Surprise! I have a new pattern that is part of the Knitty Surprise. It’s called The Majestic Moose.
I love tacky Christmas sweaters with animals on them, but I never feel like I can wear them before my birthday (the last day of November) or after Christmas. I wanted to come up with something that had a little bit of that vibe but was wearable through out the colder seasons. After some discussion about hilarious but unused cold weather animals with my sister, I ended up with a moose.
It took me a while to figure out why I subconsciously found moose funny. Moose heads are a classic comedic device that’s used in some of my favorite old movies and TV shows. Somebody needs to bring moose comedy back.
I designed the intarsia chart last spring after I finished my Alice sweater while I still had intarsia on my mind. I didn’t want the moose to be overly realistic looking because that reminded me of hunting apparel. At the same time, I didn’t want it to look like a Bullwinkle knockoff. I think I came up with a nice balance.
Because of the intarsia, the front and back on the vest are knit flat and then seamed. The neck and armhole bands are picked up after seaming and knit in the round. I usually try to avoid seams because I’m lazy, but seamless intarsia is a thousand times more work than knitting it flat and seaming. The nice thing about knitting the vest in pieces was that I could work on the back while watching movies and work on the intarsia when I wanted something more attention demanding.
In case you were curious, the horse’s name is Oliver and he belongs to my sister. Whenever I take photos at my parents’ house where he lives he photobombs me. If I try to make him get out of the frame he starts to poke at my tripod. With this shoot I gave up and let him be in my pictures. It worked out in the end, but I did have to rewash my vest when I was finished. Oliver kept rubbing his face on my vest trying to get me to pet him and stop giving the camera all of the attention. He’s a bit like a really big dog.
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