Two Days and Two Balls of Yarn

Two days and two balls of yarn means things happen.

Back yoke ready to go. First front yoke half done.  I am utterly thrilled.  

I must say that after the worsted weights I have been working with the last while,  I was thinking a lot about working with this lighter weight yarn.  It isn't  much lighter.  It is a Dk according to its label, and the yarn I was using for the Anyday Sweater was a Dk.  The yarn for my gorgeous yellow sweater is a Dk weight by label. It's a weight I love knitting but these last two knits and sweaters were definitely worsted.  I was worried that I would find knitting this project in an unquestioned Dk, slow and that it would feel it was taking forever.

There are no stripes in this sweater.  Stripes absolutely keep your interest when you knit the body of a sweater.  There is always something to look forward to, something to focus on rather than the amount of knitting you have to do.  

This is one ball one yarn, no stripes.  All colour.

One small ball of yarn.  After the last sweater with Ecologicals very giant balls, it is almost a relief.  I have room for my coffee! I have space for my handy side pad of paper and a pen.  I love it, but this is a light Dk yarn.  

This first bit of the sweater was so much fun.  And ever so difficult to put it down.  It is much easier to use so I can work longer.  A lot of knitting went on the last few days.  

I made a concession to speed.

The ribbing in the Lipstick pattern is a twisted rib on the right side.  This means a purl through the back loop on the wrong side.  I don't mind purl through the back loop but it does take more time and is a little harder on my joints.  I did the same thing on both sides.  I knit all the knits to twist the base of the knit stitches and purled in my normal fashion on purls.  Instead of every stitch of a stack of stitches being twisted, every second stitch in the stack is twisted and both sides are the same.

I have also answered another question I had about this yarn.  

The purl side is going to look really interesting.  The right side is really interesting too.  The colours switch so frequently that they never leave you feeling poolish.  

This one is a pleasure to in a different way than the others have been.  

One last bit.  I just finished reading a lovely book called a Month in the Country by J L Carr.  It is lyrical and gentle and makes you think about really big feelings, really hard feelings in the most gentle way.  Reading it was a complete pleasure. 

Another Thing

I meant to get to sewing yesterday, but the recent weather, even though it was good, is hard on me.  I did not have the mental energy to start anything.  Today, I will get to printing out and assembling the patterns for the next sewing and I will prepare for box making.  I bought a bolt of black cotton a while ago and that is going to be perfect for that.

What I did do yesterday was start something new.  I really have no business starting anything new.  I have sixteen WIPs and don't really need anymore, but it seems, I want more. I would like to say that it is because of my happiness with my last few projects, but no.  There are always more things to want to make, more yarns to want to work with, more colours to play with.  It all is so exciting to me.  

I started to make another Lipstick sweater by Joji Locatelli.  I loved making my first.  It's my dressy sweater, the one I wear when I want to feel good.  It's a very simple sweater, but it is an interesting simple sweater.  There are twisted stitch bits, reverse stockinette bits and a bit of very simple lace.  I did not do the lace bits last time and because of the yarn, I won't be doing lace this time either.

As you can see, the colour is very busy.  It will be the star of this show. I watched a podcast earlier this week, where a sweater they were showing, was multi coloured in a very similar way to my Hacho yarn and they found the reverse stockinette side almost looked nicer than the outside.    Lipstick has a very wide reverse stockinette panel at the center front so I can't wait to see if the same happens with my yarn.

My first Lipstick was knit with Rios, an Aran weight yarn, perfect for the patterns four stitches per inch gauge.  My  yarn, Hacho, is a DK weight.  No way will it make a good fabric at 4 stitches per inch.  So I am doing the math.  It doesn't take much math because this is such an easy to knit sweater.  

It's  not much knitting but it's a good start.  It's hard to leave the yarn and knitting to go to the sewing room but to the sewing room I must go.  Need the boxes for the kitchen and tights for the cold. 

For the Next Thing

It's  done.

I am so pleased with this.  

Great choices:  

The v neck.  Much easier to deal with than a zipper, even though they are trendy at the moment.

Sticking with the folded collar.  I.  Love.  It.  In my search to feel warm and cozy, this is a winner and is going to happen again.

The three colours rather than two.  If it were only cream and red, it would be too much red.  I love having the extra flow of such a gentle colour as this oatmeal mixed in.  I just love it. LOVE IT ( This is me dancing.)

The oopsies:

I miscounted the sleeve stitches and the are closer fitting than I generally like.  However...I won't redo.  Once it's washed and worn a few times it will be fine.  

The v neck.  I didn't want to have the flat base of the vee.  It made the collar a bit more complex.  At the rate of increases I used, the v bottom would have been at my navel - not a good look.  I will do better math next time.  

I should have made the back hem a bit longer as the pattern does. I chose not to split the hem so if I do change this, the entire bottom ribbing will be redone.  That means that the whole second red skein of yarn will be used up. Two sweaters from this yarn?  What was I thinking?  

I am wearing it right now and I love it.  It has been such a fun knit. On top of everything, it has been great for practicing my single handed stranding.  

