Back to the grindstone after a lovely four days off work.
No photos, alas, I've been busy knitting and planning!
MrC offered to do the cooking over Easter, leaving me free to knit (and not cook roast dinners!)
It started off well.
In the frist two days I finished my Crosscountry cardigan and a pair of dk socks. I started another pair of socks and some felted slippers for MrC.
Sunday I realsied that the base of my thumb was very sore. making movement a bit painful. It's most likely caused by knitting double strands of aran weight wool on 8mm needles. Which meant that Sunday was a da of rest. NO KNITTING!
Instad, MrC pulled out my bin of summer yarns - these are the packs of yarn suitable for summer garment knitting, mainly cotton or blends including cotton. I spent a lovely morning and afternnoon rummaging through this stash and on to ravelry browsing patternbs.
I pulled out two aran weights.
Stylecraft Malabar - easy to knit and easy care. But it's bright orange and I'm not sure I want to knit this until it's properly summertime.
Summer Tweed - though lovely I struggle at the best of times to knit with this, so it's on hgold until my thumb is much improved.
And two dk weights
The cone of 'Cathay' rediscovered wutgt ge Synner Tweed,
Stylecraft Malabar in DK weight, but it's bright pink!
Finally, three 4 ply yarns
Rowan Fine Milk cotton in blue
Rowan Panama in an off white
Rowan Summerlite cotton in an off white
Monday I cast on. I chose the Fine Milk Cotton and Wishes cardigan, a design by Joji Locatelli. I've not knitted any of her desings, and this particular design ticks the boxes for me. Top down, seamless and open.
Weeeellllll. When I knit shawls, I don't start off with the Garter stitch tab. I dislike it. I find it fiddly and twisty and it's even worse if you have to start off with a provisional cast on. Trying to unpick it when I've barely started knitting is a pain.
This pattern has a 1x1 ribbed tab! The borders are 1x1 ribbing and this is the back of neck collar bit. I couln't really think of how to do an alternative, unless I just do garter stitch borders, so I just did it. Not with a provisional cast on though. I can live with a little line at the back of my neck/
I'm sad to say that I've had to abandon the Fine Milk Cotton. It looks lovely and soft in the ball, but the quality is dreadful. I've had two knots and weird overspinning (which looked like a knot but couldn't be unravelled). All at the befinning.
Second attempt iw with the Summerlilte. The collar is done, but I'm not happy with it. Cotton is not as forgiving as wool, and where I've picked up stitches there are holes. Very messy, I'm not too sure that I can avoid holes, unless I knit iwht a wool-cotton blend. Harumph.
This morning I looked at the next bit of pattern and saw tat the ribbing is put on hold whilst you knit the yoke. My frist thougth was that I may have to do a ribbed knitted border separately, and sew it in place 'slightly stretchd'. Something I've not done since the eighties! But no, you go back and rejoin it somehow. I'm sure it will become crystal clear as I work my way through the pattern. She also has extra stitchmarkers around the raglan lines, not something I like doing, sm, k1, sm! At the moment I'm only using a few markers, but might have to add more if it gets complicated. I do like the finished project, and her pattern is clear, it's just hat I'm not used to her style yet... she has some fabulour patterns, well worth checking out. I think this is one of the easier ones, Do check her out.
So this is my current knitting. It wwill be slow going, thin yarn and metal needles...