Yellow Lace Top

Works in progress be damned!

Knit from your stash? I laugh at the concept!

Because I have yummy new yarn and have finally decided on a pattern.

You will remember (perhaps bitterly) my recent bragging about receiving sample balls of the new Juniper Moon Farm Yarn "Findley" to play with.

Hmm, that doesn't sound quite right...anyway.

I had settled on a knit sweater, a crocheted sweater, and a shawl, but was dithering over the colors to use for all of them. Of all the colors I'd received I only had solid plans for two of them, but there was heavy math involved before I could start either of those.

Last week I laid out the patterns and yarns and made Hubby decide for me. Don't laugh. He has a very good eye. And perhaps not as much at stake.

For the crochet sweater he suggested the robins egg blue. For the shawl (which will be the cover pattern from the Spring/Summer 2011 issue of Debbie Bliss Magazine) he selected the grass green.

Finally, for my friend Pam's Lacey V-Neck Top that is in the Holiday 2009 issue of Vogue Knitting he selected the soft, buttercup yellow. Interestingly, it is also the one the women in the Library Knitting group suggested.

Away I Go
With a color selected, I cast on last Tuesday and have been clicking away.

The lace pattern only has an 8 row repeat and it's a fairly regular progression, so I hope I ingest it soon and can stop looking at the pattern. That will speed things up.

The sweater has waist shaping, but instead of having you increase and decrease Pam cleverly has you change needle sizes. In fact I'm already at the first change. I was surprised it arrived so quickly.

So surprised that my US 3 circular wasn't available. It was still in the lace scarf I've been knitting for, what, a year because scarves just kill me and now I only work on it during the Library Knitting group. Anyway, I knit it onto a pair of bamboo straights I own for some reason and freed the circ for the sweater.

Of course sweater progress was derailed when I skipped town over the weekend. But I'm back at it.

Another nice thing is that it's knit in the round so there won't be much seaming to worry about at the end.

Well, considering I've only knit around 3 inches of sweater there isn't much more to say.

I think it's time to stop typing and start knitting.

KFI: Findley! Yummy new yarn

This blog post is mean on so many levels.

First this yarn I'm in love with won't be in stores until the Fall 2011.

Second none of the colors I have are going to be available in stores. However, the 12 colors that will be available are just as stunning.

Best.Job.Ever.
Perhaps you have heard of Juniper Moon Farm. Susan Gibbs did what many knitters and crocheters dream about. She quite her desk job and started raising sheep.

Instead of the resulting wool being spun and sold to yarn stores for years she sold it directly to people. You can buy a CSA which entitles you to a portion of the wool production while Susan and her team takes care of all the messy, hands on business.

Pretty exclusive stuff.

Now a different door to her creative sensibilities has been opened. She has teamed with Knitting Fever Inc. to design a new yarn line that is spun and dyed in Italy. Her little flock of sheep could not grown enough wool to meet the demand of nationwide distribution, so they had to call in reinforcements.

The new line is also called Juniper Moon Farm and is starting with three yarns: Willa is a bulky 60% Merino, 40% Super Fine Kid Mohair blend, Chadwick is a worsted weight 60% Merino Wool/40% Baby Alpaca blend, and Findley is a lace weight 50% Silk, 50% merino blend.

Tanis Grey, formerly of Vogue Knitting, has designed patterns for all the yarns. I did not get a pattern book to go along with my yarn, and I suspect it's because they aren't finished yet! There is a sneak peak of some of the sweaters on the farm blog (scroll down). They look very interesting.

Oh, Findley.
This yarn is so soft and lovely. As soft and lovely as you would expect a silk merino blend to be.

And the colors are just lovely. I especially like the yellows and the blues, but the green is lovely too and well, I could just list them all as my favorite, but that would be silly. Really, they all deserve to be worked up into some fabulous project.

Considering I have four balls of each color (well, two of white) and each ball is a whopping 800 yards, I can make multiple fabulous projects.

Which means I'm totally spoiled for choice and was just a wee bit paralyzed when I first opened the box.

But I'm pretty sure I have it sorted now.

I was considering the Abotanicity sweater from Knitty. To that end I started swatching with the yarn held single on a US 1. That was kind of insane. It occured to me after several rows that people don't usually try to get a dense fabric with lace weight yarn. Also, since that pattern calls for fingering/sock weight yarn I don't think it will work out.

Since I'm not really a lace shawl knitter, I decided to expand my options by holding the yarn doubled on a US 4, which is this blue swatch.

That made me think of my friend Pam's Lacy V-Neck sweater that is in the Holiday 2009 issue of Vogue Knitting. (It's the middle one of the second row of the "A Softer Shade of Pale" patterns.) Those lacy bits you see in the blue swatch is the stitch pattern. I'm pretty sure it's going to work, which is very exciting.

