I did knit

I did not get a lot of knitting done yesterday.  But I did knit.    

I finished off the back and picked up and knit a few rows on the front.  Not much, but progress.  I thought the whole bag of red and grey yarns would have been finished by Sunday evening, but no.  Here it is, Wednesday and there is still a bit to go.  I think it will happen today. Maybe? 

I wrote a long piece here and just deleted it.  It was weird and would be boring for most of you.  At the same time, it is really exciting to me.  I have a new bi pap machine and what I was feeling wasn't just me.  That unbearably squirrely feeling I have been experiencing ought to clear up in a few days.  I find myself sitting here, marveling at the mysteries of breathing and the fine tuned wonder that the human body is.  

Not trendy but...

The last few days have been unsettled. Everything in the greater world is as settled as usual, but inside my head, I am like a squirrel gathering nuts.  I pop here.  I pop there and jump up and down going  no where at all, yet on it goes.  I just can't seem to settle.  Is it winters depths that are getting to me?  I do know that I am watching the sky with eagerness and delight, watching the sun come up ever earlier and the days grow ever longer. 

Between chores yesterday a bit of knitting was done.  

The back of my neck flap is well under way.  I had a one full skein and a third of another so I can make these front and back flaps nice and cozy long.  

I was looking at patterns for these dickie type cowls.  Some narrow and are longer at the front and others are longer at the back.  I was thinking about making them even, but when I think about ways I might use this type of cowl, there could be some benefit to having a longer front.  

I know that I want the back long enough to stay firmly tucked under a sweater neckline and to be long enough to cover that spot that often feels chilly at the back of my neck. I am not so concerned about warmth at the front but I do want it to stay tucked in under sweater collars and to look reasonably decent.  Come to think of it, it is a dickie so maybe looks are not such an issue to me after all.  

People have not worn dickies since I was quite young. Mid to late 60s if I recall rightly.   Since then, they have been mocked and nothing more than a fashion faux pas.  Same for ponchos, though ponchos may have had a very short time being cool some time in the eighties.  We are redid ponchos in the last few years and here we are, redoing dickies.  I am going to call it a cowl though.  Sounds more stylish. 

I jest.  This blog is not and never has been in style or on trend. If there is any style or trendiness happening here, it is a complete surprise to me. 

My story

This morning, when I opened my blinds, the light was pink. The sky did not really look pink, but the light was pink.  I am looking to the north west and sunrise is behind our garage, but even though I don't see that glory, I did get to see this amazing pink light. It is a good reminder to look at more than just the glorious bits.   

So, if you read my Saturday post you will know that this happened.

And then this happened.  

I am really happy with both and look forward to wearing them.  The crisp edges of the red and grey fills me up to overflowing.

In the same bag of yarn there was the remainder of the Ravelry Red Malabrigo Rios from my lipstick sweater and I started making a Matchmaker Cowl by Martina Behm. I have knit it before and I really enjoyed the process, but my heart wasn't in it.  

I ripped it back and started this.  

I will knit a nice long close turtleneck and then some coverage for the back of my neck over that chilly bit.  Basically, I am making a dickey.  Because  in a cold climate, they work.

That is my story and I am sticking to it.

What did I do?

So I have all this new yarn.  What did I do?  I wound the new skein of Kelp, and then went back to my perch, firmly believing that I was going to knit and finish my Sun Dogs Variation sweater.  

As  I landed on my perch, some yarn fell out of the WIPs bin.  I picked it up and looked at it.  Before I knew what was happening, I  had cast on a hat and was several inches into the ribbing. 

By midafternoon, I had this.

I have no idea why I had this urgent need to knit a hat. I need a hat, of course, but there is no rush.  I am a couple weeks from needing to go out for long enough to require a hat.  I had plenty of time but just like a bird who flits here and there, I flitted to something new.  Perfectly okay. There are no rules to what I knit, are there?

This is Peace Fleece yarn that I bought at Camilla Valley Farms on my Epic Adventure and I always meant it to be a hat and mitts or a cowl and mitts or other variation on that theme.  Now that I have started working on this little project, I may as well keep on.

Mittens have begun.  

