Cal-looney

I've been knitting away on Calluna, despite the 90 degree heat here in Southern California. With air conditioning, I can almost pretend it will someday be winter again.

As usual, I'm concerned about the size of this one. I'm making the 36" size for my 35" chest. I forgot that it's generally better to add a little more ease for cardigans than for pullovers. Especially with a fairly fitted design like this one. I'm also using a worsted weight yarn instead of the aran weight called for. I am getting gauge, and the measurements are pretty close to the schematics, but it looks a bit snug on Bertha.

I'm hoping (and expecting) that blocking will relax the fabric and also take care of that annoying rolling at the button band.

Knowing that this will be a winter sweater, I'd already decided to make the sleeves full length. I've also decided to incorporate ring cables into the sleeves and give them some shaping instead of making straight, moss stitch sleeves as the pattern calls for.

I'm thinking two of these cables will create a nice, slightly bell shaped sleeve. Then I'll work the upper sleeves in moss stitch, maybe set off from the cable section with 1x1 ribbing, as I did for the body.

This is a fun knit; easier than it looks, too. Even with the cables and the pattern stitch, it only requires occasional pattern-checking, so it's good tv/supervising kids/social knitting. Now I'm off to cast on the sleeves!

Summer Knitting

You may have guessed from the lack of actual knitting content around here that, although I've been busy with other sorts of fibery pursuits, the knitting hasn't really been happening. And you'd be correct. Summer is always a little challenging for me from a knitting perspective. I don't really like tank tops, I don't wear shawls, I don't enjoy knitting socks, and we all know my checkered history with lace. So it's tough to find a summer knitting project I'm interested in doing. And when I finally do, I'm usually disappointed with the results (see this and this). Even if I like the results, I rarely end up wearing the finished product (see this--and remind me again to do an FO post of my Unmentionables, finished for weeks, but yet to be photographed, much less worn).

So I've been looking for a great, wearable summer project for weeks. I've perused Ravelry. I've dug through the books and magazines. I've fondled stash yarns. I've even wound and swatched several balls. And still...nothing.

And then I saw this. Which I love. And I have a sweater's worth of purple Cascade 220 tweed that I picked up during the last WEBS sale. I've been waiting for a great pattern to come along for it.

But, of course, no matter what you call it, a cabled wool cardigan is not a summer sweater. Around here, it's not even a spring sweater. It is, undeniably and irrevocably, a winter sweater. And winter is a long time from now.

But it will come. And I will still be here.

So I cast on anyway! You're welcome, Winter Self.

Mossy

Since finishing Wisteria a few days ago--bringing my finished-but-unblogged sweater total to four, I believe--I have been without a sweater on the needles. Installing the zipper on the Aran Cardigan distracted me for a while, and I do still need to do something about the pockets, but I was starting to get an annoying little twitch in my left eyelid, and every time I sat down on the sofa, my hands would start air knitting all by themselves. In the interests of my own mental health, I had to find something to cast on.

Despite the many, many patterns in my Rav queue--not to mention the many, many other patterns saved on my computer, and the large box of patterns awaiting my attention in the stash closet--I couldn't find anything that made me want to cast on. What I really wanted was a plain, top-down raglan turtleneck in an interesting yarn. I have a couple of lots of Noro in the stash, but I didn't feel like stripes. I have a bunch of solids, too, but I didn't feel like solids. What I felt like was this:

This, as you can see, is Debbie Bliss Donegal Luxury Tweed, which is the same donegal tweed as Takhi and Kilcarra (they're all from the same mill, I believe) but with the addition of a bit of angora to soften it. I bought it quite recently, on clearance from an online store in the UK, and it's been calling my name ever since. I planned to use it for another aran sweater, but I'm just not feeling the love. I don't want to work with it; I just want to play with it.

So top-down raglan turtleneck it is. I figure, I can probably get it done in time to wear it at least a couple of times before the endless summer rears its ugly head again and I have to put all the sweaters away for another six or seven or eight months.

Of course, being me, I couldn't let it go at that. As much as I love knitting plain stockinette--and I say with no sarcasm at all that I love plain stockinette--I was concerned that an entire one piece sweater all in plain stockinette in the round might just get a little...boring. Maybe a nice cable down the front would help. Something a little different. Something bold, that wouldn't get lost in the textured, tweedy yarn. Like the one from Norah Gaughan's Cire Perdue (from Norah Gaughan volume 3). I am fascinated by this cable. I am not, however, fascinated by the background of reverse stockinette, which I don't much like under the best of circumstances. And frankly, the idea of purling an entire sweater in the round makes me a little twitchy. So I just borrowed the cable design and put it into my stockinette sweater as a panel, right down the front. See?

I'm really enjoying knitting this. The yarn is both soft and tweedy, the color makes me think of every growing plant I've ever seen, and the cable is dramatic and distinctive without being heavy. I think I have the sizing right and my raglan increases properly spaced, but I won't know for certain until I divide for the sleeves and can put the thing on a piece of scrap yarn and try it on. But that's part of the charm of knitting without a net, isn't it? If I'm wrong, I can always rip it out and try again. Heaven knows, I'm an expert at that.