Doctor Doctor, where are you?

No surgery was performed last night.  I didn't even get home till 7 pm.  If there had been a reason I'm sure it would have been fine.  No I just stopped for groceries and everything was so slow and crowded.  Everybody else had the same idea.  Let us get this task done so we can catch up at home this weekend.

Well, alright.  That is a little bit of a lie.  I did get groceries but I was home by 6:40.  I was just having such a good time on the pink and didn't want to go where thinking was needed.  I'm hoping you will forgive me but the pink is pretty compelling.

It sure doesn't look like much does it?  Still, I am very pleased with everything about it.  Its contiguousness.  Its pinkness (I think I am falling in love with the colour all over again.).  Its lace.  Its mindlessness.

Not a lot of the sweaters I knit are ever mindless.  My height and all the short row shaping I like to do means that a sweater is a piece that looks plain, but isn't

This one is.

Now that I understand this lace properly and so long as I keep increasing on 4, it has become a nice little lace pattern.  I was starting to wonder about that regular line of shaping.

Would it be too much?  Might it need a small section near the waist where it should just be straight so that the bottom doesn't flare out too much?  The answer, I think, is no. By the numbers the skirt, if you will, is very wide.  The schematic shows it to be 45 inches across, which means 90 inches in circumference.  The bottom skirt is very wide by design. What I am going to do is move my needles sizes up just a bit.  I started this with 3.75 mm needles at the top.  I wanted the shoulders to be good and firm so that down the road, when it is settled into the bases of each stitch, as non wool fibres do, It will still be a nice firm fabric.

Just this morning I upped it to 4 mm needles and when the next ball of yarn goes on, I will up it again to 5mm.  I don't normally get to use this tactic for sizing garments.  It isn't enough of a change in gauge to fit the sort of change I need, but this time, that 90 inch circumference by design has already given me all the room I need.  This time my quest is for drape and flow.  By going up to 5 mm needles, I will get the softer fabric and drape that I think this sweater will demand.

It occurred to me this morning that as much as I like the sweater, and as strong as the urge is to knit it, I really need to finish up the blue one.  Its going to be hard to pull away but I must.  There is a lot of stitching of hems on the blue, and knitting of the sleeve hem lining to do on that one.  I'm not looking forward to that, though I am looking forward to wearing it.

The morning will bring surgery.  I want to get it done so you can all see how very nice the Brownstone turned out.  I'm going to try to get him to model it too.  He looks awfully nice it, if I do say so myself.