I am using the basic patterns from Ann Budd's A Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns.  I like these patterns and the books they are in because I am not looking for anything fancy from mitts or gloves.  I am looking for warmth and a proper fit and these have that.  And I can create strong clean colour changes, striping it to knit my favourite knitting number, the seven row stripes.    

I also wanted to show you a couple miniature pieces that I picked up as a small gift for myself.  I realized that the homeowner of my cabinet house had no closet.  I found a piece that I can turn into one for her.

The plan is to make a hanging section to one side.  I did think about just using pegs on the wall but the homeowner likes things to be a bit more formal.  She likes her things tidy.  

I also found this really sweet little globe.  

I have a globe just like it in my living room. It was a gift to Brian in another life, and echoed his interest in geology. I was so thrilled to see this tiny copy.  The tilt of the globe is a bit off and when it arrived, the globe was upside down, showing Antarctica at the northern position, but it was easily re-oriented. 

I am planning some major miniature work this winter and I hope to be able to show you that as well as knitting soon.  I just have to nag the person who is cutting the base for the new project to do it.  

It takes my breath away

I spent the whole day working on Utikiek.  The pattern is not cooperating. Well, it isn't the pattern.  That is well designed.  It's my brain.  I am not so sure my brain is capable of dong stitch patterns.  It's like counting to two.  Some days, that is hard.  This band of colour is a very dark wine coloured brown and I am struggling to read the pattern in it.  I ended up knitting a sampler strip of the pattern just so I had something to refer to, to check if I was doing the right stitches, in the right order. I knit all day, but ended the day with not a lot to see.  

And then Keith came home with the mail.  I love mail day.  I wasn't expecting it till at least next week, so I was kind of thrilled.  Who wouldn't be?  This is the third time I have ordered single skeins of the Kelp colourway from Midknit Cravings and it is the third time that the skeins are really well matched.  

There are so few rows left, but I am going to pull back a few rows and knit from the old and the new to blend them in just in case.  And then, only the cuffs.

And then this.  This is my treat.  The unplanned for sweater, but the very much wanted sweater.  I saw Ysolda Teague's Anyday Sweatshirt a while ago, and knew I was going to knit it.  I assumed I would make it from one of the many yarns n my stash, till I was ordering that last skein of Kelp.  Then I fell hard for the London Fog colourway and here we are, a new special something, waiting in the wings. 

London Fog is hard to describe.

It is the colour of weathered wood and the barns and grainaries of my Saskatchewan farm roots.  It is all the colours of fall in the small stand of trees at the side of the yard with the hidden opening in the center, where I used to love to sit and read. It is the colours of bark, old leaves on the ground, faded moss, the warm reds and ambers of the underbrush. It is the colour of my best memories.  

The casual simple clean lines of the Anyday Sweatshirt are the perfect match for London Fog. And I am gong to knit it soon.  Right after I finish the other umpteenth projects I have in my WIPS bin.  I promised myself.  

There Was Knitting

After a really great day of knitting, I expected another great day of knitting.  It was not to be.  Changeable weather or perhaps knitting too much the day before meant my hands were iffy, but I also felt jumpy and unsettled. 

I started the day knitting on my Linger sweater.  It suited my mood and I would love to see this sweater completed. 

I did a couple rows and found it just a wee bit hard on my hands.  Two rows of progress was all that I managed.  Still, if I can manage two rows a day, it won't take long.  It is kind of fun to knit in this chunky weight for the progress, even if it is hard on my hands.

Then I pulled out Utkiek to work on.  The Lett Lopi is so light that knitting is a joy.  It was time to start the next colour and texture and once again, the pattern was a struggle for no good reason other than my mind was not cooperating.  This is what happened this morning.

Lett Lopi is lovely if you have to unravel.  It must be the stickiest yarn on earth.  When the stitches are off the needle, you can be pretty sure that with reasonably careful handling, nothing will drop out of place.  That is my experience anyway.  

I think the stitch pattern got turned around in my head and left me with the uncomfortable feeling that my whole world was inside out. When that happens with things, it can be a real challenge to flip it back so I called uncle and as the pattern says, if you don't like a particular stitch pattern, others can be substituted.  I picked the Sand Stitch from Barbara Walker's Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns.  It looks fairly similar and without slipped stitches, will be much simpler to knit.  

