Sweaterish

As I said, there has been even more knitting around here than just socks and Viajante.  For some weird reason, I am feeling a little sweaterish.

It is a very long time since I felt an urge to knit a sweater and it is kind of a relief. I thought I had lost the sweater knitting mojo and that would be an absolute crime.  It would be an even worse crime than a standalone mojo loss crime, when you consider the many, many thousands of miles of sweater yarn I have in the stash.    

I am knitting another Shalom.  I am using Cascade Ecological Wool in one of its soft natural gray browns and for a little fun, the ribbed section is knit using Noro Kureyon colour 214.  Before I started, I was certain this was the perfect pairing of colours, but I lost that confidence while knitting it.  The colours seemed so much softer and less vibrant than in the ball.  The Kureyon looked sort of anchorless.  Now that I have knit more of the plain and have tried it on, I am very happy to say, I was right.  It is going to be a sweater I never want to take off.  

My first Shalom was completed in about 7 days, but this one is going to take a little longer.  I hoped it wouldn't but with this versions smaller gauge (5 st per inch vs the original patterns 3.25 st per inch) using the same yarn, it is just not going to happen.  That is one of the interesting things about Shalom.  It is such a fundamentally simple design that once you understand its design principles, you can easily knit them to any size using any yarn, even sock yarn!  Isn't that a great thing for a sweater to be?

I am knitting to a smaller gauge as personal preference.  I know the gauge that Cascade Ecological Wool says it is good for (3.5 - 4 stitches per inch) but as nice as that is, I just think it should be knit tighter.  I might be taking it a little far pushing it to a 5 but I think the yarn is going to perform better knit more tightly and I have no concerns at all about drape with this sweater, since drape really isn't an issue.  In fact, I would rather it not have drape, which often seems to catch and cling where I most decidedly do not want a garment to catch and cling. 

My other goal in knitting to a gauge of 5 st/ inch is to slow the pilling.  My other Shalom is knit with Cascade Eco + (the dyed version of Ecological) and is just about the pilliest thing on the planet.  It has to be tidied up before each and every wear.  It doesn't seem to be slowing at all though the sweater has been worn and washed a lot.  I really didn't want to have to go through that with another sweater and I sincerely hope this tighter knit helps.  I have a lot more of this yarn in stash.

It is a great yarn to work with and I love the colours, both the natural and the Eco + colour range, but sometimes even great to work with yarns have flaws.  

All that is left is to knit the sweater for length.  If I stay with the original pattern, a few rows of garter stitch at the sleeves and it would be done, but I have plenty of yarn and I might feel a sleevish episode coming on.

First sweaterish.  Now sleevish?  What is the world coming to?