Weekend FO

It should be the law that all yarn must be this beautiful.













Pattern: Green Day - but I called it Santorini, because the blues remind me of pictures of the place.
Yarn: Galatea by Yarn d'Amour in Skye Blue, almost every last scrap of 3 skeins
Needle: 5.5mm circ, 4.5mm circ
Mods: Several...

1. I knitted it in the round and carried the cable from the twisted rib up the front - it's not very noticable because it's not flanked by purl stitches but it adds a bit of interest.
2. I added an extra repeat in the back and a few stitches at the front to size it up (although it's VERY stretchy and I'd probably have been alright without).
3. I did my own thing with the armholes. I thought I was going to run out of yarn, so I knit myself two long straps first and then set out up the back, when it became evident that I WOULD have enough yarn to knit as per the pattern, but too late to match the decreases on front and back. It doesn't notice and I like how it turned out.
4. I knit the neckline ribbing with one twist to echo the waistband ribbing.

A useful technique I used for this was spit splicing the yarn together at the end of a skein - really effective and has reduced the number of ends that need weaving in, as well as making the yarn go that little bit further. I really thought I was going to run out. My poor knitting group were forced to waste considerable amounts of their time helping me to pick out a complementary yarn to do the ribbing and agonising over how it could be changed, and in the end it was totally unecessary - though it was a close thing.

On this garment, I picked up stitches the way Liz Lovick taught us to at the Fairisle. You use a much smaller needle (I used a 3mm), pick up every stitch, then knit a round (don't knit the stithces as they're picked up), then switch to the recommended needle size and decrease across the picked up stitches until you get the right number. This worked like a dream. It came out superneat and actually made picking up the stitches a joy, whereas normally this would have languished in the UFO pile for a month or more while I put it off endlessly.

Check it! So neat.




















Now, I just have to wait for the cold weather so I can wear it.