The rest of the day was spent knitting on my socks.  

There will be a finished sock soon , possibly today, which is eleven months earlier than I finished the first pair last year. There is hope for my sock drawer yet.  

There was knitting and that makes me intensely happy.

Giddy in the Head

The giddy feeling entered my head 

and the knitting flew along.  The two sleeves are done, indeed the sweater is done but for the section of garter stitch trim on the back and on the cuffs.  The drape of this yarn is something really special. I absolutely love it and am so glad I decided to order more of the Kelp colourway. The turtleneck doesn't look as good as the way Laura Aylor started her design, but is going to work much better for me.  That really is what matters.  Making clothes that work for me is one of the reasons why I knit.     

I was on a bit of a knitting high and I just wanted to knit more.  I didn't want to stop just because one project was as far as I could take it.  My hands were good so I pulled out one of the socks.

I made it to two rows of the ribbed cuff before it was time to stop.  I am still feeling giddy with tons of energy to do something more, which is why I am writing this in the evening rather than the morning.   

The morning will bring good knitting on that beguiling Utkiek.  I am raring to go. 

Giddy

I worked on my Variation on a Sun Dogs sweater yesterday.  I was on sleeve one and then realized I had better measure it.  I do have a four inch cuff to add with the kelp colourway that should be coming soon.  Magically, it was longer than I needed.  I pulled back to the right length.  

I checked my email midday and there it was, the email from MidKnit Cravings saying that my yarn had shipped.  I was thrilled.  Sometime in the next week, the yarn will arrive and I will see London Fog for the first time.  And I will get the Kelp I need to finish this sweater.  

I sat down and started to work on the second sleeve.  I am about half done and I will easily be able to finish today.  And then I will wait and hope that the post office ships quickly.  I am looking forward to this new sweater.  My sweater chest has been feeling a bit old and tired so finishing something new is uplifting.

A long post with many pictures yesterday and the opposite today.  

The Squirmy Wormies.

The grandson's visit happened and a good time was had by all.  

  

The usual staying up late and sneaking midnight snacks happened too, but not by me.  Me?  I was asleep and they were paying attention to my masked Darth Vader breathing (bi-pap mask) to make sure grandma stayed sleeping.  

I did manage to do some knitting and sneak in some knitting related fun.  I watched all my usual knitting vlogs while the boys were sleeping in and I did a bit of a stash dive and did a bit more sorting and ordering in my room.  

I took all my yarn out of the closet.

This is the current stash. While it is much less than when I moved to this home, it remains significant. I could cut it down a tub or maybe two if I packed it all properly, space having been left in tubs as I use up yarn. It is what it is and I am glad of it. Though I think of it all the time when I am knitting and planning, it is probably a good idea to have it out in the open for a while.  

That is not why I pulled stash out of the closet.  With the upcoming sewing, I needed the closet for clothes.  I haven't needed a closet for clothes in the last ten years so it is fun needing the space.  I do have a rack but I found that the rack in the open with all the hanging clothes looked untidy and bothered me.  The disordered look of shirts and dresses and skirts and pants, hanging without any matching beginnings or endings left me feeling tense.  

It is just like when I curtained off the lower half on my bedroom craft storage. I was happy with the storage but the different shapes and sizes wore on me.  The curtain felt comforting and so do closet doors on my rack of clothing.  It is a big closet so I put up some shelving in there too.  The large yarn tubs aren't great decor, but they are tidy looking.  The only untidy is the yarn left overs from knitting blankets.  Those acrylics will be going to a new home soon so I won't worry about a container for them. 

But none of that is why I started diggng in the first place.  What I was actually doing was looking for a certain yarn.  

My daughter in law, Amy, asked me to repair a sweater for her.  it is one of her most loved things.  It is made of a very fine merino and I do have lovely wool. I don't think she is into visible mending but I hoped I might have something that would work.

There seem to be three or four rows sliced cleanly, and then some dropped stitches and a bit of unraveling from there.  It shouldn't be a technically hard repair, but it is going to take some work.   This is a very fine weight knit.

