Knitting Update
I'm back!
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I'm back!
The new Anny Blatt book arrived.
I am not knitting the lovely sweater, which is called Valadon, in the color shown which is a light silvery gray/light gray mix. I am using this shade of Angora Super, which is called Celeste, and a lighter blue for the Victoria. IRL the celeste is similar to the color shown here, but perhaps just a tad more blue. The Victoria is back-ordered but should be in before I am ready to start the sweater.
It will not be a fast project, the jacquard-like bodice is knit at 30 stitches to 10 cm.
I feel doubly lucky because Valadon is not the only sweater I am interested in knitting in this book.
There are at least two other sweaters that I find very compelling, including this one, called Kennedy with fabulous cables and i-cord lacing in Merinos and Victoria.
It seems that I every time I decide I dislike some knitting technique, I immediately fall in love with sweater after sweater that employs that technique. I learned to love ribbing by knitting ribbed sweater after ribbed sweater. I see that I shall learn to love i-cord as well.
On other fronts I am knitting but have made no progress on blocking or sewing together. I collapse in my chair in a state of happy exhaustion each night and am thrilled to manage a little stockinette.
Which reminds me, I need to go count rows.
The Eleanor Roosevelt knit-in was loads of fun and really a nice way to spend a wet dreary Sunday afternoon.
As seems to have been the rule last week, I came unprepared and frazzled. I had my yarn, and I had the block I had knitted previously, but I forgot my camera and forgot several other things. I also paid no mind to what I might be knitting once I arrived.
Namely I just never thought about the idea that a block could be something other than plain stockinette. Of course once I was actually there and started looking at what everyone else was knitting it occurred to me that it might have been nice to think about doing something interesting with my block before I actually started.
Instead I just winged it. I thought I would put a cabled X in the middle of a simple stockinette swatch with garter stitch borders. A pretty simple idea really. I think I should be able to come up with something more interesting on the spur of the moment, but the simple truth was that I couldn't.
For the most part, it worked well although I didn't quite finish the patch. I could have stayed later. A few women were hanging in to finish and I only had about an inch of garter stitch to go. But by that time I realized that I had missed in my off the cuff attempt placing the cable motif at the center of the block; it was about an inch too low. I decided to rip and restart, saving the block for next year.
This is apparently going to be an annual event. One intrepid knitter brought in 127 blocks. I have no intention of competing with her, but I think that I can manage a few blocks for next year. It would be fun on occasion, when I want to play with a pattern, or for those days when I want to knit something (anything) and don't have a project at the appropriate stage. Blocks are also small and portable and a good way to use up some of the yarn left over from knitting hats and scarves for the children at the city schools.
I was toodling along various pathways on the web yesterday and I came across this sweater:
Oh my, the back of Mine has been completed for a week and I have forgotten to post. I am about 1/4 of the way up the front, perhaps 1/3, but I haven't really checked. I was really happy with the project and the way the knitted fabric was working up -- I really love the fabric produced by this Rowan Bamboo Tape. It really is too bad it was discontinued. I should have bought more. I love the way that my other sweater in this yarn, Granite, wears
It was a lovely trip, we had a great time and it is wonderful to be back home.
I finished the neckline on the Blue Sky Cropped Turtleneck, and heaved a big sigh of relief. It looks like I will have enough yarn left to do an acceptable amount of ribbing at the bottom of the sweater. There is a little over a skein and a half and the neckline took a smidge over a skein but less than a skein and a quarter. The bottoms is 25 % wider than the neckline, but does not need to be nearly as deep. I think I will have an acceptable amount of ribbing at the bottom. I will seam the sweater with a different yarn though just to conserve what yardage I do have.
Tuesday morning we leave for Knoxville.
The Spring issue of Twist Collective is up!