Hubby's Sweater Yarn

Oh, I feel so popular with all the comments lately.

Did you know fox might taste gamey? Which not only makes sense, but probably means it wouldn't taste like chicken. I won't be eating any foxes any time soon, I don't like game meat.

I think if we have to resort to eating our domestic critters Bridget is going to be in a much better position than I am, what with her own pigs, sheep, and horses. Hubby and I should expand our menagerie beyond the pups.

This is all feeding (ha! no pun intended) my morbid sense of humor waaay to much.

Brace Yourself
I bought the yarn to make Hubby's sweater when I was at KC on Tuesday night.

You have to realize by now that I would find a way to make selecting colors as difficult as possible. Much dithering had to take place. Especially for something as important as a sweater for my beloved Hubby.

The original pattern calls for nine colors. Four in Rowan DK Tweed, which Ravelry says is discontinued, and five in Rowan Felted Tweed. They are plum (which looks maroon in the picture), black, three shades of grey, two shades of blue, and navy in both types of yarn.

I asked Hubby what specifically he liked about the sweater: the jewel tones or the tweed? He said he just liked how it looks, which was no help at all. As I was really certain the tweed thing wasn't going to be happening I focused on the colors.

There was moment of excitement when I got to the store and saw part of a Rowan label that said "Felted Tweed" but when I snatched it up it turned out to be the Aran weight, which is too heavy for the pattern. Sure, it's just a drop shoulder sweater, but I'd rather not have to go rewriting it.

Zara FTW!
I was back to my original idea of Zara and began yanking colors off the shelf.

Remember, the Vogue Knitting trunk show was that night. The store was wall to wall people, so my trying to find nine colors for stripes was tricky. What I should have done was get the color card out of the back, but it was too crowded for that.

Let's see, how did the cascade of changes begin?

First, we didn't have three shades of grey. Well, not three that I liked. I could have brought in a light grey Debbie Bliss Rialto, but it just looked off. So I substituted a tan/white chine for the third grey. I had charcoal grey and a black/white chine for the other two greys.

I selected a blue/white chine for the denim blue stripe. Trust me, there is a denim blue stripe in there, my shadow is on it. Our light blues were too pastel for what I had going on, so I substituted a dark green instead.

The two navy blues were the hard part. I realized later I should have gotten the color card to try to figure out what the difference was. Shade? Tweediness? We had a navy blue and a royal blue, which both looked pretty dark in the store since it was night time, so I got them.

The black and the maroon were easy.

The pattern calls for four of the charcoal grey and one each of the other colors. But I got two each to hedge my bets since the original yarn has about 53 more yards than the Zara.

I went home happy, although uncertain about the two dark blues.

Maybe purple?
When my 4 a.m. insomnia hit, I lay there tossing and turning, and thinking about the navy blue yarn. I thought maybe subbing a dark purple for one would work as it would contrast and I had learned that purple was in style still.

I told Hubby about my brilliant idea over breakfast. He said it sounded fine, but he didn't want to look like either Prince or Barney. I said he was silly, since it was a striped sweater, but made a mental note the purple would have to be the one row dividing color.

I hauled the pattern and all the yarn back to the store after work. It was quite, so I was able to take over the front table and arrange all my colors in the order that approximated the original sweater. Then I went and got the dark purple, which was a little brighter than I remembered.

A customer asked what I was up to. I explained the issue with the two dark blues. The purple didn't look good at all.

She said I should start with the greys and go from there. So we rearranged the yarn. She eliminated the green, blue/white, and tan/white colors.

It looked pretty good, but I pointed out the corrugated (two-tone) ribbing and brought the tan/white back. I also decided to use it as my one row contrast.

We dragged Cynthia over. She thought it looked good, but switched the order of two colors. So I wrote the new order down, since it was radically different from the pattern.

Then I had to figure out which colors to get additional balls of since we had eliminated two colors (four balls total). When Cynthia went to process my purchase she said, "I didn't realize green was a choice!"

We lined all the colors up again. I also brought over the purple and a wine red, just to make sure we covered all our bases. The purple still didn't look good and the wine red was too dark. But the green added a nice pop. We put it in two places in the sequence.

Phew! I ended up swapping out the blue/white for another maroon and another black/white, in an attempt to ensure I had enough total yardage. I'm not really sure which color is going to be getting hit harder in the new colorway.

Let the knitting begin!
I swatched like a good knitter and had to go down to a US5 needle.

Casting on took forever and I've only managed one row of knitting.

I worked the second row of ribbing last night. Only to realize I had all my floats on the public side of the work. Picking it out took almost as long as knitting it.

I'm a little concerned about the ribbing. In the picture it looks normal. But in the pattern it is K1A, P2B on the first row. I'm ending K1A, P1B. It doesn't mention how to end. I was thinking about sneaking another stitch in so it would end P2B. But then on Row 2 I'm supposed to work K2B, P3A. This means the colors totally don't line up.

I'm working the size large, so I was able to count stitches to the size small. That first row ends P2B, but it doesn't matter because the row 2 colors won't line up. The size medium ends strangely like the size large does.

There doesn't seem to be much point in adding a stitch if the colors won't line up anyway. Maybe it will make more sense once I get a few rows worked. grrr.

Two rows in and I'm already annoyed.

Look At Me
Hubby hasn't commented on the new color scheme. Actually, Hubby hasn't seen the new color scheme.

I'm a bit surprised after those strong views he expressed about what type of sweater he wanted. Also, he has a pretty well defined sense of fashion. Heck I often say he's got better taste than me. Because of all that I find it a bit suspicious that he's suddenly lost interest. I mean, really, I've dropped all other projects for his sweater!

Considering I'm up against the baseball playoffs, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Maybe I'll be able to corner him before the game tonight....