After finishing Erin, I thought that I might treat myself to a new project over the weekend. I know, I have socks, a lace stole and Foolish Virgins on the needles, but I have several packs of yarn under the table tempting me to start my sixth garment! Instead, I spent the entire weekend trying to decide on how to finish Foolish Virgins scarf, lots of picking up stitches, trying various techniques, abandoning each one! I've now decided what to do, more later when it's done :)
So, next garment. I had four choices (from under the table!)
Peace kit from Kim Hargreaves, in Rowan handknit cotton, teal.
Rowan wool cotton in lime green
Louise Harding Aimee in lime green, to knit a Marion Foale cardigan from a knitting magazine.
Rowan Calmer in a very pale green, to knit Preppy from Studio Nine.
This is how I spent an entire Monday evening:
* browse ravelry for a project for the wool cotton. Two choices, Cheer, from Rowan 32, or Bea from Kim Hargreave's Precious.
* hunt down Rowan 32.
* spend an hour deliberating between the two. I decide on Bea, as it's a more summery design for a very summer colour.
* hunt for 3.5mm lace needles (I have plenty of 3.5 addis, and interchangeables, but wanted lace addis)
* frog barely started shawl to get the 3.5mm lace addis (where have the rest disappeared to?)
* knit a tensions square.
* decide to work on Bea later on, when the weather's a bit warmer.
* opt for Preppy 2 instead. I've already done a tension square.
* spend another hour working out buttonhole placement, as I want to put buttons all the way down, and I want to knit the garment in one piece up to the armholes, to avoid having to seam striped garter stitch. See how not to seam!
* decide it's too risky. If my row tension changes I might have oddly spaced buttons, especially as I get near the top of the band!
* get the tension square and seam that. Looks fine (ignore the pale seaming, I kept forgetting to knit all the edge stiches, so some were purled instead)
* cast on the back.
This is how it looked this morning. Colours aren't true, this was inside, no flash, early morning. The garter stitch isn't perfect, I had to tink back where i split the yarn, or knitted two rows, but it's not as bad as in this photo! I thnk it's the shadows!
I'll try to get a better outdoor shot over the weekend. The colours aren't pale blue and pink-red at all; they're pale green and red!