Friday, April 11, 2008

Future Sweater




After several months of steady work, and the last couple of frenzied weeks, I met the first deadline of my sock book- I've done 34 designs, and knitted 58 socks/pairs, which puts me at about halfway done. I'll be back to the regular grind now: knitting for a couple of days, writing the pattern up the next. But I've given myself permission to play this weekend (the first real days off in well over a month), so I've been spinning some more.

I figured out what I'm going to do with most of the newly spun yarn-not the purple/fuchsia/glitz stuff that's going to be a Granddaughter hat, and not the neon striping sock yarn, and not the lumpy neppy mitten yarn, but the rest of the yarn.

I'm going to knit a sweater for myself. I think it'll be stranded. I dug through my tubs of already spun yarn and found a bunch of colors in 2-3 oz skeins that will be perfect with the colors I've been working on. A fingering/sport weight yarn is my default spin, and I have a lot on hand, some several years old, that never found the right project.

I don't know what style sweater yet (except that I want a cardigan), and I don't know what the stranded pattern will be, except that it has to be fairly simple because the yarns aren't factory uniform, and therefore small details might get lost in the occasional irregularities. I do know that the base color will be the chocolate Romney because I have a lot of that roving on hand, plus one large skein already spun, and I finished spinning up/plying/washing a full 8oz bump. I also have more of the silver and plenty of the white, so those can also be good background colors.


I've looped the skeins over the loft railing so I can look at them for awhile and figure out what sort of color-order I want. The motif will suggest itself to me when it's ready to.

And of course, I can't start knitting it until I'm done with the sock book- but it can percolate.

In the meantime, I found a little 1.8 oz bump of purple/red Romney roving left over from a larger project, that I am spinning now. I probably have plenty more than enough yarn for the sweater spun already, but I can see in the skein pic that I need some blue too, so I'll have to search around the wool room and see if there is any blue roving laying about (chances are good).

3 comments:

lisabeedesigns said...

Go you! I'm blown away by how much you can get done. (And I can't wait to see the sock book, though I guess it won't be done by this summer's sock knitting season, will it?)

I love the yarn for the sweater. I'm going to have to keep coming back to drool over it.

(and, though it's on the wrong post, Buh BYE, Michael Johns! I wish you well, but hope to rarely hear your singing voice in the future!)

Kathleen Taylor said...

lisabee- the sock book won't be published until Sept '09, and I still have half of the work left to do... my guess is that I'll get it all done about 4 minutes before the final deadline in July... ho ho...

I am getting very excited about the sweater- I can't wait to find out what the design will be (it'll come to me when it's ready)

lisabeedesigns said...

Well, at least I'll have some time to start saving my pennies to buy the book.

I sat down today to figure out a bag for the month (april, flowers, you know), but I don't know if I'm even going to be able to knit it unless I put down all the other projects that are on the needles already. Need more knitting time!