“Make sure you do all your winter shopping. You’ll need warm gear for Boise.”, said the lady.

“How cold does it get over there?”, I asked.

“In the winter, it’s about 20 degrees Fahrenheit.”

Having lived in Southern California for the last 10 years, my immediate response before I could filter my thoughts was:

“Holy cow. How do you people live?”

The day that my flight landed, it snowed. This was the first week in November. It was a bad omen. The next couple of weeks, it was full on winter – with temperature never breaking 20. I thought to myself: “They lied to me.”

It was then that I realized that I was going to need a much warmer sweater than all the sweaters in my arsenal. Knitting was no longer a hobby – it had become a necessity. I got crankin’.

This is my Turkey Waddle Sweater. I completed it on my Thanksgiving trip out to Detroit to see my best friend and his family, and was able to snap a few pictures by his parents’ lake house. If you look carefully, I am wearing 3 layers of clothing in this picture. Photo-snapping session lasted about 5 minutes before I dashed into the house for my down jacket. This ex-Californian is thin blooded. We don’t do cold – no we don’t.

Materials: Less than 7 balls of Rowan Yorkshire Tweed Chunky, in Lobster (I think), Sz 10.5 needles for body and Sz 10 needles for the ribbing and sleeves.

Notes:  Sweater was knit bottom up, with 3-needle shoulder bind off, and then the sleeves were knit top-down ala Barbara Walker style. There was no waist-shaping, and the only mod that I made was to start the ribbing from the elbow down.

Braced with the warmest sweater I’ve ever had, I thought I was ready to go back to Boise and conquer the cold. I spent an entire weekend inside the confines of my new apartment and watched the snow outside. By spying on my neighbors, I even figured out how to use that weird looking contraption that they call a windshield ice scraper. Totally saved me an embarrassing experience of asking strangers how to use the damn thing.

Monday morning. Four layers of clothing. Two layers of socks. Arm warmer. Cashmere fingerless gloves underneath a pair of fur lined leather gloves. Stepped outside the door, and checked the temperature on my iPhone and it said “4 deg Fahrenheit”. Stepped back inside the apartment.

“Please route all my work calls to my cellphone. I’m working from home today. I ain’t driving in 4 degree weather.”

They lied. They told me it was 20 degrees.

It didn’t help that every Friday afternoon, one of my office mates would come in and tell me that it would be snowing in the weekend, and that it’d be really fun to go up to the mountains. He conveyed his weekly weather reports with such fervor and gusto – even after I had mentioned that nature and I don’t really get along.

To this day I still can’t figure out whether or not he was trying to interest me in outdoor snow activities or scare the shit out of me.

Nevertheless, yarn had been bought, and I was not about to let it go to waste. I ended up ripping out most of the sweater and modified it to suit my measurements. Realistically, this tank only took me a week to knit.

The tank wasn’t fully complete without its accent ribbons. And since I didn’t have the Rowan Linen Print called for in the pattern, it took a while before I settled on Berroco Suede and finally called it a FO.

Pattern: Toledo, Rowan 37, Sz L hips modified to Sz XS for the rest of the bodice

Materials: Sz 6 and 8 needles, 5.5 balls of Rowan All Seasons Cottons (Shade 192) and 0.5 balls of Berroco Suede (Shade 3764)

Notes: All Seasons Cotton is a lovely yarn. Quite unlike the ropey feel that I have come to expect of cottons, it is springy, smooth and quite spongy. A delight to wear and also to knit with, very much to my surprise. I used 12 strands of the Suede yarn per plait, in lieu of the Linen Print. I think this blue/gray combo turned out quite nicely. In all honesty, I have always liked this pattern and wondered why I never see more of them on the web. In hindsight, I think it would fare better for a DK-weight yarn instead of an aran weight cotton, to minimize potential chunkiness. But all in all, a great pattern.

Now that this one’s out of the way, I better get cracking on that Ilga Leja Pattern.