So many choices. So much fun.

My knitter errant ways continued.  The upper back is compete and front 1 is at the base of the collar.

Front 2 is picked up and needs to be knit and joined to make the complete front.  There are a couple inches of working across the full front but it wont take long.  The shaping is leaning to the general shaping of a Lipstick sweater.  It's a good thing too considering how far into it I am.  

I have had company the last couple days.  My brother stopped by.  It is always great to visit but I need to be more responsible about feeding people and tidying up when company is here.  The world can fall around me if I am knitting on my own.  I am not quite as far as I hoped and yet I am pretty pleased with my progress.  The gauge of the sweater is 4 stitches per inch and it is working up nice and fast.

Because I am working with a limited yarn color issue particularly for this light grey, I am going to knit the sleeves as soon as the upper body is complete.  Not quite sure yet how they will look.  I prefer all grey but because of the yarn issue, there might be a switch to the bleached white with the colourwork zigzag from Cait and the darkest grey lice like the bottom section of the Cait.   Or perhaps they will be only white with the lice.

So many choices.  So much fun.

How did that happen?

With five other active sweater knits, all of which I am eager to finish and wear, I have no business starting anything else.  And yet here I am.  And to think, I was concerned about becoming a monogamous project knitter.

I am knitting the Briggs and Little Regal that I said I had a plan for.  I do have a general plan, but in some ways, my needles seem to be leading me to an entirely new place. 

I saw Ann Budd's Cait sweater when the pattern was published.  I love the clean fit of it.  I love the simplicity of the colouwork.  You don't need tons of colourwork for a big impact. And I felt pretty sure that the fit of the sweater would be great considering my constant referrals and use of her books, A Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns, A Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns and The Knitter's Handy Book of Top Down Sweater Patterns.  I use these books all the time.  

The problem is that I don't want to knit such a lightweight sweater as Cait at the moment.  I want this simple design idea in my Regal yarn. So I pulled out The Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns and I am using the design dimensions from the modified drop shoulder sweater.  Or rather, that is where I started.  

All of a sudden the shoulder shaping from my Hacho yarn project popped into my head and my needles sort of wandered that way, only I had a full back width cast on.  Joji starts Lipstick, the pattern I am knitting with my Hacho, with the shoulders on a provisional cast on,  joined at the neckline after some shaping is begun.  I goofed around and that is when it hit me.  

What I was doing was the general back shaping from Ysolda Teague's Anyday Sweatshirt  . It is a bit hard to see it here but it is.  Interesting.  I am going to keep going here and see what I get..

I have no idea what this thing is going to turn out to be, but so far it is an intriguing journey.

Yarn Fumes

I had a wonder filled weekend.  I played with all my yarn.

Friday morning (because there is always the post blogging day), I did not feel like working on my sweaters.  Any of them. I have been almost too monogamous to a single thing and it was starting to feel weird.  I picked up socks.

I could really use a few more pairs and tis the season for good warm socks.  

I happened to glance at the bag and I realized that all of these yarns have been in the bag for a very long time and that I may be a bit bored of them.  The bag was supposed to be for yarns to that had to go back into the sock yarn bin, but I just kept working from it and here we are.

I emptied the bag out to see just what was in it.  Not just old sock yarn but yarn that never made it into the bin from first purchasing.  Time to deal with that.

And that is when chaos and joy happened.  I love my yarn stash.  It is an utter delight to play in it with wild abandon.

The first thing I did was to pull out the sock bin so I cold get a few new ball of yarn for socks.  That was were responsible me left and crazy with yarns fumes me went to town.

The first thing that popped into my head was the Flea Sweater. I have set my heart on using the many many colours of Knit Picks Palette that I have, to knit this sweater.  I love the tones of the men's version of the pattern so that is the pattern I bought.  I don't really need the pattern to knit from but  I bought it. The designer had idea of it and the colour inspiration and I have no problem paying for those.  The Palette bin went with the sock yarn bin.

Then I searched for the cones.  I needed to find my cornflower blue Harrisville Shetland to repair my Myrtle sweater.  

Accomplished.

And then I puled out some other cones of yarn that I have had forever.  I had been wondering if I had enough to double the yarn. The blue is a very fine fingering weight but the colour is kind of glorious. 

I love it held double.  Above is the held single swatch and here is the doubled one.

Ooooo that is yummy. Maybe a Felix pullover?

I had a couple smaller cones of this wonderfully mossy Jaggerspun 3/8 Heather.  Is there enough for a sweater if I double it?

It will be close but if I am vey careful with my pattern choice, yes, I think so.

If I add a bit of the white single, also held double, I am sure it will work. The single cream yarn is Custom Woolen Mills Single Ply Mulespinnner.

Then I pulled out the remainder of my Harrisville Falx and Wool. 

I made an and Ursina from it and while I do love the sweater, the neckline is just too big now and falls off my shoulders.  It is too nice a yarn to not be worn so I am pulling out the sweater I have and will make something else.  

The next thing to catch my eye is this.

When Joji designed the Elton sweater, she showed that you can use two quite different yarns together so long as you keep the same gauge. These are worsted Ultra Alpaca and the sport ish weight Socks that Rock  (not the lightest sock weight they sold) and I am going to knit an Eltonish sweater of some kind.  A mashup of a couple different inspirations, no doubt,  to be a sweater I will love. 

Then I hit the boxes with Briggs and Little  I am devoted to their yarns.

This is the most amazing heather brown not brown.  I am not a big fan of brown but I love a natural sheep grey brown.  This mimics that and I cannot wait to knit it.  Colourwork perhaps with a nice cream?

I pulled out some Briggs and Little Regal from my display cabinet too.  Now that I am working on the Hacho yarn sweater, I need to think about this yarn.

I have 2 light grey and two bleached white.  

I also have 7 skeins of dark grey.  It should be plenty for two sweaters, one only in dark grey and another using the other colours.

I know what I am doing with the mixed color sweater.  I may have even cast it on but have no idea what the dark grey will be. Lots to ponder.

I wanted to pull out and play with so many more things, but this is a lot of yarn.  A winters worth of things to knit, and that doesn't even count all the projects in my WIPs bin or all the things I pulled out in spring and have in my display/inspiration/next to knit cabinet.  

Ah, yarn fumes.  So much fun.