Design Process; Next Project

As the Lemony jacket nears completion I begin contemplating the next project.

First, I played with some zig-zag patterns using three colors. The idea is to use up the two skeins of cream left from Canyonville and the left over coral from the Drops Brocade sweater. I have some nice turquoise that I know looks nice with the coral.

I used Stitch Fiddle to come up with a design, using the Grey Sparrow as a starting point.

I use sleeves for swatches when I feel confident so off I went.

Turns out, I do not like the way the coral plays against the off white. It looks better in the photograph but in real life it makes my eyes hurt.

I was also troubled by the turquoise. Not how it played but in the quantity I have on hand. There is enough of this yarn for about a half of a sweater. This application needed just shy of three skeins and I have more than four.

In the background, I have been creating an inventory of my stash. I discovered a few important things:

1) I have some Reynolds Debut, which I thought was DK, but is really worsted. I have 250 grams of navy blue which would be very nice against the coral.

2) I have a lot of brown. I may have liked browns but now this seems to be a problem.

So, the next try is inspired a bit by the Tour de France. Specifically the AG2R team that has been riding in the same turquoise, brown, and white jerseys for years. Here is Romain Bardet, who, incidentally looks like an anime character in those colors.

The next choice was to pull a two color project out of my queue. I decided on Drops 55-14. I like the pattern a lot, and I also like the pops of a third color on the cuffs.

I'm not fond of the hemmed edge that the pattern calls for, so I decided to try a slip stitch pattern in garter stitch. I'm interested these days in alternate edges and using slip stitch patterns for cuffs and collars.

So, again, I started on a cuff. I used a slip stitch pattern from Barbara Walkers's second Treasurry and the bright yellow from Lemony.

Again, it looks better in the picture but I decided that the yellow was too bright. I was also surprised that the brown/turquoise contrasted less than I expected. The idea is still good. Next try will use brown and turquoise for the slip stitch section and brown/yellow for the medallion section. Then, I will skip the third little contrast design and go straight to the main body pattern.

Good think that I don't mind ripping.

Parts Parts Parts

Another road trip, some Tour de France viewing and Lemony progresses.

I did not like the cable down the sleeve from the model so I improvised. The cuff is a strip of cable, grafted ends and the light yellow picked up and knit from there.

The model shows a hood which I also did not like. Hard to tell from the picture but there are neck decreases for a V neck. The cable edge will extend around to the back neck. MannequinAnnie on Ravelry did something like this.

I'm trying to spend some time documenting my stash. The Ralvelry application is great for this. I'm finding that some of my vintage stuff is not listed, so I'm creating pages there as well.

So much to work through.

My plan was to begin with the worsted and work my way down in gauge.

I'm re-thinking my plan.

Road Trip Knitting

I spent a lot of last week documenting my stash. I started with the worsted weight and found that it helped me get my head around the horror that is my yarn supply. I am not nearly done but I will be offering yarn for sale or trade on Ravelry. So, if you are in the United States, please take a look.

I spent a lot of time in the car over the weekend travelling to a sailing event. Lots of car knitting. I am making a scarf with the leftover Cascade Casablanca that I used in the recently completed Drops brocade sweater. I'm using a herringbone stitch and I think it is quite nice. My husband has already claimed it.

I progressed on the swirl cable jacket enough to sew down the swirly cables. I think one needs to be adjusted a bit, but I'm still thinking about it.

I did not do the sewing in the car.








In fact, I decided to crochet the swirls in place. Here is a detail....









The car knitting was working up the right front and some of the back. I eventually became annoyed with wrestling three balls of yarn that wanted to twist together and resorted to the scarf which was the back-up project.

Shaggy Success

I became interested in finishing this project over the weekend, mostly to discover if I was going to have enough yarn. Almost didn't make it. The beige ran out partway through it's last repeat so I substituted the toasty color and the Lamb's Pride brown/grey was replaced with the other Lamb's Pride grey/brown. The replacements were done only on the back. Even so, I doubt that most people would notice.

I very nearly ran out of the berry color which would have been a problem. But I didn't so I call this a success.

Leftovers