hand-dyed yarns

Friday Roundup: Spring!

What I’m Knitting

It’s really starting to feel like spring around here, and that always makes me want to trade in my big bulky yarns for lightweight ones. Luckily, I finished the first of my secret designs (bulky yarn on US #15 needles!) and got to switch to another in light fingering weight yarn with US #1 & #2 needles. I can’t show you much, but here’s a little sneak peek at the yarn—the most gorgeous tonal gray—and the beginning of the item:

What I’m Cooking

Spring weather calls for spring rolls, don’t you think? I adore spring rolls, and this new recipe I tried with kale and tofu (from www.minimalistbaker.com) is now one of my favorites:

Peanut butter cookies were also made and summarily devoured.

What I’m Reading

I’m still working away on The Infinite Sea. While I really like this book series, and I think it’s extremely well written, I also find it a bit intense for long blocks of reading. There are lots of kids in mortal peril, something that didn’t bother me quite as much before I had a kid of my own! But I’m enjoying the read and will hopefully be done with it by next week’s roundup.

Friday Roundup: Yummmm

What I’m Knitting

I got another square of the baby blanket done and blocked this week—that’s four down, five more to go! But the yarn for the commissioned designs that I’ve been waiting for arrived today, so the blanket will have to go on hold for a little bit.

My son helped me knit the last few rounds of the square by shoving DPNs into the WIP:

I can’t tell you much about the designs, but trust me, this yarn is goooorrrgeous. It feels like kittens distilled into yarn. Here’s a teaser pic:

What I’m Cooking

Some extremely tasty banana muffins with chunks of apple this week:

And pure vegan comfort food, quesadillas with onions, peppers, roasted corn, and olives:

What I’m Reading

I’m just starting the last book in the Star Wars cycle I’m reading! I don’t want it to end… but at least I have the new Rogue One movie to look forward to in December. (Have you seen the trailer yet? It’s awesome!)

Tough Decisions

(This is one of a series of design posts. The earlier posts can be found here.)

Remember I said we had a failed photoshoot for the gray sweater? Well, I was going through the pictures we got and realized something. Something not so fun.

I think I want to rip out and re-knit 30-50% of the sweater.

This is a really tough decision, particularly because it has nothing to do with the fit of the sweater. The fit is perfect, actually. See below:

What’s not so perfect (and even easier to see in these pictures than in life!) is the really terrible pooling of the hand-dyed yarn at the waist and below. This is particularly irritating because the upper body was knit with the exact same skein, but the smaller width below the armholes didn’t agree with the length of the color changes. What’s worse, I was working on this sweater mostly in the evenings in front of the TV and didn’t notice until the whole body was finished.

It’s also easy to see that the second skein I used for the sleeves and front pocket, while appearing virtually identical in the skein, included lots of dark bits not found anywhere in the first skein.

To tell you the truth, this is the kind of thing I’d ignore completely if I were knitting the sweater only for myself. The fit is perfect! The sweater is snuggly and cozy, just like I wanted! Who cares about some color differences?

But since I’m planning to sell the pattern, I know I won’t be happy with anything less than great pictures. And that is going to require ripping, rewinding, and alternating skeins.

Sigh.

Another factor is the season. This sweater is definitely more of a fall/winter piece. By the time I get it re-knit (sport-weight yarn, remember), we’ll be well into the spring/summer knitting season. So I think this is going into the WIP bin for a few months. I’ll probably revisit it in July and get everything ready for test-knitting during August, which will put me on track for a fall 2013 pattern release.

But it’s not all doom and gloom on the pattern-writing front! I started a new vest design with more Rhinebeck yarn, these two beautiful skeins of Cephalopod Traveller:

Learning from my mistakes, I’ve been alternating skeins the whole way. I’m pretty sure I’ll run out of yarn before I reach the end, but I found a Raveler willing to sell me a skein of this colorway and it’s already on the way, so no worries there. The vest is really, really cute so far. A great cure for the meh of the gray sweater.