I found these yarns in my stash.  I think I might have had the perfect thing at one time, but I sold it in a garage sale a few years ago. 

These are my current options.  The best match appears to be some Comfort acrylic from Berocco.  If I separate a ply, I should have a reasonably good match.  If the ply is too fine, I will add a ply from one or the other of the yarns, a small bit of Faeroe Island Shilasdair or some cashmere merino sock yarn. I might do just two strands of the comfort, but I was really hoping to get the smallest bit closer to the colour. Ether way, I will play and make stable again.  

While I was digging, I pulled out a few things.  

Sock yarn from Custom Woollen Mills.  This is amazingly lovely and soft and not superwash and I never meant it to be socks, but  I do need socks and a big part of me is almost ready to try socks that I have to deal with by hand.  I have a good drying rack that is easily accessible and I am an adult, after all.  I can do this.  We shall see. 

Then I pulled out some yarn from my epic adventure.   

This is a lovely yarn, now made with all American fibres, but it's history is rooted in the nineties and glasnost. These days, I hate to see the Russian language on the label, because my family includes Ukrainians. I find myself revolted by it in a very deep and primal way.  I will focus on the yarn and its more current production location and will focus on its intention and message of peace.  I only wish the Russians would. 

Then I pulled out a lovely silk blend.  I love this yarn but everything I have tried with it hasn't felt right. 

I have always thought of it for shawls but I am going to use it for a top for summer.   Combining it with a plain yarn is probably what it wanted all along.

Then I pulled out all that remains of my much loved Big Fabel, a discontinued worsted weight sock yarn from Drops.

Because socks.  It will be nice to make and have a pair doubly thick pair of warm socks before this up and down temperature winter is done.

I did promise myself that I wouldn't start any more socks till I have this most current pair completed. so I worked stalwartly on this.

And that was all my knitting for the weekend.  

Spending time with my squirmy wormy, nearing gangly grandsons was much more important than any knitting content, but then you know that.

Meandering

You can see what I got up to yesterday.  

It's a proto sleeve!

Not a huge amount of knitting but it was a busy day yesterday.  I am preparing for a grandson visit this weekend.  Marcus and Carter are coming for a visit and I am looking forward to it. 

What with all the thinking lately about the seriously fine yarns in my stash,  I found myself thinking about some Socks that Rock that was bought for a vest from Classic Crocheted Vests.  I did start making it, but I had some trouble at the edges of the pattern and by the time I realized it, I had discovered what I did differently in knitting and was on my way to becoming a big time knitter. I pulled the vest back and I never got back to it.  I still have the yarn.

I pulled out my crochet sweater books and then I found a few videos on youtube with very inspiring crochet colourwork sweaters.  Check out Briana K s channel and just see what this designer is up to. 

It's not your grandma's crochet any more and it is so much more than granny squares.  Not that there is anything wrong with granny squares, but if you crochet, don't get stuck on them.

I made several crocheted sweaters before I discovered knitting.  I have always been a sweater fiend, and really wanted to make my own.  I did not knit at the time and decided to look for crochet options.

I made this sweater in your basic walmart yarn. Yarn choice was it's only flaw.  I was stopped by a lady on the ferry to Vancouver Island once and she asked me where I got my sweater.  She loved it.  And so did I.  I often think about making another like it.  The idea of a sampler type sweater has always appealed.  Knit or crocheted.  Either would be great.  That sweater was my weekend comfort wear when I worked in an office.  I loved it and wore it till the acrylic yarn was well and truly "killed" and the garment simply did not hold its shape any more.

I also made this one.  

It was fascinating to work those aran style stitches in crochet.  I made it in a bright yellow yarn, again from that big box store, and this one I really did wear to death.  It never suffered that acrylic death but just seemed to wear and wear forever.  The sleeves were its eventual downfall.  They slowly became a mass of hard and slubby yarn as the fibre wore.  In its heyday, I wore it regularly to work.  If I was making an aran style sweater today, it would be a good long wearing hardy sort of wool so I could really wear it forever.

