Chialea goes crackmonkey for Delphine

I don't know where I've been that I've missed out on Delphine Wilson, as some people whose blogs I read have gone gaga over her work in the past. Perhaps it's like my mom says, and things work out for a reason. (As a cryptographer, I believe in randomness. I think that and professional paranoia are cardinal characteristics of people in my profession.) In any case, I've been knitting the sleeves for wrappy. Somehow, knitting both sleeves at once on size 3 needles is a recipie for boredom. After this sweater I have Rogue to finish up, but that goes quite fast on size 8 needles. After Rogue, I have my Mystery Swatch project, but I'm knitting that from a pattern (and I had to order some needles). So, being bored, I started fantasizing about a new project. Something "body-conscious" (because I have an unfortunate tendancy to look pregnant unless something is done to accomodate my curviness), striking, an elegant kind of edgy, and something that covers my bra straps. I started looking for patterns everywhere. I haven't found anything. (Please, if anyone has any ideas, I would love to hear them, because I'm feeling a bit abandoned by the world of patterns.)

I started thinking about a raglan colourwork sweater knit in the round. I've never knit colourwork, but from what I understand of the principles, it should be completely possible. In fact, it should be as easy as slapping a bunch of shaping and a colour pattern onto a good old EZ design. Still, I wasn't sure this was what I was craving.

Then Delphine Wilson came along and knocked me flat on my ass. I wish I could just go buy a sweater of hers, but I can't. (From the look of the sweaters, I might have proportionality problems with them anyway.) The sculptural look of her sweaters is really quite something. I think that I'd like to make something inspired by one of the following two designs:

Raglan with twisted sleeves. (Perhaps I'll leave out the twist on the sleeves, depending on how it looks. I certainly want to knit the back differently than the version made by Knit Anon (see her Jan 7th entry), as I have some different ideas. I'd probably knit this in tone-on-tone green tweed, like 403/408 Silkroad DK Tweed.


Intertwining ram's horn cables. I love the sculptural quality of the cables that turn into ribbing and vice versa. I'm not including a picture of the sleeves; while they're interesting, the holes in them are impractical. I've blocked out something for the sleeves that echos the design on the body, without competing with it. I would need to change the shoulder/sleeve assembly. If you look closely, there's a pucker in the sleeve right next to her bust. I get this all the time -- it's an indication that there's insufficient fabric in the bust. I'd need to learn how to add short-row shaping, and how to cable over it, which would be interesting. Also, I'm not sure that the model can raise her arms over her head. It is also abundantly obvious that she is not wearing a bra. As I'd like to do so, I need to pull in the shoulders to cover the straps (I'd also like to wear a shirt under it, but one thing at a time.) Finding a yarn for this sweater shouldn't be hard... perhaps even a cotton that likes cables would be nice.


So please, here is my plea for your comments. Am I crazed by a combination of too much grading and too little sleep? Do designs based on either of these sweaters look like a good idea for me? (You've seen pictures of my sweater-wearing bits, so you know what I'm dealing with.) Are there patterns out there that I would like, that I could tweak the sizing of to fit well? Do you have approximately DK-weight yarn suggestions for either of these sweaters?