Cayuga Cardigan

This very simple, good-for-your-first sweater, has the home-grown title--Cayuga Cardigan--and the home-grown designers--Meredith Small and Hickory Lee--to seduce anyone who's cold in the Finger Lakes. My yarn--The Fibre Company's Terra -- imitates lots of mid-winter nature--if you stand too far back, it's tomorrow's thaw and mud; more benevolently, it's everything that pokes through the snow. Closer, more discriminating looks uncover the soft greens, blues, even burnt umbers in the "Black Walnut."

I'm knitting up a store sample, for Knitting Etc., before teaching the First Sweater class which will KAL make it. On #9's, it's a fast knit. I'm doing a final edit on the pattern, which comes in four sizes; and encourage anyone with a yen for a classically plain sweater, with a little waist-shaping, borders and bands in seed stitch, and a huge choice of worsted weight yarns, to have at it--check with Hickory (knittingetcithaca.com) for a pattern. One can watch Presidential debates or listen to Jacqueline DuPré's thunderous Elgar or meditate on the last stand of the Christmas tree, still bedecked but without I remembered to turn on the lights: there's nothing too attention-grabbing about this stockinette snuggle. (So pick an interesting yarn, nothing too monochromatic.)