I did have a granny square vest, made in taupe and black and cream.  I was so proud of it and how it turned out.  If I had to go out for dinner, I wore it with a black silk shirt and my best wool dresspants.  I have no photos of it and the pattern book was given away a long time ago, but I think of that vest often. So yes, I did have a granny square piece of clothing

And socks.  Yes, I made crocheted socks, three or four pair, I think before I understood knitting. 

I made a pair of these socks but the yarn I used did not last long.  

They were great, but they just did not last.  Maybe I wore them too much?  I had several other pairs and if you look, you can see them featured in several blog posts back from the early days of this blog.  I wore them for camping because they were so warm and thick and cozy. 

I do still think of crocheting some garments even though I knit now.  Crochet is so rich in texture and is so sculptural.  Plus lace.  Crocheted lace is classic and there is nothing finer than a lacy sweater over a simple tank top.  Even though they are long, long out of fashion, I still have a bit of a thing for doilies.  I would frame them now rather than put them on a table top.  

I am so thrilled to see that things that are being done now with crochet.  It was a long time coming from the days when I first made crocheted sweaters. While I would absolutely make crocheted sweaters and tops, I am not likely to make a granny square sweater out of mohair, which is the best possible sort of granny square sweater I have ever seen. I might love them but it isn't my look.  It isn't my thing.  I am over that part of me.  

Dithering

Now that  made a decision was made about ordering more of the Kelp colourway, I am left with a huge debate.

Which one do I knit?

Do I knit the entrancing patterning and Lett Lopi yarn combination that is my version of Utkiek or do I knit the sleeves on the my Sun Dog inspired sweater in the Pesto and Kelp yarn from Midknit Cravings?

I could not choose.  I dithered.  I looked and felt the yarns in the bag.  I looked at each project. 

And then I went to the kitchen and baked buns.  Because sometimes, that is the way it goes.

Needs and Wants

I did a try on of the Pesto Sweater yesterday. 

It didn't take long and my decision after running out of yarn was made in mere seconds.  More yarn.  I am really pleased with the way this sweater looks and it deserves it.  And I deserve the turtleneck.

I hied off to order another skein of the Kelp colourway and may have ordered a bit of something else too. Postage is expensive and to make the whole thing worthwhile, I may as well order some other yarn, right?  And if the yarn was a sweater quantity, but did not make the shipping cost change, its a fair bargain right? 

And that is how the mind of this knitter works. 

It makes no sense.  I have plenty of yarn but  am absolutely in love with MidKnit Cravings .  

I am a bit surprised with my choice.  I always thought that I would choose After Dark or Barnboard or Storm Chaser  or Freshwater Pearl  (I really adore this colour) but I fell for something else entirely.   I ordered London Fog.  It is going to be a good plain sweater, raglan sleeves I think.  I want something that has that good old sweat shirt feel, the kind of thing where it doesn't matter if it is in style.  It just is.  This yarn looks exactly like the feeling I am looking for.  Maybe it is because of all the British murder mysteries I read? 

The other thing I have come across lately is some really great worsted weight sock yarn.  Lang Yarn's Twin Soxx 8 ply is available at Jos Yarn Garden out n Stony Plain and looks really interesting to me.  If it performs like their other sock yarns, just my kind of thing.  I haven't ordered it yet but...

I was so excited, I decided to calm down by just knitting on a sock.  

I have to go digging in my massive sock yarn bin for yarns that to combine together to make a heavier weight sock.  Somewhere in there, there is yarn that will be just right and will prevent me from needing wanting more.  

I cant even pretend that this is about need. Kelp is about need.  All the rest is plain old want. 

Hard to Resist

This sweater is such fun to knit.  It's the stitch pattern.  Its the stripes.  I do not know which, but it remains entrancing. 

Not too much more after yesterday though.   I got stuck in a question.

 I started working this colour with a full skein and I am now very close to finishing the first partial skein.  I am going to go on to skein three, also a partial ball, but what I am unsure of is if I will knit up this whole third skein.  

