All of a sudden the yard is covered in these little yellow flowers. I don’t remember having them ever before and I can’t say that I’m unhappy about them. I love yellow and a perfect lawn is impractical here at the lake because no chemicals can be applied. So, we just accept whatever we get … it’s a good life lesson, frankly. Acceptance.

In knitting this week, however, acceptance wasn’t the thing. Not at all. I’ve written about my impulse buy of some lovely Artyarns degrade silk mohair hand-dyed yarn that I bought because I couldn’t get the sweater out of my mind. Well, I am waiting for my daughter to try on her sweater and in the meantime I cast on the Make Mine a Double pullover in the Artyarns Double Mohair Ombre yarn. It’s luxurious, 2-ply silk mohair and the colors are incredible. I chose to make the Medium because I didn’t want a lot of ease (12+ inches). However, when I got to separate the sleeves and just knit the body stitches in the round, I tried it on and I didn’t think I had enough ease. SO … I frogged back to before I separated the sleeves and added one round of increases to get to the number of stitches I needed for the Large size and now I’m knitting down the body again.

I am so pleased with the yarn colors and this neutral-ish colorway will go with so many things! I now have to decide how long to make the sweater. The designer wears a lot of cropped garments but she’s young and has a cute figure. I’m not young (at least chronologically) and my figure, well, let’s think about acceptance again … I am truly working on it! My best guess is that I will wear something under this sweater because I think it will be too see-through for my liking and so I am thinking to make it a “normal” pullover length but I will keep trying it on with my jeans and see what I think. So far I’m still using the first hank of the yarn and I will have both sleeves to knit. Again, the designer used one hank of the yarn so she knitted the sleeves first (to her prefered length) and then finished the body. I am going to go ahead with the body and then knit the sleeves. ALTHOUGH, now that I’m looking at it, I might like to have the body be more of the blue and chocolate brown and the sleeves be lighter … hmmm. I may have to cake up the second hank before I continue.

Truth be told, this is a lot of fun. I’m enjoying the challenge of creating the sweater that I will like to wear and be comfortable in partly because I spent a lot of money on the yarn and partly because I love to wear comfy clothing! It’ll be interesting to see where it ends up … and I am not afraid of frogging another couple of inches of mohair if I really need to. It’s a booger to frog but it’s worth it to make a garment that I really love. Stay tuned!

I’m making progress on my Jaunty this week, too. I’ve got it to about 30 inches and have started the second ball of yarn. I have three … the pattern suggests using 45% of the yarn before you begin the decreases and I suspect that I’ll follow her advice so I don’t run out of yarn at the very end. I’m not a big risk taker. *shrugs shoulders

I love the squishy fabric that this scarf is made of and I can hardly wait to block it because I suspect it’ll be even softer and squishier! I chose two different colorways because I wanted a big scarf that I can wrap around my neck a bunch of times and I like the two together so far. The first ball is more purple and the second one is more blue … we’ll see how the third one works in (or doesn’t). We do have another hank of the blue colorway that I may have to put away just in case and I can use the purple one in another project if needed. The stitch pattern is fun and easy to memorize which makes this a good evening project or a good one for when I’m teaching (and with that said, I did un-knit two rows yesterday because I lost track of my pattern).

I’ve completed the first sock and last night I turned the heel on the second sock. What good progress I’m making! I have really enjoyed this pattern and I still love the Socks Yeah! yarn. It’s wonderful to knit with; not at all splitty and so soft but wears well, too. I’m liking the pink colorway and the lace! Again, the pattern is easy to memorize so it’s not bad to knit when I am watching TV with the hubby at night or teaching on Friday or riding in the car. I’ll enjoy wearing these soon when the weather cools a little bit.

And that’s all she wrote for today. I may be headed into the shop this afternoon because we think it may be busy as it’s the last Saturday of the summer yarn sale. It’ll be good to get back to “normal” at work. (If any of you know the store I work for, you’ll know we aren’t like your normal yarn store. LOL)

Gone knittng!