My prize arrives!

Posted on July 24, 2021 by knitigatingcircumstances

Last month, I reported that I had won a prize from Linda Marveng – consisting of my choice of four of Linda’s beautiful sweater designs and the yarn to knit it with, supplied by Hillesvåg Ullvarefabrikk. Today, the package arrived!

Can you tell how much I love it?

Winning the prize led to a massive dilemma over pattern, followed by an even bigger dilemma over colour. (You can see the four patterns on my post here.) I even put up a poll for readers to choose which sweater they thought I should knit. Here are the results (as of a month ago when I took this photo):

I have to tell you honestly that after many, many hours of discussion with Emma, I had already decided to Knit Caravay, shown below, whether or not it came out top of the poll. But it did in any case! (The decision was always between Caravay and Yaelle. I think Yaelle is the more interesting design. But as Emma said “it’s a striking design but it takes more work to style it right. Caravay you can throw on over anything and look gorgeous!”)

Choosing the colour was harder. We spent many hours looking at the colour tiles on the website. Then, we looked up the yarn on Ravelry. There are 1628 projects loaded on Ravelry which were made with this yarn. Emma and I looked at every single one (!), twice (!!), and ended up picking out four possibilities, before narrowing it down to Burgundy. I should add at this point that I am making this for Emma. If it were for me, I would have picked the Burgundy after 20 minutes thought. But Emma was initially drawn to greys or greens and it took a few weeks for her to decide on the red.

Emma, oh my god, you picked good!!!!!

The yarn is gorgeous and the red is so fantastic – rich, beautiful, colour-saturated, deep burgundy red. It really surpasses all of my expectations. Linda told me it was a good colour! She was right. You can see that the yarn arrived with a printed copy of the pattern, but Linda also gifted me with a digital copy on Ravelry. (As an aside, if you are interested in the hand knitted tank I am wearing in these photos, the pattern is Paid in Full, designed by Deb Hoss; I blogged about it here.)

One of the best parts about receiving yarn in the post is unwrapping it, and getting to feel the yarn. This is a brand new yarn to me, and it feels lovely. I can’t wait to start knitting.

We had a heat wave last week, but it has cooled down today. Not quite enough to model my latest project but I will try to do that later in the week. Keep safe everyone!

Ladybird approval

Posted on July 17, 2021 by knitigatingcircumstances

I planned to show off my Dyemonds sweater this weekend. I have finished knitting and blocking it, and all I needed was to take some modelled photos. It is a lovely, sunny, 30 degrees in my garden today (86F), so…no photos for you. Who wants to wear wool in the heat? But I will give you a teaser:

These photos were snapped after the knitting was done, but before I had woven in the ends or done the blocking. Because it’s fun, a photo of the reverse side:

Blocking did wonders for this project, and the fit is really good, so keep an eye out for the finished photos.

Instead of standing around in the heat wearing wool and trying to smile while Doug snapped photos, I instead spent the day in the garden, sitting in the shade, and knitting my new project, a Summery Myrtle. As you may recall from my last post, I miscalculated terribly on the gauge, so I ripped it out and started again. I’ve made good progress.

While I was knitting, a ladybird came over to investigate. I was very impressed at the wonderful colour coordination involved.

Having gotten off to a rocky start with this project, I was a bit worried about whether to push ahead. But now that I have ladybird approval, I’m good to go.

In which our Heroine Miscalculates

Posted on July 10, 2021 by knitigatingcircumstances

I very carefully knitted and blocked a swatch. Truly; I did:

I measured it very carefully. I cast on and knitted like mad. I was using a 3mm needle, and the only one I had was very short – 60cm/24inches. Thus, I was not able to get a good sense of width. (This is my excuse and I am sticking to it!) Meantime, I ordered a longer needle. It arrived in the post yesterday. I tried on the sweater:

EPIC FAIL! (And pretty damned funny!)

This reminds me of a post I wrote in 2015 called The gauge swatch lies! I ended that post with two morals, which still hold true today. “Moral number one: you are never so expert a knitter that you can’t make spectacular screw-ups. Moral number two: the gauge swatch lies!”

Not Scout; Rib

Posted on July 4, 2021 by knitigatingcircumstances

Some months ago, I received a newsletter from Loop, with a photo of the just released pattern, Scout Shawl (Ravelry link) by Florence Spurling. I thought it was so beautiful that I pre-ordered a kit for it right then and there. I am not normally so impulsive with yarn purchases, but this one moved directly from eye to brain to wallet faster than you can say “Yes!”

After I pushed the button, I began to think that this was perhaps not a smart purchase. The shawl is knit back-and-forth with fair isle knitting and intartsia. In other words, no steeking, but lots of balls of yarn tangling together and every other row in stranded purling. I wasn’t sure I was up for the challenge.

Then the yarn arrived and it was beautful:

I really wanted to knit with this yarn, but the more I thought about it, the less I wanted to knit Scout. It is gorgeous, true, and knitters are making some beautiful projects from this pattern. And, yes, I actually think I am up to the challenge. I know I could do it. The question is: do I want to?

I have come to the conclusion that knitting is something I do for enjoyment, for creative energy, for serenity, peace, mental balance, for process as much as product, and after this very complicated, very long year, I should knit what I want, when I want. And right now, that isn’t Scout.

But the yarn kept playing around inside my head, and yesterday while watching the Euro quarter-finals, I fooled around with a swatch:

Now, isn’t this lovely? I have long been interested in knitting Kate Davies’ design, Myrtle, show below, but without the mohair, with short sleeves, and in lighter, more summery-colours. Can you picture it?

And this yarn from the Scout kit – Madelinetosh Merino Light in Pink Clay, Sugar Coat, Librarian’s Dreams, Joshua Tree, and Rocinante – makes for a lovely, lacy, summery fabric in this lace pattern.

Now, that I have swatched, I need to knit the ribbing – 300 stitches in k1p1 rib with tiny yarn on tiny needles. If it gets to be too much, I can always switch to my Dyemonds sweater. As you can see, all I have left is the ribbing: 280 stitches of k1p1 rib on slightly less tiny needles: