Persistent Knitter

Taking Judy’s idea (see comments on this post), I decided to swap the colors around in the Bjerk sweater to try and get more contrast for the pretty flower pattern. When I laid out the colors, the spot color was wrong wrong wrong, so I had to pick something else. Given that it was about 9pm, I had to make do with what I had. I found some green in the same yarn I’m already using, and thought it wouldn’t look too bad.

Here are the results:

Not bad, eh? I like the contrast between the light purple flower & the two colors surrounding it: the dark purple & dark blue. When doing the swatch I assumed I would still keep the dark purple on the bottom; but it could really go either way. Before I start I need to go back to the LYS and trade out the yarn and get more of the blue. I’m not totally sold on the dark green spot. It’s a heathered green, and one I originally bought to be the accent color in Hardangervidda. With that one, the green didn’t show up at all against the dark dark heathered blue (and here you thought Hardangervidda was black!) background and the grey heathered yarn. It lost any punch with the green, so I went back to the burgandy-ish accent with Hardangervidda.

The spot yarn is the least amount of color in the whole sweater, but I think it’s important to get it right. I’ll take a trip to my LYS this week, swatch in hand to get more dark blue yarn and see if I can find a good spot color. I probably won’t get to starting the sweater for a week or so either – so I’m going to solicit my knitting group’s opinion this next weekend – does the green work? A different color? I won’t make another swatch, I’ll just use duplicate stitch to try out a different spot color if I need to.

Gauge
I took some time to measure Gauge on Hardangervidda’s body, now that it’s done :) I did it the “Right” way by measuring 4 inches, I marked the beginning & end of the four inches and then counted between them. I did this in several places on the sweater in the stockinette portion while the sweater was laying flat and not stretching it.

I wasn’t quite to gauge with the pattern (gee, big suprise), but close! I got 5.75 st/inch; and the pattern called for 6. This explains why my husband can wear the medium size when the measurements for the medium wouldn’t fit him.

I’m going to use this number as my gauge for Bjerk, since it’s using the same yarn (Falk) and I can use the same needles.

Now, we’ll see if I can keep the gauge consistent between one project and the next. *snort*

Sock
I’m ready to start the toe on my daughter’s sock. She hadn’t tried it on yet, until just now. She saw me working on the swatch for Bjerk and asked where her sock was. (Sooo cute!) The next pair I make her I’ll cast on a few more stitches. I hope her feet don’t grow too fast so she can wear these all winter: