Onward and Upward

After a harrowing six-day work week, I finally got a day off today and made a trip to my LYS for supplies for my next two big projects. I ordered some of Rowan’s Aran Tweed in Dent for a birthday present from my mother and picked up some Spud & Chloë Sweater in Grass.

It is great to have a new big project to start. I finished my Swallowtail Shawl last week and had all weekend to kill. So I picked up my Block of the Month and got caught up on that. Basically Block of the Month is a year-long project where you knit one square foot block of an afghan every month. At the end of the year, you have a nicely sized afghan. At my LYS, Amy writes the pattern every month and gives it free to anyone who buys their material for it from her shop. We all meet on the second Sunday of every month get started on the next month.

I’m using Green Mountain Spinnery’s Mountain Mohair. Since we’re knitting the blocks in columns of four, I am knitting them in a repeating pattern of three colors; Elderberry, Moss, and Raven. This month was honeycomb stitch, which is a pleasantly mindless motif after all the grief and frustrations of Swallowtail. Cables are my comfort zone. They are the first moderately advanced technique that I learned, and the repetition of CB4, CF4 had a soothing rhythm to it.

 

Now that I am once again stocked, I’ve started plugging away at my scheduled pieces. First up is Wool Leaves a new baby that is due to one of my oldest friends. She’s due in September, but the baby shower is at the beginning of July, so I’m trying to get it done by then. Wool Leaves knits up so fast, I don’t think that will be much of a problem. I just started today and I’m already a full rep in. Holding a worsted cotton/wool blend double on US 13 needles makes for a quick knit.

 

In fact, I may have time for a little side project for myself. Remember that Manos del Uruguay that I picked up while on vacation? Well, I have a plan for it. I found this lovely etude by the talented String Geekery, who is pretty genius, if you ask me. I think it will transform it into a long, skinny scarf. S.G. was thinking of it as an edging pattern that repeated horizontally, but I want to work it into a vertical pattern. I am trying to work out some variation of Jared Flood’s tubular cast on and slipped stitch edging that I loved so much on Afton. I’ve done the cast on and the broken ribbed border, but my math was wonky and I’m finding it difficult to blend this seamlessly into the etude. I’ll probably have to frog and recrunch the numbers… math… hmpf…

Achievement Unlocked!

The sweater blocking turned out well as I could hope. The shape is crisp and there are no dramatically out of proportion sections. I sewed the bits together Thursday night and tried on the whole body for the first time. Aside from the torso being a little shorter than I would normally wear, it came out perfect. It is comfortable. The sleeves are plenty long, which is much more of a concern for me.

 

I started in on the neck that night and continued working on it throughout the following day. The main problem was, that day was jam backed with family responsibilities and I was knitting on the move and kept losing my place markers. I love brioche stitch, but doing it in the round is quite the challenge. It is very important to know when your row begins and ends. By the end of the night, it was all discombobulated. I tried to make it work, but as I sat down to it tonight, I stirred up enough gumption to frog a good four inches and pick back up in the right spot. There is still one minor kink, but I honestly don’t have the heart to go back and work that out, especially since it will be on the inside of the cowl where no one will see.

 

I am so close to finishing! I can see the end cresting the next hill. By the end of Monday (my next day off) I should be able make an elated FO post, and show you all how it fits.