Fearless Fibers Yarn

The Thrill of the New

In spare moments here and there for the last couple of weeks I've been playing around with stitches and swatching and plotting and measuring and swatching and planning for my next larger project.

Before I dive into the new, I suppose I should give you an update on the two other projects that I tried to focus on finishing in December. Unfortunately, I don't have much news. The knitting is done on the zipper-front sweater and the sleeves are now seamed in. I need to do a crochet edge before having the zipper put in, but for the life of me I can't locate my crochet hooks. I don't crochet, but I know that I bought a whole set of a range of sizes of hooks about a year ago when a local Joann's Fabrics was closing up and had a big sale. Where I put them, I have no idea. The funny thing is, I'm not all that concerned about finishing it. I think I'm going to like it very much, but I guess in the end this proves that perhaps I am not much of a "product" knitter. Now that the end is right there before me, all of my motivation for the project is gone.

As to the ripple stitch afghan, I did get a good bit done in the first part of December, but I've barely touched it lately. My excuse is that I've been too busy, with my time split between Fearless Fibers and working on getting my former home ready to go on the market. (We are finally ready to do that and are sitting down with our realtor tomorrow.) If I'm entirely truthful with myself though, I must admit that being busy is really just an excuse for not working on the afghan, because somehow I have found the time to plan and swatch and begin my next new project. It's the thrill of the new enticing me again!

The new project is a cashmere sweater. Yep. Cashmere. Sweater. For me! I've wanted to make myself one for some time and finally decided to do it. I'm using my sportweight cashmere in the Promise colorway. (Don't go searching my shop for it, because I have none in stock. In fact, all of my cashmere stock is pitifully low right now, but I'll find time to do something about that soon, I promise!)

Here's a rather terrible photo of the work in progress. Please pardon the streaks of light interfering with your ability to see the pattern.



Now before you go looking all confused and concerned, let me explain. You're correct if you think that the bottom portion of this looks way to small to be a sweater. It's very narrow when left unstretched, but the pattern intersperses the cables with ribbing from the bottom right up through the torso. When I stretch it out gently, it grows tremendously. It looks odd and the whole thing may not work, but for now I'm just trusting in the process and that all of my planning and swatching and calculations will work out in the end.

I'm thinking of this as my "Be My Valentine" sweater. Take the red tones of the yarn, the "embrace me" call of cashmere, the colorway named Promise, the X & O cable pattern, and the timing with Valentine's Day looming ahead, and it seems to me that this sweater is destined to be my Be My Valentine Sweater.

Only time will tell if it all works out. I want the cabled section to gently hug and skim the torso before the sweater fills out in stockinet for the bodice. It will likely have short sleeves (I love a sweater that works in the springtime). I'm still vascillating on whether to do a little mock turtleneck, perhaps with the X & O cables repeated and the mock turtleneck knit the shortway and attached to live neck stitches, or whether to stick with a crew neck but with some added stitch detail to liven things up.

That's most everything I've done on the knitting front lately, except to add a bit to the simple scarf that I'm making for one of my friends. In fact, I think I'll go try to finish that up right now so that I can bring it to him tomorrow when he'll be having dinner with me and my husband. Time to sign off and knit now . . .