L'Enveloppe L'gone

I had a breakfast date with my favorite niece this A.M. - early this A.M. - early for me, that is. She, being an owner of land & animals, not so much. I wanted to make something for her & found L'Enveloppe which I thought would be just up her alley. She has always loved  all things weird, odd, slightly twisted & beautifully strange. She is the girl who made 'Ratz' decorations for the Christmas tree. And she crafted Dragons, Fairies & Gnomes before they were popular. And now that she's cruising for 50, still prefers the company of dogs, horses, chickens, bees & aunties with sticks & yarn.

When she took up riding, I knit her a tomato colored wool jacket in a Renaissance style with big, balloon sleeves to the elbow but tight from there to the wrist, with a snug bodice & flared peplum. This time, I wanted to make her something light & frothy but not fussy. L'Enveloppe seemed to fill the bill.
It was an easy knit mostly but I really had trouble picking up stitches for the left arm triangle along the cast off end without leaving a row of big holes. Luckily for me, the mohair yarn was very forgiving & the rest of the knitting WAS kind of 'rustic' - sloppy - stitches not even, lines of thick & thin, big clumps of mohair & thin bits. The yarn was a problem to knit with because it was uneven, which really annoyed me for some reason.

So, there I was at 1:47 this A.M. spraying the darned thing with water in the bathroom trying to yank block it into shape after finally casting it OFF my needles - I ripped that last arm triangle out twice!!! - knowing I had to get up in a few hours & wanting to throw the silly thing into the garbage. I eventually gave up, hung it on a hanger & went to bed.

This morning, I just threw it into my bag with a pair of socks & a book & ran out the door. When I pulled it out at the cafe, she recognized the yarn & tried it on at the table before running off to the bathroom to see what it looked like. She loved it & wore it while we ate. All the waitresses dropped by to see what the heck it was. Apparently no one else could see the uneven parts or the horrible line where I picked up those last stitches. So I just shut up, took a picture - once I figured out where the damn app was on my phone - & let her go home happy. She said she was thrilled with it & wore it the whole time so I'm thinking I did good even if I wasn't totally happy with it. I did tell her it was a 'test knit' though, to cover my ass. Hahahahaha  I suspect I'll make another one fairly soon in my handspun yarn. But, one thing is sure, I won't be making one out of yarn with clumps of mohair in it again.