The stripes on the original do not look perfectly even.  None of the garments already made in this pattern have all the stripes perfectly even.  It may be a function of the amounts of yarn used and it may be a case where the row gauge of the stitch patterns isn't quite perfectly matched.  All of the sweaters look great.  Should I go for even or should I go for using up all the yarn?  At this moment, I don't know.

I decided to try on this sweater to check for arm depth.  I left it on the needle and guessed. That was unsatisfying and knew I needed to take it off the needle.  I meant to do a proper full try on on my Pesto sweater too. I could not find the yarn that I keep in my WIPs bin for just such a thing. Sigh

I ended up emptying out the WIPs bin to find them, and then thought I may as well vacuum it and then , because the thing was empty and clean, it seemed like the right time to change out the feet of the bin to add just a wee bit more height to it.  That works better the way I use it now.  "If you give a mouse a cookie"... and so on.

That took all afternoon. Manhandling furniture is just not as easy as it used to be.  Still in the end I did find my spare yarns.  

I was happy with a freshly ordered WIPs bin, but I plumb forgot to try on the sweaters.  

My mind went from WIPs bin to playing in the yarn.  Did I just do that?  No matter.  I want to play and play I just might. Of course it is hard to resist the siren call of Lett Lopi and Utikiek.  Very hard.   

Between siren song sweaters or playing in yarn?  Maybe both?

Warmth in Bitter Cold

What was once my nemesis, is now a friend and I could not stop reaching for it to knit.

I am entranced by the ebb and flow of the pattern.  It is very easy to read in your knitting and now that the worry of the increases along the shoulders are done, simple to keep on track.  It is almost one of those patterns that is potato chippy and can be knit without a second thought.  Almost.  There have been a few times where my thoughts have wandered too far and I would have to tink back, but never more than a few stitches.  

It isn't the amount of progress I would have once made.  I reach for it and knit two rows.  I rest and reach for it again.  Still, my hands are doing ok and I am knitting through most of the day which is wonderful.  

We have had very cold weather the last few days and my usual Monday wash is going to have to be delayed a day or two. The power company and the line company have asked people to conserve as much as possible to prevent brownouts.  The furnaces of homes here are running almost continuously and that is a huge burden on the grid.  I was thinking of baking buns and making a roast but an oven is a large consumer of energy.  It will be a something in the slow cooker for supper I think.  

My day is free for knitting and letting my mind wander, a state which I do enjoy.  The day is bright and clear outside.  The sky is its winter glorious blue set off against the crisp white of frost covered trees and the light layer of snow on the ground, all that we have been given so far.  There are very few tracks out there, no dog walkers, no kids playing.  It is just too cold.  It has its own particular beauty.  

Me?  I am glad I have wool and a snug warm house to appreciate it in.  

Needing a Map

I got to the point on this sweater where the shoulders were done and it was time to start knitting with the second colour.  It was time to change texture patterns too.  Because I had used the pattern for the second section, it was time to go back to the pattern from the first section.  And I struggled with it once again.  

It's just a little slip stitch pattern and required a bit of focus to set it up right but if you did that, it would be a breeze.  That darn breeze blew right by me.  I was hit by my old nemesis of counting.   I could not count to three.  Or was it four?  Or two.  For a great deal of yesterday, I had no idea.  

I finally decided to draw a chart of it.  

Words defeated me, but charted, I could see exactly what to do.  I still had to pull it back to the start a couple times to get it right.  

This morning finds it well on its way.

It isn't that the pattern is hard to follow.  Not at all.  It would be a dream to follow for most knitters.  It is laid out with instructions for each row and it tells you where you should be at every step along the way.  

I struggle with too much detailed instruction.  I do better if I can see and understand the goal and then get there in my own fashion.  I can do that now that I have a map.

Consolation and Comfort.

Running late this morning but for a good reason.  I woke at four but felt I was not finished sleeping. I turned on an audio book and promptly fell asleep.  I now have no idea what was going on in the book and am going to have to start over, but I feel really good.  It is nice bit of out of routine feeling.

After the running out of yarn problem, I deliberately chose to work on something where I know I have lots of yarn.  

