On WIPs and Things That Look Like Well Worn Jeans

As always after finishing a big project, I kind of sit in a vacuum.  I mourn that that one is done, I think, and actually have to make a decision.  Decisions are hard.  Even with so many things in the queue to be knit, the actual decision of what to pick next is difficult  pick wrong and that puppy is going to be sitting in the bottom of a box somewhere taunting me for years.  And even though I am sad when a longtime WIP is done, I actually don't like having things in the WIP box that I don't feel like working on.  

The WIP box as a place I can go to get something good to pick up and knit, not to store things I wasn't really wanting or in the mood for, or any of the thousands of reasons we start a thing that we end up not liking.

Without a permanent decision for what I want to do next for me, I started a sweater for my grandson, Isaac.  He is the biggest of all my kiddies, and isn't hardly small anymore, even though he is only 7.  He is tall and  I am hoping to knit about a size 10 sweater.  I intend to knit a size 10?  I am praying I am knitting a 10.  The goal is to knit it a bit bigger than he is but not so big that he can't wear it now. Gosh, I hope that 10 is going to be big enough.

A size 10 sweater means about 30 inches in chest circumference.  I think.  That seems to be what the Yarn Standards council is saying, so that is what I am aiming for.

 I had the idea to start top down with this sweater.  It probably would have been easier to knit it bottom up and think of it in a more gansey styled way, but I got the idea in my head and here we are. I wanted to knit his with saddle shoulders and I wanted the sleeves to be knit contiguously.  So here I am, working away, and as yet I am not quite far enough to be certain that I have enough width to be 30 inches.  I think I do, but I am not 100 percent sure. I am going to have to knit a bit more till it lays better and I can pin it to get a really good measurement.

 As I did with his brother Carter's sweater, I am keeping to simple patterns.  For Carter, it was seed stitch and reverse stockinette and for Isaac, I am starting with a simple grid of knits and purls, 4 rows by 3 stitches wide. Only the top will be in the patterning, in keeping with the traditional gansey spirit, and the bottom portion will be stockinette.  I want the sweater to be easy to adapt to a growing boy.

And again, I am working with some of the yummy denim I have in the deep stash.  I know that many people don't like working with cottons, but honestly, I could knit with this all day and longer on Sundays.  It is soft and it just lays there, looking good, even when the work is uneven. It doesn't require blocking to make it look like something.  It looks great from the moment you begin, like a nice pair of well worn jeans. Who wouldn't like that?

Today is going to be devoted to washing and blocking sweaters.  There are the two new ones I have recently finished and there is a pile of often worn sweaters that need a good wash. While it isn't exactly sunny outside, it is bright here in my study and it feels like a day where I could get tons of things done.