Finally, I have put all of my thoughts on my Penguono sweater into a short little video for you. I hope this inspires you to try this fabulous pattern or mix yarns, textures and colors a little more freely. This project transformed my knitting!

 When I really thought about it, there was a little more to share than I did in my  original Ravelry post on this style and how important it was to me in my knitting evolution. Here's a quick synopsis of the steps I took to complete it. I carefully chose a color palette to work with and then decided which portions of the sweater would be solid (so not striped with 100 yarn colors). I did frog the first back panel of the sweater once before I figured out the yarns and colors I liked best. I used my own Knit Collage yarns sparingly, in 1-2 row stripes, throughout the sweater. This helped keep the gauge not too bulky. In the other portions of the sweater, I simply mixed yarns together into marls to create chunkier gauges that somewhat match the gauge of my own yarns. It's not perfect and it puckers a little here and there but that is something I love about this sweater. I've always liked knitting when it looks a little handmade - hence my own handmade looking handspun yarns. I like inperfect, it somehow shows that a real person made it. At least to me that is something I like to see and that I think can be more beautiful than something that looks computer or machine made. I mixed many different types of yarns together, hand dyes and fluffy mohairs, it's totally random! I love the mix of textures and colors here, there's a lot of fuzz and a fair amount of color pops. 

The most incredible thing about this sweater is that it really did change knitting for me. I realized that yarn mixing or yarn painting as I sometimes think of it, is a thing, a thing I really love. I'm so grateful for Stephen West for this beautifully written pattern and for leading me to create this crazy sweater. At the time it was the hardest thing I'd ever knit and it definitely made me a more confident knitter, adventuresome knitter. The sweater makes me happy every day and I find myself wanting to take it everywhere I go despite how big it is! I feel so proud that I was able to complete such a daunting project AND weave in all of those ends, ha! I hope this video inspires you in some way. If you have any questions at all, drop me a line. The Knit Collage yarns I used are: Cast Away (color Coconut Sparkle), Sister (Oatmeal, Camel), Daisy Chain (used the most - color Natural Aura), Gypsy Garden (Stardust Garland), Spun Cloud (French Vanilla and Love Cloud). Thanks so much for tuning in! 

Amy