’t it?’ and so far I have been thinking that I would like to try to do it that way. As I have mentioned before, I cheated myself a bit, breaking the good intention to start any major new knitting project (socks never count!) before I had finished at least two other wips by telling myself that a single slip knot as is very common in every day use does not count as casting on a knitting project. The sweater basically started itself.

Mine turned into a bit of a wildish something when deciding on yarn (only, but not with a derogatory meaning) under the way. Alternating some hand-dyed (not be my) yarn from South America which had been in my stash for a few years with hand-spun (by me) snippets from my experimental bags of spinning is certainly giving this piece a very idiosyncratic look.

 

As I was also finishing another very long-time work in progress 

 

this slanted project took it’s time growing, but lately I managed to finish the second piece and then realized that my ambition to slant the sleeves as well was blocking progress. 

To shape or not to shape the shoulder pieces,
even not slanted?

 For a little while I waited whether I would have the zeal and drive to tackle this self-inflicted challenge, meanwhile just going ahead with the shoulder rectangles and waiting for enlightenment.

 

But in the end, for now, I have decided that I will finish this (first) Slanted Sweater as suggested in Sarah’s instructions, and knit the sleeves straight, starting at the shoulders. 

I am telling myself that this is a way of getting myself fully acquainted with the structure of the sleeves which might than give me a fertile basis on which to continue my thoughts about slanting the sleeves, too. And perhaps I will then start another version of it, pulling that idea of complete slanting through. Or rather, a second sweater will start itself, because, after all, a single slip knot is not casting on.