The Good, The Bad and the Problems

 Utkiek is finished.  

And I am thrilled and not so thrilled.  

I love it but I am a bit worried.  The back neck is wide. I may have started with too many stitches cast on so the back yoke seems too big.  The sleeves are a bit long too, but that is an easy fix.  Everything else is really great and I quite pleased.

Right now I am pondering redoing the cast off.  That would probably help to tighten up the back neck.  I could do a line of slip stitch  or single crochet across the cast on stitches just where the pickup row for the collar and button band is, to give the edge a bit more oomph.  Either way, I won't really know what will be best till after I give it a good blocking. I think that is particularly important for Lett Lopi.  This yarn loves to relax after a good water bath.

If you are interested in making a sweater like Utkiek, with its many texture stitches, do consider making a proper swatch with all the different stitches in it so you can see just how the gauges will work together.  The pattern suggests that you switch needles sizes as needed to ensure your chosen stitch designs end up being the same gauge.  I think that is part of the problem at the back of my neckline and you can see it in the bit of a wave at the seed stitch bottom.  Did I swatch them all?  Heck no and I regret it.  Enough to rip back?  Not at all.

I tried to be responsible this morning and picked up a sweater I have been avoiding.

This is round three, I think, for this yarn and I am just not enjoying it.  Because I am using four (or 5) different skeins of hand dyed yarns, I have been trying to avoid pooling by switching skeins every two rows, and I hate it.  I hate it so much that it is hard to pick it up to work on it.  I would much rather be knitting the Noro top 

or the pretty yellow sweater 

or the Anyday Sweatshirt in the Madelinetosh Tosh DK.  Or in the gorgeous London Fog colourway from Midknit Cravings. (That would be a bold move for me considering yarn quantities.) Or almost anything else in my stash.

I knit a few rows on the top this morning and made a decision.  I am not enjoying it so it is going to get ripped out.  And the yarn will be put away for a while. I made myself promise to do this.  This is a hard yarn to put back because I love the colours and I love the way it feels.  Plus it would be such a pretty top. I want it but life is too short to have a project and a yarn make me anxious.

The next time I use this yarn, it is going to be for a top where I do not care if it pools, where I will adopt the simple pleasure of letting it happen as it is.  I like that idea.

I am going to read the Anyday Sweatshirt pattern today and do a good gauge swatch.  I might think about starting it but no pressure.  I might work on socks.  I have some yarn from the stash to wind too. Plenty to keep me going till I get over this sweater hangover**.

**Sweater hangover  That hollow feeling you get after you completed a big project and know you can't knit on it any more.