Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Spa day


 A finish Sunday evening!! It was a celebration after knitting each sleeve twice, one was too big start over and do it right. The second sleeve was too narrow just enough I could feel the difference on my arms, start over, re count my stitches in both sleeves at least a dozen times, keep knitting count stitches again and again, finally got it right at least they feel the same on my arms. Then to knit the ribbing on the neck three times I adjusted the stitches in the ribbing to extend the legs of the cables. Sometimes I like things to be symmetrical and it’s done!!

Stitch in the ends and give it a soak and rinse with hair conditioner a spin through the washer then lounge in the sun. I lounged with it and read in shirt sleeves, I hope I didn’t get sunburned.

The yarn is Tahki Donegal tweed wool homespun it was a bit stiff to knit but when I blocked my swatches it became soft and “bloomed” I had never experienced a yarn blooming like this yarn did.  When the fibers are spun into yarn they are stretched tight so the yarn felt hard almost for lack of a better way to describe it. When I soaked the swatch and sweater in shampoo the fibers relaxed as they soaked up the water and puffed up.  It feels totally different than what I knit. The hair conditioner softened it even more. You can see how the yarns changed on the left yarn off the ball the yarn on the right after the spa treatment.

Oh my how the weather changed from yesterday from 62 to 22 F with a strong northwest wind. My sweater is cozy warm and I did not get a sunburn.

The pattern is “Brookings” designed by Marie Green I knit short rows on the back before I started the ribbing to make the back a little longer. I have knit this pattern a couple times with different cable patterns. I like the way the pattern fits, I will probably knit it again someday.
Winter is not over, stay warm in wool —Ann— there are snowflakes in the air

2 comments:

Judy S. said...

Beautiful! Nice work.

Ramona said...

Such a beautiful finish.