I am enjoying the lovely fall weather so much - it is such terrific inspiration to knit wonderful wooly things!

I have been at a loss regarding what to do with a horded stash of beautiful Rowan Yorkshire Tweed Aran yarn in Wild Plum (410).
I picked up a whole bag (ten huge balls) of this stuff on major discount last winter (because it was a discontinued yarn). That's a veritable wealth of wool! At 175 yds per 100g ball, I have 1750 yards of luscious purpley tweed with flecks of green, pink and rust.

According to Yarndex, its jewel shades provide the perfect background for the small heathered, contrasting nubs in the tweedy effect. Its weight and texture also highlight cables and textured designs extremely well... As a singles contruction, it will break fairly easily if you pull at it, and it's a little rough to knit with, but it does make a nice sturdy garment. It also softens up nicely when washed.

Nothing seemed quite right for it, then a couple of days ago I was delving in the archives at Knitty and came across Ester from Spring 2007. Oddly, this design intrigued me when it came out, but as it was spring, my fancy turned more to other lighter fare in anticipation of summer and frankly I totally forgot about it.

Well, lo and behold, the yarn called for in Ester is Rowan's Scottish Tweed Aran, which is mighty similar to my Yorkshire Tweed Aran, and so off I went swatching merrily, and my swatch accidentally became this. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.. I am getting a good gauge match with the pattern's called for 4.5 mm needles. This is a very very fast knit and I was just zooming along here until the day before yesterday. I am just about to cast on at both sides for the upper part of the body - which will of course take longer as it is a lot wider. I am sort of stuck though, trying to decide which size to make it. For the width I cast on originally, there are three possible sizes and I'm not certain which one will work best for my personal body shape.

Given the interesting construction of this garment, I have an intuitive hunch that it's not just about size, but also about shape - and I want this to be both comfortable and flattering (is there anything as disheartening as whipping up a lovely sweater for yourself only to find that while it does indeed fit, it is not really fitting?). I think a visit to both Ravelry and the Ester KAL are in order to visit with others have made this up. Hopefully there will be some other Rubenesque figures for me to see how this thing shapes up.