The trick is deciding which color to use. I might stick with this robin's egg blue one. Although I'm debating the silver grey one, which I know is the influence of the magazine picture.

The next sweater I'm considering making is from the 2004 issue of Simply Creative Crochet magazine. I don't see a picture of it online. The sweater had a plain body and lace sleeves made with wee square flower motifs that are connected as you go along. I've had that pattern in my library for quite a while. The pattern calls for crochet thread, so I think this lace weight yarn will work. I crocheted a little swatch but it calls for a D hook and I only had a C available. My B, D, and E hooks have all evaporated!

Again, I'm not sure which color to go with. I'm debating between the burnt red and the pale yellow.

The last of the published patterns I have my eye on is the Jade Sweater from Elsebeth Lavold's "Book Two: The Sentimental Journey Collection." This book is very possibly out of print so if you see a copy grab it. This is another pattern I've had my eye on for a while. No hesitation on color here, I'm totaly using that royal blue. The trick with this one is the pattern calls for 5 sts/inch and I'm getting 6 sts/inch so I'm probably going to have to rewrite it for my gauge. Considering the small would have been big on me I would have been fussing with it anyway.

The final color I have plans for is the deep yellow goldenrod one. I want to knit something fabulous that will take lots of buttons because I think that yarn is a fabulous match for the tartan buttons I made. For this sweater I'd like to do something clever with a non-traditional neck line that goes diagonally across the sweater. You know, from the center neck down to one armpit.

The question is whether my knitting math skills are up to the challenge.

I'm also tossing around several shawl patterns that would use the yarn held single. And, of course, I'll have to reserve some for when the pattern books are available so I can make an official pattern.

I Have Been That Busy

That I've barely had time to knit.

And if I didn't have time to knit I definitely didn't have time to blog.

Appalling on both fronts, I know. I have to rebalance that whole work/life thing.

But all was not lost!

Done: Hubby's Rouge Socks
I finally finished Hubby's Rouge Step socks on Saturday. I've been working on them for like two months, which is entirely too much time to be knitting a pair of socks.

He must have forgotten they were for him as he has not been campaigning for them. Also, as I was working the last few rows of the toe decreases I held the sock up in a meaningful way and he said, "Those are for me? They're cool."

He hasn't worn them yet. Probably because after I finished them he put them on the end table and never took them upstairs. Fortunately he doesn't get dressed in the living room in the morning so they missed their chance this weekend.

Recap
Standard Hubby sock pattern.
I did mess up calculating my gauge, started with too few stitches, ripped out, and started over.
Heel stitch with garter edge flap.
Austermann Step in Colorway 08.
US 1 needles.


Green Fingerless Mitts Progress
Have I mentioned it's hard to take a picture of your own hand?

Well, it is.

Anyway. I worked a third repeat of the Triple Leaf Lace pattern. I has really grown on me (no pun intended). And I thought I should just go with it. And I thought if I'd decided to use it from the get-go the mitts would practically be done by now. Well, aside from all that stockinette stuff flapping around at the beginning.

Still, I can't leave well enough alone. I swatched one of the, uh, mini leaf patterns. Drat, I don't have the book with me. I think its in the first Walker Treasury. There are like three different versions listed together.

Anyway. It's very nice and actually more along the lines of what I had in mind.

But I really liked the first pattern. Hubby also preferred the first pattern.

Of course, I had to take it into Westport Yarns on Sunday for even more votes. As you might expect everyone voted for the first pattern, although one customer did give a half hearted plug for the second pattern, but agreed the first was very nice.

So there you are, the first pattern wins. I worked out my stitch count Sunday night and I've already cast on and knit two rows. It's just a matter of knitting them now since I know what I plan to do.

I had better knit fast. Danni, at least , is going to be stalking these gloves. Possibly Pam as well.

Turns out they both have skeins of Ella Rae Lace Merino at home that they haven't assigned to a project.

This surprised me since we don't carry it at WY. However, it confirms your suspicions that even LYS staff shop at other stores on occasion.

Green Fingerless Mitts: Swatch 1

Here is the first pattern I'm considering for the mitts.

I think I have four to test all together.

Actually, there's quite a bit going on in this picture.

At the top you see my plain stockinette stitch portion when I was just getting a feel for the yarn and a baseline gauge.

Then there is some smocking. I do like the smocking stitch. My idea is to have the lace framed by the smocking stitch.

Then finally the lace. It's the Triple Leaf Lace from the second Barbara Walker book.

I only worked two repeats. And I made a mistake in the first one. sigh. I'm thinking I should work a third repeat to get a better idea of how it looks.

I'm also thinking I shouldn't try to take pictures inside on rainy days as they just come out looking icky.

Looks like tonight's knitting will be this pattern again. Must give them a fair shake and all.