Saturday, December 26, 2015

Perpetual Progress

black dress
On the way to becoming overbaked brioche

I'm not quite sure what it is about finishing a project, really. No sooner did Timberline come off my needles (the sleeves are currently blocking and the body & button/neckbands are awaiting seaming) did I suddenly feel like I didn't have enough projects going on. Nevermind that the Sherwood and the Sheep Vest/Sweater have (still!) yet to be finished - they don't count, really... I mean, they don't count anymore, do they? - I needed to fill that hole in my life that needs a million projects going on at once to ensure I can never have finished everything! And so that pile of black yarn above, Elsebeth Lavold Eucool (which I've used for my notched hem tank), has started on its long journey to becoming a dress. A long dress with full turtleneck, in brioche. Which will also hopefully be accompanied by a not-so-long full pattern.

madelinetosh tosh dk
If you only knew me through this blog, you'd probably think I loved pink.

Then I swatched for a Chevron Cardigan with my madtosh tosh dk (in Torchere, which I am starting to think of as meaning "torturous pink" although I do adore it so). I think I'm going to go down a couple of needle sizes - one full millimetre, in fact, which sounds like I'm making it out to be something small, but for knitting, it's actually quite a bit of difference - so that I'll have a denser fabric. I don't want to have to go down to 3mm needles, which is what's preventing me from getting a fully dense & plush fabric that won't let quite as much wind through, so I'm settling for 3.5mm. The silhouette looks vaguely bomber-jacket like, so I'm going to run with it and play it by ear. Possibly lower the neckline a bit to make it more of a crew-neck, and do ribbing at the neck as well, before doing the buttonband (or after?). And in the meanwhile I can but hope I have enough yarn to get me through without having to play around with different dk weight yarns in my stash to supplement it as a contrast colour (hello sugarplum tosh dk!).

Swatched
Einband, swatched the dark teal

Did I also mention that I've finally torn into the Einband my brother brought back... last year, was it? Or the year before? Just to swatch, but I've swatched, at least! And now I'm not sure I want to use it for the dress I was swatching it for... which was an adult version of this children's dress.

Cotton slip for wearing under dresses, possibly?
And then there's this pale pink cotton lace yarn I got from the Knitter's Frolic. I know what I was thinking - $20 for 2 of these! That's really good! - but I don't know what I was thinking: pale colours don't become me very well. But I have been thinking about maybe getting a slip to wear under my dresses so they don't keep going between my legs while I'm walking, so maybe I can just knit one out of this? I'm thinking of a Cosy Vest.


So the unfortunate thing is that none of these projects will be making it into the TCK12sweater2015 challenge, but at least once the top two are done, I'll have an addition of two very wearable items in my wardrobe (the pink is arguable, but it's such a glaring pink I might just wear it all the time), as well as two sweater-quantity spaces freed from my stash bins. And if I make the slip as well, then that's probably almost one full skein of these cotton lace yarns gone from my stash, which is a bonus. All of this is a win for me. Of course, that's after/if I finish these projects. And there's still the Romni's Boxing Day sale this Monday*.



* I was so disappointed (and very relieved for reasons I'm sure you can divine) when I thought it was going to be on the Sunday because I knew I'd be working the entire day for sure and wouldn't be able to make it, so imagine my surprise when they announced it'd be on the Monday! I'm going to be knitting a dress for a dear friend of mine, and she's specified black as the colour, so I will be prowling. Otherwise, I'm thinking about purchasing Miss Babs' Katahdin or Kilimanjaro in a black or purple-black to make it for her. If all else fails, I've got a sweater-ish quantity of black cottolin I can use.

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