June 14 I’ve been wanting to make a Cowichan-style sweater for a while, and after taking a Coast Salish Colourwork workshop with the fabulous Sylvia Olsen in the spring, I finally feel prepared! She taught their traditional colourwork method, which I love, because I’m a bit awful at fair-isle-style stranding. I also want the sweater to be as genuinely/authentically Cowichan-styled as possible.

Yesterday I discovered this design which I adore and the patterning of which I’m going to blatantly copy … somehow none of the animal or other geometric designs resonated for me.

After some swatching yesterday I found that using 7mm for the solid sections and 6.5mm for the colourwork sections gives me a dense fabric that I’m really happy with. My gauge is 10 sts / 4”.

I have 2 very different dye lots in the natural colour (bought years apart from two different stores … hmm!). The yarn is 6-ply and untwisted, so my clever plan is to take 3 plies of each dye lot and combine them into a new ball that’s half-and-half.

June 16 I’ve ripped back twice, because as Sylvia says in her book Knitting Stories: “If you don’t like it or it isn’t going to fit, * * tear it back and start again. * * Repeat this step as many times as you need until the sweater is exactly the way you want it to be.” Third time was the charm!

June 17 Since the Salish colourwork method involves trapping the carried yarn every stitch (and because I don’t have great tension when knitting in this style yet), there’s quite a bit of peek-through of the CC … normally I’d be unhappy with that but I’m just telling myself it’s part of the rustic charm…

June 19 Worked the fronts this morning, joined the shoulders using the traditional cowichan method, and picked up stitches for the sleeves. :)

June 22 Finished the second sleeve, now just the collar and pocket linings!

June 23 All knitting finished today!! This sweater was SO fun to make, this is the most enjoyable project I’ve done in a long time. The amount of yarn that I estimated turned out to be PERFECT. I broke into every ball I bought, and didn’t run out of anything!

Fun aside, this project has also given me enormous respect for the First Nations women who had to make an endless number of sweaters in order to bring home money to feed their families. I’m glad that I had the chance to make this sweater because of the insight it has given me (however tiny) into what the lives of these women involved.

June 30 Bought a zipper today, and sewed it in. All done! Loooooove <3 <3 <3 I want to wear it every day.