When I think of Angora, I think of the sweater girl of the 1950’s. She has a classic silhouette, in soft focus, with perhaps a pearl pin. The minute Rowan’s Angora Haze yarn came out I was thrilled to knit up this classic, vintage-inspired design by Martin Storey to match my 1950’s polkadot dress.
When I was in my twenties, I bought this dress to wear when I went out dancing swing and lindy hop, back when there was a swinging dance scene in Mountain View at Alberto’s night club. A big group of us would go out together, all done up, and dance the night away. What a fun time that was! Grandma’s Attic was the source of the wonderful vintage find, an antique clothing and collectibles store in Livingston Montana where I could find a great 1940’s or 50’s dress for $35 that was almost in perfect condition. Those were the days!
This was a really fun knit, and the pattern is quite well-written. It is a simple raglan design with two inches of positive ease built in, so the size medium gave me a great fit. the yarn creates a sturdy, even fabric with good stitch definition in spite of the fuzz. Yes, there were some flyaway fuzzy wisps that attacked me from time to time when I knitted the cardigan, but after the first week I became much less sensitive to that. It helped to wear my glasses while knitting the first week as I was getting used to it, then I was able to switch back to contact lenses. The yarn is just so incredibly soft, and the color red is so luminous, I enjoyed every minute of knitting this!