The Sunday Morning Round-Up

Tahm to circkul the wagons, pilgrum...
Let's take a look at things I have on the needles (at least the ones I can FIND at the moment. oh dear.)
Ah, yes, the Araucania Nature Wool sweater. I got 5 skeins each of something like 8 colors when it came in. This is probably my favorite of the colors I got. Lovely, lovely light worsted weight stuff. A real deserted-island sort of yarn (like, if I were stuck on a deserted island with only one kind of yarn, yadda yadda). Very handpainted, so each skein really varies. This lil guy was actually a much more completed, boat-neck (my favorite of all necks) cardigan, both sleeves worked and partially down the body, with the button band worked along with the rest of the sweater. But, lesson learned, the boat neck looked entirely stupid as a cardigan, the sleeves were wonky, and the simultaneous button band drove me crazy. After I realized these things, I just had to take a deep breath, rip it all out and start fresh. Took me a whole night to rip the damn thing. But now it's starting over as a much more sensible crew neck and I'll pick the button band up after. It feels a lot better, and this yarn deserves to be made into a sweater I'll actually wear.

Speaking of facing the not-thrilled-with-it facts:

The Noro Silk Garden sweater. I coveted, like biblically coveted, this color for the longest time. It was disc'd, though, and I had given up hope of ever getting my hands on it. But lo and behold, when some Noro closeouts came rolling in, a couple of bags of it had stowed along and into my greedy clutches. So I have one precious bag of it, and since it's so treasured I'm really angsting about what to do with it. This is a top down set in sleeve with simultaneous sleeves, going to be a cardi. I've done it before, but Barbara Walker is pretty sketchy on the details in terms of where to take the starting measurements ("full back width" huh?). So I've been going around measuring my pre-fab sweaters to see what they do. And I started monkeying around with the proportions BW gives. Not a smart idea. I think the sleeve caps are going to be a little too poofy, and I'm just not in love with the neckline. I think this guy's going to get ripped out soon and restarted as a more conventional v-neck with sleeves worked after the body. I'd normally prefer to do simultaneous stuff, but the picked-up sleeves are actually a lot of fun. And I'm not even sure I'd do a cardi, because then I'd have to find shirts to wear under it. Oh I just don't know.

And here are a few that don't have so much backstory, though I'm sure I can find a way to elaborate on them if anyone's interested:
A Noro Blossom cardigan-to-be. Poor little guy's just a back right now, little more than a swatch. He might get re-worked, though, because I fear he's a little too wide.

A Malabrigo lace scarf that's been hanging around for awhile, but it really is pretty! I should get back to it.

My current bus project. Franklin socks! I learned the whole two-at-once thing on one circular needle from Melissa Morgan-Oakes. Well, learned kind of like a monkey learning to crack nuts. I saw her doing it one day and the lightbulb came on and now I'm obsessed with it. See. Imitate. Repeat! She has a book about it coming later this year, but I've seen an advance copy. It's double-plus awesome and I think it deserves a spot on every sock knitter's shelf.

And ooooooh.... lookit the pretty colors.... Gail (the Kangaroo Dyer) is a straight-up genius with colors. I dare not venture a guess at how she got her superhuman dying powers. She also dyed the spinning fiber which I worked up into this:

Excuse my blurry picture. Totally. Awesome. I've spun it up into a lace weight single ply to get the most yardage out of it (there was only about 4 oz of it that I could see). I'm just knitting with it straight off the bobbin and then will block it afterwards to set the twist and whatnot:

I know I should have skeined it and washed it beforehand, but there are a lot of fragile places and I'm just too afraid of all the activity of skeining, washing, and winding breaking it. And now I'm committed to finishing this to clear the bobbin! Yeah, heh, we'll see how that works out.

And now for the mother-of-all, the thing I want to TRY to finish this weekend, the thing I'm actually getting paid for. The sugarloaf sweater:

I don't know how the colors turned out in the picture. It's actually a lovely grey mauve. Top down set in sleeve. Ribby. Cushy. The pattern is more visible when stretched. We'll see how it goes this weekend. Now to get back to work.