Sticking with the plans

It was an odd sort of day.  I found myself wanting to wind more yarn.  But no.  This is not the time to do that.  I made myself go to do some knitting.  And I did.

A Hem.  The front is complete and I am so happy with it.  It looks exactly how I saw it in my head.  On to the back.  

The split hem is not as long as my original plan.  When I was talking about Vests the other day, I was wearing my purple vest.  I love the way the split is on it but I realized the front and back were a little longer than I needed this sweater to be.  I was going to make this sweaters split front 7 inches long but ended up with about 5 and a half inches.  I did a try on and it ends right where I wanted.  The original intent was to go to 9 inches from the split on the back but I am going to shorten it a bit as well.  

And then sleeves and this sweater will be done and I can cast on one of my many new planned things.  It's going to be a bit of a challenge to keep my focus on what I have on the needles, but I will have to do it.  It is also going to be a real challenge to keep my focus on my planned next up Kauni sweater or my Staffin planned sweater rather than spending my days dreaming about other future sweaters.  Like Flea.  

Grandeur

I love winding yarn.

Look at those layers.  This is Briggs and Little Sport in Sheep's Grey.  I spent way too long simply looking at the way the layers of yarn built up in the cake and the broad range of colours within it.  

It is almost as if you can see past those individual strands down into the heart of the cake.  I want to look deep into the caverns behind and within the strands.  I could get lost in there.  Lost in the looking.  Sigh.  This is grandeur on a small scale.  

It's a Vest sort of day.

It's a vest sort of day.  

It isn't cold enough that I need to snuggle down in my sweater, drink hot cocoa and layer myself in blankets but cold enough that I want to wear a heavier wooly fabric on my back.  My arms are okay free of warm wooly layers.  I am of course wearing a long sleeve turtlenecks as an underlayer.  It's a cotton bamboo fabric so it is only marginally warm but it does the job.  

I have a few vests now and enjoy wearing them but it is one  thing I could use more of in my wardrobe.  My favourite is my Linger vest, where it became a vest only because my hands were very done with the weight of the yarns.  It is so wonderfully warm though and I adore the fisherman's rib.  It take a long time to knit but it's a great fabric.  

The other vest getting heavy wear is the rust vest which I knit so I could understand the European shoulder construction.  I like the shape of it on me.  The back neck stays high on my back neck and fits comfortably across my back.  I also needed to knit it so I could understand my problems with the Ysolda Teague's Anyday Sweatshirt and what I needed to do to make it fit my body the way I wanted it to fit.  

The last heavy weight vest getting lots of wear is my purple vest made from Briggs and Little Regal that I picked up at the mill store in New Brunswick on my Epic Adventure a few years ago.  I wear this self drafted vest a lot.  I love the texture of its mistake rib gradient colours.  Evertime I wear it I think about knitting this stitch on another garment.  The other vests are usually warmer weather wear.  

I would like a vest with a nice deep shawl collar.  What I want will be a bit like the Redhook vest from the cover of Jared Flood's book from the long gone Classic Elite days.  Simple shape, deep shawl collar.  I am also thinking a lot about making a vest with a deep turtleneck like the Vestover or Vilda.  But what yarn to use?  I have tons of yarn in my stash but until I can see a yarn or yarn combination as a vest, it just stays quiet...waiting...lurking in the corners of my mind.  

I knit only a little yesterday but the day was all about yarn.  I wound up a lot the hanks that were pulled from the last stash dive.  Everything is ready for knitting the sweaters I want from each.  I also turned the balls from the spring like yellow Arcane Fibre Works yarn from a frogged project into cakes so I don't need to deal with rolling yarn balls.  

I have two more sweater quantities to wind today.  Along with knitting that will be enough.  Lots of interesting things to do and to think about today.