I pulled out my version of Utkiek by Anke Telschow.  I started this sweater in October but with all the blanket knitting, did not really get going on it.  I was having trouble keeping the increases in the texture pattern.  The sweater pattern is written to accommodate knitters like me and I decided to go with a moss stitch pattern for the first section of the pattern. It meant starting from scratch but I knew it was the right thng. I was only ten or eleven rows in so not a big loss at all.  

I love the Utkiek pattern because of the simple textures.  I love it too because it is stripes. Stripes are engaging to knit.  I love the pattern because it lends itself to using yarns that you have.  Each colour stripe uses about 200 metres of yarn.  The designer has picked a main colour which uses between 600 and 800 metres but it is easy to swap out and do your own thing depending on what you have.  My biggest modification is yarn weight.  It is designed for sport weight and I am using Lett Lopi.

I have lots of yarn left from my Hun Sweater project.  That happened because of how and why I purchased the yarn. I  always thought I would knit a coordinating sweater or vest for under the Hun cardigan, but since I sewed up the front, I don't need it.     

I have a bunch of green, colour 1407, seven before I started the sweater.  This will be my main colour.  

I have one ball each of rust, 9427, and one ball of 0005.  They will be used if needed.  They could be an interesting addition to the button band if required. 

I have about 200 metres of 1419 over two partly used skeins and one full skein.

I have two and a half skeins of 1420, 

 two full skeins of 0867.  

and finally, two skeins of 1418.

Plenty of yarn to do a sweater and it should be enough to simply knit and enjoy.  The original sweater calls for six colours and I have only five but according to all the project pages on Ravelry, it is a longer sweater.  Whatever I get, I get.

I restarted yesterday and am really enjoying the knit. It is a comfort to be knitting a yarn I love that is so different in character to the problem sweater.  Consolation if you will but it feels good.

All I really need is... a corner

I have a wonderful stash of yarns.  Really wonderful.  Looking at my yarns makes me feel good and I sometimes wonder about how emotionally connected I am to my yarn.  I mean, is it normal?  I don't know and I don't really care but do wonder about it.  Where and perhaps when does the emotional commitment to a bunch of things become a hoarding disorder? ( I don't hoard because I have an upper limit.  It is just a rather large upper limit.  That is my story and I am sticking to it.  You may define as you wish.)  

The thing is I don't really have a huge urge to buy yarn anymore.  I no longer fill my cart at the big online yarn websites just for the fun of shopping for it.  I just don't feel the need to go to the yarn store when I am feeling restless and out of sorts.  I can make that feeling go away right here by digging in my lovely large stash.  My stash fulfills me.  When I do get yarn now it is usually for a specific purpose, like kids wear or finishing a project or needing another skein or colour to do a colour work project.  

So if I tell you that I might have to go yarn shopping, you know something is up.

I ran out of yarn.

For the first time ever, I ran out in a big way, not just a few stitches but a big way.  A miscalculation way and I hate it.

I added four stitches to the width of this border and now, I wish I had not.  If I had not, there would have been enough yarn to finish the bottom of this sweater.  Just enough though.  I have three skeins left of the Pesto colourway, plenty for sleeves, but unless I get another skein of the Kelp colourway, I would have to rip back the whole bottom and I really, really don't want to do that.  This bottom bit has been boring and fun, when most knitting is just fun.  I would rather take off the neckline and change the sweater to be closer to the original design than reknit the bottom.  And as heinous at it sounds, I am considering that.  

I need to step back and give this a good think.  The turtleneck idea was because I wanted a warm neck for the approaching winter.  It was the foundation of thinking about this project the second time around.  Can you change the foundation of a thing at this late stage? 

 

The next problem: Is the neckline of the Pesto part of the sweater too wide to sit properly on its own? If the green comes off, does the sweater neckline sit so it will be a garment I will enjoy wearing?  I think so but it is going to have to take a good try on to see.  

I  don't really want to buy another skein of yarn.  I will if I absolutely must to reach my goal of a great sweater out of this really lovely yarn but I don't want to.  I feel as if I am right back to thinking about the yarns and colours as I purchased them.  It feels like everything is changing about this garment and right now I feel like I have no control.  

Time to put this project in that corner in my mind to think on it.  Well over sixty and I still need timeouts.