For the next thing.

This may or may not work.  Internet weirdness this morning.

So close to complete.

I can't wait.

Perfect

I tried the red sweater on yesterday.   It is so good it is almost unbelievable.  

When I pulled it out this morning, I held it up and just looked at it for a while.  And appreciated it.  I love this sweater. I urge you to knit it because ... stripes.  Because ..easy colourwork.  Because of the sturdy woodsy look of the combination of yarn and construction.  Because it is a sweater of the ages.  It is not trendy.  It is a forever sweater.  

I made it to the ribbing of sleeve 1.  I swear, the stripes knit themselves.  

The sleeve rib will be as long as the hem ribbing or till the sleeve is a nice three quarter length.  

I have been trying to save the red yarn but I am no longer thinking that way at all.  I may be fickle but Third Coast is just that good.  I don't feel the need for a Bountiful Bohus if I have This sweater.  I still want to knit Ingrid or a sweater very much like it but I have other yarns that are just right for it.  Third Coast pushes all my feel good buttons.  It's a fun, fast knit in wonderful colours in a good simple wool.  

Good Things and Childish Glee

It was a terrible and wonderful weekend. Terrible because all day Saturday was waiting for the rain in Sao Paulo to stop so they could run F1 qualifying and wonderful because the race on Sunday was utterly brilliant as was my knitting.

The collar was completed Saturday while waiting for the qualifying.   

Sewing it down double and closing the front can wait till after the sleeves are done.  Sunday was sleeve one day. I have one more row of cc 2 before starting the red again.  

Stripes, even stripes with the bit of colourwork at the change, feels so fast to knit.  

I also completed going through all my bits and bobs and stuff on Friday.   I made it through all of the places I hid things and sorted and found better homes for everything.  There wasn't really that much stuff, it was just stored so spread out.  Best of all, the places they are stored now are places I already use. 

I found and old chart of knitting and crochet hook sizes that was kind of fun.  I think I got it with a set of hooks just as Canada was switching from the old British notation to metric needle notation.

I also found my instructions for various kinds of grafting such as garter stitch.  I don't do it often enough to remember it, so having it written down is great. I found the notes about chess moves that Cater made me take last time we played, so I could remember that too. I like having these notes even though I can find the information on the net now.  For most of my life, you just did not have such easy access to bits of useful knowledge.   

The weekend also had out first snowfall.  It was only enough to see that there was white over roofs, sidewalks and streets.  It didn't stay.  It was not notable in any way but for the fact that it was.  That skiff of snow made my heart beat with childish glee.  Begone the adult thoughts of icy roads and shoveling snow and cold winter and let me just enjoy the child like thrill of the first snowfall.  Sleds and snowballs and snowmen.  Snow Angels and making tracks in fresh snow.  So much for a childish heart to look forward to.

And a very short time later, I saw a wee fellow waking along peering intently at their feet making tracks on the sidewalk.  Wee fellow understood.  I felt such kin ship with that wee person.  The first snow.  A moment later, mom and the bigger siblings came along behind and I was left with a very full heart.  

Stuff

The bottom of the sweater ribbing is cast off.  Even bigger news, I picked up stitches for the collar. Yesterday was one of those days where  I felt like  I could knit for hours.  At the end of the day,  I tried to put it back in its bag and it simply would not fit.  I left it like this overnight.

  

I never do this.   Yarn and projects are always put away.   I am gong to find a bag that can hold the yarn I am not using so the sweater will fit in its long term storage tote.  There will be more knitting today, but first, I am attending to a task that I have needed to do for a long time.

This is my notions box.  It is a photo box sized about 4 x 6 inches and I have used it for years.    

It is a little small and over full and likes to pop open unannounced.  There are a lot of things in it that have better storage places, like dpns from finished socks and crochet hooks. They belong in the needle case.

 These are also places I keep knitting notions and bits and bobs that are sometimes useful.

This is where I keep the extras or the things that are too are big to fit in the photo box.  They seldom are used. What they are is excess.  They are stuff, that generic term that means I have no idea why I have them if I am not using them.  This is, of course, opposed to the things that others may see as stuff, like yarn and books and fabric and the vases of knitting needles or knitting books, but which are important to me.  

That is the thing about our stuff. What is really important to each of us, holds little or no meaning to someone else.  We might have an attachment to it but no one else understands or cares.  They have their own stuff that we don't understand. 

Then there is this.  It was a 'good deal' which means that I was able to rationalise why I 'needed' them.

It is helpful to have markers of different colours to remind me where certain things have to happen.  This last one is staying as is, but the other two hiding places are being cleaned and sorted and put where these items might get used, or they will go to a new home.

Step one.  

Things are sorted out and moved to a new, larger notions box that I will keep at hand.  There are things that don't need to be here but I will sort that out as I am going through the other stuff. (There is that word again.) That will be step two, three and four. And maybe five. At the end of the day, the goal is to have everything I use in one place and any useful extras in one, one other place that I also already actually use.  

I am not sure yet just where that is.  Funny, that.