getting ready

I took the Bog Jacket out of time-out thanks to everyone’s reassurances that it will grow when I block it, just like my swatch told me. I’ve already made it past the “thumb trick” section, and am knitting across the sleeves:

(Yeah, it looks a little weird at this stage). I’ve reached a point where I need to make a decision, though. Namely, do I want a contrasting band over the shoulders, as in some of the Bog Jackets in Elizabeth Zimmermann’s books? Or do I just want a solid-colored Bog, with contrasting i-cord edges? I’m leaning towards solid, I think, but would love to hear other people’s opinions. I’m still left with another question, which is whether I want the edges to be dark or light:

The color on the left is “Marsh Sedge” (a dark green), and the color on the right is “Arrowleaf Balsamroot” (a light blue-green). I could see going either way. Thoughts? I’ve got plenty of time to decide, anyway, since I am about to embark on 3 weeks of serious project monogamy, and the Bog Jacket is not going to be my one-and-only. Nope, it’s time for:

Le Tour de Gansey, part deux!

I joined the Tour de France Knitalong again, and this year, I’ve got a very ambitious goal: in place of the tiny sampler gansey I knit as part of the Polka-Dot Jersey competition last year, I want to apply all those skills I gained and knit a me-sized gansey. Now, I am a pretty tiny person, as far as grown-up people go, but that’s still going to be a lot of knitting…a Green Jersey worthy sprint if I can make it, for sure! In preparation, I’ve already swatched, and in the last few days have gotten serious about planning everything out:

Here’s a closeup of the cartoon I’ve drawn of my gansey-to-be, complete with messy notes:

And here’s a closeup of the list of stages in this Tour de Gansey:

(I just noticed that I apparently have very strange ideas about numbers, and have decided that the second sleeve is “Sleeve #3″. Oops!). It’s an ambitious plan, for sure, and I’m not entirely sure I can do it during the timespan of the Tour. But hey, it’s a challenge, and even if I don’t finish on schedule, I’ll still get a cool traditional gansey out of it in the end.

I embark on Saturday, just like the cyclists in the real Tour. I’ll doodle around with my other works in progress until then, but once Saturday hits, it’s gonna be all-gansey, all-the-time around these parts. I’m excited!

 

moment of truth

I’ve knit quite a bit on the Bog Jacket in the last few days. I knit on it while watching two hours of Doctor Who, followed by the end of the Tour de Suisse on Sunday (I’m gearing up for the Tour de France!), and in the evenings while we watched Countdown all week. I’ve had a nagging feeling about how it was turning out, though, so I was a bit dismayed to find out that my subconscious might have a point:

I mean, it’s not ridiculously tiny or anything, and if I tug on the edges, they’ll meet in the middle…but I’m thinking I don’t want a jacket that I’m going to have to be tugging on all the time. I’m trying to figure out where I went wrong. I based my cast-on number off of a washed gauge swatch, and I do know it will grow slightly when I wash it, but I’m not sure that’ll be enough. I think there are two things I failed to take into account in doing the math: first of all, “fitted” for a jacket is a different thing than “fitted” for a pullover, and second of all, the chunkiness of the yarn is eating up some of the ease I’d planned in. But maybe I’m just not trusting my swatch enough. It did grow and relax a bit after I washed it, after all. Anyway, the jacket is going into time-out for awhile, while I decide whether I want to rip and start over, or continue and hope that it all works out.

But that’s ok, because something else has hopped on my needles in its place already. Yesterday, this delightful stuff arrived in the mail:

It’s Dream in Color Baby (their laceweight, which is more of a light fingering weight), in Spring Tickle, which I got on discount thanks to The Loopy Ewe’s Summer Knitalong. Ever since I knit the shawl for my sister-in-law, I’ve wanted to make one for myself, and when I saw Mick’s Icarus Shawl, I was smitten. And once I got the yarn balled up, I just couldn’t help myself:

I’m absolutely loving how the Spring Tickle colorway is knitting up. The pattern is really quite simple and intuitive, at least in this section; it’s mainly stockinette, with some columns of yarnovers lightening things up.

But this newest purchase brought with it another “moment of truth”, so to speak. Y’all, I have too much yarn. I know, I know, some of you will say there is no such thing, but I’ve basically run out of places I can put yarn that my cat can’t get into (I’ve talked about how much he loves to eat anything that even resembles string, right?). It’s a problem. So anyway, I’m making a rule. No buying new yarn, with two possible exceptions, for at least a year. This is not going to be a hardship, as I have plenty of yarn to knit projects one right after another for at least that long. And a year from now, I’ll take stock of where I am, and decide what to do next.

The exceptions? I’m one ball short of Patons Classic Merino for making an Aftur sweater out of the leftovers from my Bohus Yoke last year. And I might allow myself to get the yarn to make a Circles Yoke Pullover (which just appeared on the back cover of my Valley Yarns catalog), a sweater I’ve been madly in love with ever since last year when I first saw it in yarnbee’s Ravelry projects page. But I might wait on that. I don’t know…I really love the original colors for it, and I’m always paranoid that the colors I want will get discontinued before I get around to knitting it (which is part of how I came to have too much yarn in the first place!). We’ll see.

 

swatches galore!

Well, ok, I don’t think my whopping two swatches particularly warrants the use of “galore”, but I liked the sound of it. And hey, I’m making up for my lack of bloggish diligence by making two posts in as many days!

So, yeah, as the title suggests, I’ve been swatching. First up, my swatch for the me-sized gansey I plan to knit during the Tour de France this year:

The yarn is Bartlett Yarn, in Dark Jade, and this picture was taken after it had a nice little bath in some SOAK wash. I put a little chevron in there, just to see what the stitch definition was like.

As you can see, my gauge is pretty much a perfect 4sts/in, which means I’ll have an easy time with the math when it comes time to do more detailed planning.

The other sweater I swatched for is a tour-de-force in garter stitch. Namely, the Bog Jacket. I was originally planning to knit myself an adult-sized Tomten jacket, but I think I just like the look of the Bog Jacket a bit more. Anyway, the swatch:

The yarn is Beaverslide McTaggart Tweed, in “Prairie Sandreed”. It’s a really nice tweedy green, a bit greener than it appears in that photo. And it is so soft after having a bath in SOAK. Unbelievably soft. I love it.

As you can see, my gauge is just the tiniest speck over 3sts/in. I’ve actually already done the math, and cast on my key number of 108 sts, and have even made it about an inch into the body. Apparently I’d rather do just about anything than finish seaming up Syncopated Ribs, because something else (also Project Spectrum-appropriate) hopped on my needles, as well:

That’s the beginning of a Rusalka Glove, from “Knitting New Mittens and Gloves”. The book, by the way, is one I would highly recommend…there are so many lovely patterns in it, and I plan to knit several of them in the near-ish future, from yarns I’ve got sitting around in my stash. The yarn I’m using above is Hand-dyed 100% Merino Superwash fingering-weight yarn from See Jayne Knit Yarns, in “Green Tea”. It is absolutely gorgeous (why yes, I did discover my camera’s “Super Macro” mode today!).