A Day Well Begun

I am sitting in the kitchen this morning, working on a jigsaw.

I am also boiling some eggs and don't want to forget them which is why I am not knitting at the moment.  The day is bright and I am planning to open the doors* for a while today.  It's spring and it is time to blow out the cobwebs.

I had a good day yesterday.  The digging in the yarn part went way too fast.  I found this.

It is a heathered grey, just a bit deeper in tone than the grey I first picked.  It will go nicely with the many heathered colours I have picked for this sweater.  I think that is what was wrong with the first grey.  It was a plain grey, a sort of crayon grey that just did not sit right.  It stuck out like a sore thumb.  I feel much better now and am really looking forward to knitting Flea.

I have been waffling about this sweater.  I always wanted to knit it, but since I first decided on it, other interesting things came across my path.  Rebecca Clow of The Creabea put out  Kintra and I love that design too.  It's a simple 1 x 1 colourwork that invites colour play that could easily be made with this batch of colours I pulled for Flea. I almost switched my plans for Flea but when I started mucking about with colours, Flea began to excite me again.  I will knit a Kintra but first Flea.

I did knit on the vest again yesterday.  I am so pleased with how it is going.

I am at 9 inches from the underarm so it is time to start sorting out just how long I need this vest to be.  I am going to compare it with my Threipmuir vest version for the details.  Threipmuir is just about perfect for slipping over a dress or wearing with a skirt as an extra little layer over a shirt.  The only change I want to make is to have the back a bit longer than I have on the Threipmuir.  

So, eggs are done.  The day is well begun and it is time to knit.

*only on the south side of the house and if the wind dies down.

A Magical Mystery Tour of My Own

I did goof off on the weekend!  It was great and I need to do more of it.

I picked up my vest project and made some major headway on it.  

Last time I featured it here, I had just joined it in the round.  I am about halfway down the body now.  That is some good knitting in my books.

All the time I was knitting, I was thinking about the Flea sweater.  The longer I go on thinking about it, the more I am sure I have to/ want to switch out that grey.  That means I have to do a stash dive, and before that happens I need to do some sorting and ordering in my room.  I started that yesterday.  Today's job is to get in the bins and see what else I have that might be better.  

The other thing I want to do is to dig out the bins of leftover yarns.  I need to go through them and see if I need to keep them or if I should send then to a new home.  I am using my sock leftovers for a zoom loom blanket, but the rest, well, what do I want to do?  

There are many things where there is enough for small projects.  Hats, mittens, gloves, cowls.  All sorts of small things.  There are several yarns where there is plenty left for a vest or kids garments.  Then there are yarns which are just ends.  Do I want to use these yarns to knit those right now?  Do I have other yarns to make that kind of thing?  Yes.  Many, many skeins and colours.

The only thing I am thinking about making with any leftovers is a scrap yarn blanket mixing yarns together willy-nilly.  I don't want to start that right now because there is a blanket I already have on the needles.  One blanket at a time is enough.  I also really would like to see the scrap yarn bins  disappear.  Logically, that is not going to happen.  There is always more going in to them so the idea of no leftover bins...  yeah. There will always be a leftover bin.

I am looking forward to the stash dig.  It isn't going to be a big dig and there are some choices to be made, I love a just poking around, looking for fun stuff kind of dig. Who knows what I will find in there? It always feels like a magical mystery tour of my very own.

General Goofing Off

It's been a week.  Not a bad week, just a mixed up week.  I had company over night on Wednesday and that company will be back on Saturday.  The company is my brother who has finally decided to retire and he has visited while he gets his motorbikes serviced.  The man has motorcycling plans.  Yay retirement.

I did not knit at all on Wednesday.  Okay, that is not true.  I knit two rows. In the wrong colour yarn.  

I had a bad feeling so I set it down and got on with my day.  Thursday, I dug deep and sorted it out.

Two finished side panels.  

Today's work is this.

To pick up the other front, shoulder and back stitches and get on with the knitting.  These rows are long so it is not going to be quick.  The knitting is fun though.  There is the 4 ridges of the main colour.  Then a ridge of the main colour with the different dyelot and a ridge of the Noro sock yarn.  Stripes!  We all know how I feel about stripes.  

I am off to knit and play and generally goof off.  With coffee and knitting by my side.

All Fired Up

I stayed responsible yesterday.  Yea me.  

As the day went on, it got easier to stay that way.  This happened.

One quarter of the front side panels are done.  More importantly, I know how I am going to construct this top.  For so long that has been something that I waffled over. The only part of it that I was certain of was that I wanted the center front and back panels to be made of the Noro yarn. 

First waffle:  sleeves.  Are they a simple straight out sleeve shaped like a T?  Are they on a dropped shoulder?  Are they a fitted sleeve or is the sleeve shaped with short rows to for a cap?

Second waffle: are the sides a separate panel or are they simply knit using short rows for shaping with a grafted or three needle bind off join at the side 'seam'?  

Or is the whole darn thing completely unshaped and simply a knit rectangle with sleeves as wide as everything else and did I have the yarn to do that?

So many questions.  I am certain that all the indecision about where I was going with this top is part of why this top was started last year and has sat in the WIPs bin till now.  It is so nice to finally have a map. The biggest trick now is to follow that map.

There will be an underarm side panel where all the shaping happens.  I am not certain which yarn that part will be made of.  That is going to depend on what yarn I have after all the front side panels are done.  There are also sleeves to knit so some of the main colour is gong to have to be reserved for them too.

Even though only 30% of this top is done, I feel like I am so close to finishing because I can see my way forward. Even more important, I am so excited to knit on it.  I am all fired up about something new even if it is not new at all.  

Gumption

I am trying to be responsible and keep working on what I already have started.  

I separated to work the underarms which is a huge step forward for this top.  It defines everything that needs to happen from here on in.  I feel pretty good about that.  This next bit will go much faster because the rows are going to be short.  There will be many because the body shaping happens here but  I am looking forward to interesting knitting.

When my knitting was done for the day, I went back to colour play. My plan was to colour to make a pattern to follow and to shift colours around till I was pleased with what I saw.  I could have done this by knitting a proper swatch but my yarn is a little shy so this seemed wiser.

I only did this one sample.  I like what is here and it didn't feel like I needed to go farther.  I have a feeling that no matter what colours I change or shift, it is going to look great.  The only one I am even remotely not pleased with is the soft grey and I don't think that I have another colour yarn that works.  I will search though.  The very bottom set with the green is the wrong colour.  It should be the pink at the top of the next column.

I did a check for tones and as expected, there will be a strong colour set and a softer colour set but I think that is ok.  It flows too and adds another dimension to it.

This is where it is going to get hard to keep working on the teal top.  Gumption.  That is what I need.  Gumption.

Colour Play

It is back to school for the kids and this grandma misses them.  It is getting harder to have them here for more than an overnite but I would miss it if I could no longer play with them as much.  I am the luckiest grandma in the world. Ah well.  Back to my usual.

I spent a good deal of time knitting on the yellow.  I will be splitting for sleeves at the end of this round so my head is full of all the numbers I need for sleeves and fronts and back.

I am so glad to be knitting this brilliant yellow.  It really is the perfect thing even if my sons think my love of strong yellow makes me look like a bumble bee. Working with it and wearing it does make me feel like a queen so I am good.

I was also feeling a bit unsettled after the kids left.  It seemed like a good time to play with markers.

It is time to sort out just how I want the colour order to be for the Flea sweater.  I have linked to the designers pattern page.  She has several variations of the sweater and I fond it a great help to look at all the many ways knitters have played with colour.  I love them all.  I bought the man's sweater pattern because I might knit one for Keith. I don't need the pattern for my sweater.  I will use the basic design from Anne Budd's Knitter's Handy Books but the colour advice it gives is vital.  

This is my first proposed line up of colours.

I might shift the pink and green to the space where the purple and grey are but I am not sure.  I am going to 'colour swatch' so I can see how I like the layout as the colours shift their small bit and flow down the sweater.

I do not need another fingering weight sweater on my needles.  I already have two ongoing.  I know that responsible me feels I ought to finish one or the other of them before tackling the Flea but irresponsible me is fighting it.  Since it is my knitting, and no one else's, who knows where this will go.  I will be happy either way.

More kids

More kids!

No.  We are not having snacks for breakfast.  We had breakfast much earlier.  We are having a movie day, starting now.  We already built a fort and we have some adventures planned for the afternoon too.  

Only Grandma is knitting.  I asked but nobody wanted to knit with me.  Oh well.

Bright

The last colour section is complete.  Or rather I think the last colour section is complete.  

I could do a couple more but I like the scale of this now.  You can get too much of a good thing and these bits are a very good thing.  I will need some increases and I'm going to keep doing them in the round at a similar rate to what the pattern is built with in yellow stockinette.  

Bright yellow knitting is perfect for today.  The sun is out and it feels like spring is coming in.

Always Something to Think About

I stayed strong and finished the finishing. 

My third Tolsta is done and I am wearing it.  Yea me.  I didn't knit a stitch on my new WIP bin fascination, my yellow sweater till after the Tolsta was complete. It is never difficult but it is fussy.  That 'fussy' is why I always knit my sweaters with as little seaming as possible.  

My head is deep into the yellow sweater.  When last you saw it, it looked like this.

The yarn is Arcane Fibre Works Merino Nylon DK in the Prairie Storm and Sun Yellow.  

The combination is just perfect knitting for this part of the year where our hearts cry for spring but the weather refuses to comply.  I felt so happy after working on this for a couple hours.  

I am still working the interesting yoke and have made it to where I had to change my needles to a longer one.  

I took the time to spread it out and I am really glad I did.  I had skipped a row in the last colour section.  It has been ripped back and repaired now and I am going forward.

I am not happy with the way that neck trim is looking and may have to sort it out later.  I won't really know that until I have the rest of the sweater finished and ready to try on.  

I have a couple more sections of the colour bits to knit before the yoke is done, but I will need a set of increases after that is done.  Depending on the depth of the yoke, I might finish with raglan style increases.  There is always something to think about when you knit.