Sleeves, that is.

I’m knitting exactly as directed with one exception: the sleeve decreases. You start with 160-something stitches and decrease down to 70 before starting the cuff. I decreased down to 96, then worked straight for the remainder of the “body” of the sleeve — about 4″. Then I decreased down to 72 stitches and worked the cuff on those stitches. I’m happy with how it looks. I don’t like too-narrow sleeves.

Loki really doesn’t care one way or the other.

For my next trick . . .

This design is called Linsey, a pattern I purchased from Jamieson & Smith Shetland Woolbrokers. (That link to takes you to a page for a kit to knit this design, currently out of stock. You can purchase the single pattern via Ravely.) It calls for 4 undyed shades of jumperweight shetland wool.

I had an idea.

I love Elsawool Cormo so much, I decided to knit mine from 4 shades of Cormo fingering weight. And I took it one step further — I purchased Elsawool Cormo Lambswool. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see the lambie choices.

Am I happy with my decision to use this yarn? Heck, yeah! It is gorgeous, consistently spun, I have yet to see a knot in any of the skeins, and it is soft and bouncy.

Speaking of soft and bouncy . . .

I’ve dropped off the face of the earth for a bit due to ongoing mysterious health issues (not coronavirus-related). Still not back to what passes for normal, but I did manage to finish my Pitch cardigan, although my photography skills are not too great for this one.

But you get the idea.

And perhaps some answers.

About my Summit pullover: “the collar seems to be 2×2, was it worked on larger needles?”

The 2×2 rib for the collar was worked on 4 different needle sizes: I started with the same size used for the ribbing and then went up a size every 3″, per the pattern instructions. Since the collar is 12″ deep, you really need to keep loosening up as you go or it would not lay correctly. Nifty, huh?

And there was a comment/question a while back about how I get my stockinette so even. I am very lucky in that my tension/gauge is identical for knitting and purling, and it always has been. So I’m sorry to say, I have no words of wisdom here.

On to my current project . . .

I’m loving every minute of my work on the Pitch cardigan. Elsawool Cormo is one of my favorite yarns and it is one I’ve used a number of times, in different weights. This is worsted weight and it knits up so beautifully into cables and texture.

There was a question about whether Elsawool Cormo pills. In my experience . . . no. I knit my Crazed Scandinavian Cowl from the fingering weight and iin the winter It gets a lot of wear. And it still looks brand new.

As I said, I’ve used Elsawool Cormo in fingering, sport, and worsted weight and have yet to see any of it pill. It’s a lovely consistent yarn with virtually no knots or variations in the spin.

This project, Pitch, is from a Brooklyn Tweed pattern. I tend to like Brooklyn Tweed patterns because the construction is usually in pieces instead of the current trend to knit everything in one piece to avoid seaming at all costs. (Do not get me started . . . ) And the patterns are generally very well-written and edited.

But I always have issues with the layout and design. This pattern is 33 pages long! This is partly due to the extreme detail (which is not necessarily a bad thing) and partly due to the page layout, which has extremely deep margins: the top margin is 2.5″, sides are 1.25″, and the bottom margin is 1.5″. The pattern is printed in a small size: 9 points. There is plenty of line spacing, but I still find the font size too small to read comfortably. White space is a good thing, but I wish they’d reduce the white space and make the font a bit bigger.

My solution is to export the pattern pdf to a Word file, delete out all the instructions that do not pertain to the size I am making, then lessen the margins and increase the font size. By doing so, I can make the pattern a few pages shorter and a lot more readable. Still, it would be nice not to have to spend a couple of hours re-formatting the pattern to make it usable.

It was seven years ago today . . .

. . . that this glorious little fluffernutter came home with me. Happy Adopt-i-ver-sary, Loki!

I finished Summit last week.

This is a design by Sloane Rosenthal, knit from Rowan Softyak DK, one of my current favorite yarns. The only mode I made was to knit the sleeves in stockinette stitch instead of 2×2 rib. Honesty compels me to admit that I did it by accident — I had several inches on a sleeve before I bothered to read the pattern and discovered that it was supposed to be worked completely in rib. But had I been paying attention, I probably would have knit them in stockinette anyway. I also made them a bit wider than the pattern called for. I do not like tight sleeves.

Here’s my new project:

This the start of Pitch, by Emily Greene. I am knitting it from one of my all-time favorite yarns, Elsawool Cormo. This is woolen-spun worsted.

Meanwhile, Loki is spending time in his crinkle tunnel.