#local wool

having finished the front and back panels and 7 skeins remaining for the sleeves, i am beginning to suspect that i grossly overestimated the amount of yarn needed for this sweater

I’ve been meaning to knit a new tee for a while. I made a Marettimo tee a couple of summers ago and have worn it year round.  I used a fairly cheap Rowan yarn as the main colour and it has not worn all that well [also it’s an acrylic blend so I overheat like crazy].

The Marettimo fresh off the needles in 2018.

I decided to use lockdown to make a Navelli tee to replace it. I’ve had the yarn for this for a while: three skeins of Baa Baa Brew Marble 4 ply in the Mulier Fortis colours ‘Emmeline’ and ‘Valentina’, and the ooak  Tits Out Collective skein from Bluebell Yarns. Since both are a BFL/Masham 4 ply I knew that they’d work well together.

This knit took me longer that I expected [I started in April I think?], partly because I had to pause for some gift knitting, and partly because I was alternating the two skeins of Valentina to get an even colour [the joy of hand-dyed yarn is that each skein is unique, but man, alternating the skein every second row is dull], but I am really pleased with the end result:

I did modify the sleeves because the way the pattern is written the sleeves would have ended up as a double layer  – fine if you plan to wear this as a tee, but excessive when I’m primarily using it as a layer. It does mean that I sacrifice the way in which the additional weight would help the sleeves to hang correctly. The body also has a cm or so more length than it should because I went over and couldn’t be bothered to rip back  – can you tell I’m more of a project than a process knitter?

The problem with my being a project knitter is that my Anxiety [that control freak] tries to plan all the projects I will knit for the rest of my life, and basically sits in my brain with a stopwatch and clipboard yelling at me to stop browsing any patterns or admiring any yarn that isn’t on her list. The result is that I stop knitting because it stops being fun.

For me the solution is to knit what I call a palate-cleanser [mmm, sorbet!]: a one-skein super-simple shawl project, using whatever beautiful yarn most appeals to me at the time. All other WIPs are ignored until it’s done, and the process short-circuits Anxiety and helps me to enjoy finishing whatever else I was working on. My usual go-to pattern for this is Louise Tilbrook’s Fuss Free Festival Shawl, but I’ve already made 3 or 4 of those so I went for Justyna Lorkowska’s Close to You shawl using a skein of Countess Ablaze The Bluefaced Baron Fingering, colour ‘Girl at the Rock Show’.

I know this photo is terrible, I was in a hurry. But you get the idea.

I wound the skein at least a year ago so it was nice to get it out of a project bag and turn it into something. I’d like to think I’ll wear this, because I love the yarn, but I enjoy knitting shawls more than I enjoy wearing them [they fall off and try to lose themselves, or I strangle myself trying to adjust them – I should probably just resign myself to the fact that I’m a cowl girl], so this may end up in the gift knits box instead. 

On the needles

I’m 2 sections away from finishing a Nefelibata shawl that’s been languishing for months, and I’m making another Fuss Free Festival Shawl [I know, keep reading] as part of the Every Knitter Group KAL. Hopefully, I’ll be back to show at least one of those off next week.