Collar de Pilar

Without further ado, here is my finished Collar de Pilar hand-knitted tee:

I am crazy about this top. It is fun to knit. It is fun to wear. In fact, I’ve been wearing it everywhere since I finished it.

The tee was designed by Kate Davies. I loved this design as soon as I saw it, and purchased a kit from Kate Davies’ shop in 2022. This was just before I caught Covid, and I put the kit away; my covid-induced brain fog led me to choose very simple patterns for some time afterwards. Recently, I needed a project for a long plane trip, found this kit in a box, and realised the time was ripe to cast on.

I knitted it in the original colour scheme using Kate’s own Milarrochy Tweed yarn. It is the first time I’ve used it for a garment, and I was a little worried that it would be itchy next to the skin. I finished it as the pattern suggests, with a dab of hair conditioner in the rinse water, and it bloomed and softened beautifully.

My gauge was off for this. The pattern calls for a stockinette gauge of 28×36. My washed and blocked swatch gave me 24×40 with a US3/3.25mm needle. I know that I could have re-swatched with a smaller needle size and probably have gotten gauge, but I liked the way the fabric looked and felt with the size 3, so I decided to keep it.

To account for the different stitch gauge I knitted a size 4, instead of a size 6. Because my row gauge was also off, I added about 10 plain stockinette rows before starting the patterned yoke. It was a bit of a gamble, but I tried it on multiple times while knitting, and I think the fit is perfect.

I was surprised that it looks good with many different outfits, and have worn it both for work and play.

I highly recommend this pattern. Kate also gives instructions for long sleeves. The university has closed for 5 days for Easter. Yay! A mini-break. I have a new project on the needles, a new book to read, and the flowers are blooming. What more could I ask for?

I spent the weekend watching the Winter Olympics and knitting. These two go together, and have since the 2006 Winter Olympics when Stephanie Pearl-McPhee posed a knitting challenge: cast on a project during the opening ceremony and finish it before the closing ceremony. On the night of the Opening Ceremony, February 10th 2006, Emma and Leah and I sat on our couch in our living room in Potsdam, Germany, and began to knit, while watching the Opening Ceremony. Doug spent some time searching through our photo archive and managed to find a photo. That was 20 years ago!

I showed the photo to the girls and Emma’s comment was “That couch looks a lot smaller than I remember it.” Ah, perspective. I completed the knitting challenge that year, casting on and then finishing a pullover for Emma before the Games ended. In 2006, I had not yet begun this blog. However, many years later I wrote a post about that sweater. I wanted to link it here, so I Googled “knitigating circumstances winter olympics”. And this is what Gemini had to say:

Let’s break this down.

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee has apparently been writing my blog for the last 14 years. This is presumably because her own blog is so phenomenally successful that she felt sorry for me. Thanks, Stephanie!
My blog is about the intersection of knitting and sporting events. Well. I learn something new every day.
AI is able to write so well that, for example, it uses the term ‘for example’ 8 times within 2 sentences. Do I fear that AI will mean the death thrall of creative expression? Not so much after reading this.
People use AI to ask medical questions. After seeing this summary of my blog, do I want to trust my health to an algorithm? Do you?

As an aside, a few weeks ago I was searching for a post I wrote long ago about opportunity costs. This is what Gemini had to say then:

I rest my case. By the way, Tatiana Rowson and I have written a book together. You can read about it in this post. (We are very proud of it.) Tatiana is not a knitter and would be surprised to be accredited with writing a knitting blog. You can also see the post I wrote about the sweater I knitted for the 2006 Olympic challenge here, and the opportunity cost blog post here. If you are in to the intersection of knitting and the Olympics (the London Summer Games, in this case) you can read my post about attending the games with Doug and the girls (and my knitting) here.

To go back to my Olympic knitting, I am not doing the challenge this year, but I do have a new project I am working on. Two weeks ago, I cast on for Kate Davies’ pattern Collar de Pilar, as a good travel knitting project. I took it with me to Johannesburg. I lost my Kindle on the flight down, and therefore spent all my spare time knitting instead of reading, so I am making good progress.

Yesterday, I knitted the sleeve ribbing (I am making the short-sleeve version) and I am very close to joining the body and sleeves.

If you have some free time, I highly recommend that you put down your phone and go for a walk. Or watch TV while knitting. Or whatever else rocks your boat. It will make you smile like Leah.