I picked up a book called Traditional Textiles of Central Asia a few years ago and have fallen completely in love with all the treasures therein. I don’t know if suzanis are becoming more popular or if it’s just that phenomenon that you see your new car everywhere once you buy it. In any event, I saw some suzanis lined up on some wrapping paper and thought it would make a nice ornament on a vest.

I’m making the vest with Julia yarn, and i was tickled to read that Classic Elite is picking up the line (which had recently been discontinued). The suzani itself is a combination of appliqued wool that has been felted and embroidery.

I’m still playing around with how to knit in the blue background since I’m knitting this in the round. (Some people don’t do windows, I don’t do purls. At least not in large quantity.) I did one test with a new blue yarn each round. It looked and functioned just fine, but it was tedious to weave in all those ends. Next I created the background with duplicate stitch. It’s smooth sailing, although I haven’t decided whether it’s too bulky. The experiment continues…