Deciding to knit a Sabai top, designed by Susanne Müller, was the easy part. Deciding to use Knitting for Olive Pure Silk (held double) was easy too. Even knitting it was easy. Choosing the colour was hard. First, though, the finished project:

I looked through my knitting projects from the past 15 years or so, and the only other thing I knitted in brown was a cowl for Doug. This colour is not in my normal colour wheelhouse. I started with a text sending Emma links to the pattern and the yarn. We texted back and forth for a while and couldn’t decide. This was followed up by numerous discussions with Emma, and again no decision. A few days later, I checked the yarn shop and they had re-stocked and had more colours in stock. Thus started a new round of texts of which the below is a small sample:

I still couldn’t decide. Then, one day out in the garden, with the sun shining down so that my screen was barely visible, I handed the phone to Doug, said “Pick a colour now!” He picked Dark Cognac, I hit the order button and that was that. Until I opened up the package and discovered that Dark Cognac was not the lovely deep bronze shade I was expecting but a pretty mid-range brown. I consoled myself with the idea that it would look good with my checked suit. And it does:

I still don’t love the shade on me, but I am starting to appreciate it. I can use it to tone down my wild African print palazzo trousers (top photo), create a classic look with a suit jacket, or even pair it with more brown-y tones to look casually beige (which is apparently chic, if sort of boring).

I knitted this is the 4th size (Large) with two strands of Knitting for Olive Pure Silk held together and US6/4mm needles. I followed the pattern exactly. It is a very easy, well-written pattern. I found that in order to knit with two strands of the silk, I had to first wind two balls together on my ball winder; otherwise, the yarn quickly evolved into a knotted mess. If you look at the comments on some of the thousands (literally) of projects on Ravelry, you will find that many knitters found that there was too much space under the arm and therefore started the underarm increases early (it is knitted in one piece top down). I had the opposite problem as my row gauge was tight, so I added rows before starting the increases. I think it fits fairly well.

It took me three weeks start to finish to make this. It would have been two weeks except that when I packed to go to Potsdam, I tucked the last ball of yarn away somewhere in my house, and then couldn’t find it when I got back home. It took me a week to find it!

I knitted almost the entire top while watching the French Open. Hmm. Wimbledon starts tomorrow. Maybe I should make another one? But which colour? Never fear: I took Emma’s advice and pre-ordered the yarn in Pink Daisies.