New project on the needles

Since moving to Hawaii in July, and starting graduate school in August, I have knitted very little. Grad school is a lot of work, especially at my age! Like I said, I did little knitting last semester but I did get straight A's. I love what I'm doing but I miss knitting.

So I have this old sweater my mom gave me a few years ago for Christmas, I love it and I've worn it to death. It's looking pretty ratty, my daughter has 'borrowed' it a couple of times and helped get it to the ratty condition it is in. I've decided to knit myself a replacement. The original sweater is black (said daughter in sweater):

It's a 1x1 rib in acrylic. I chose Classic Elite "Devon" silk & wool yarn in my favorite color of green. I bought this yarn in Los Angeles maybe 3 or 4 years ago and it's been aging in my stash ever since. :) If I remember correctly I went through a big box of clearance yarns and bought every skein of the stuff they had, there were 13, at 123 yards each. I don't know if that's enough to make a sweater as long as the original, so I'm using Barbara Walkers 'Knitting from the Top' and designing as I go.

I'll try and be good and update my progress/process as I go. Hopefully I will get the sleeves done by the time school starts and I can just do the mindless knitting of length in between assignments.

Here is my swatch, the gauge on the label is 5 st/in on #6 needles, I'm using 9's to get a more open drapey feel like the original sweater. My gauge is 5.7 sts and 5.3 rows per inch.


I started out with invisible cast on at the shoulders and started working the shoulder shaping at the back. As soon as I finished the shaping for the back, I started on the fronts so that I wouldn't forget what I did. I am documenting what I'm doing in a word document on my laptop as I go along, but I'm notorious for not being able to duplicate what I did the first time around.


The seam is not quite invisible, since you picu pn from the cast on and knit down, and the row is then 1/2 a stitch off. You can see it if you know it's there on the shoulder seams. It doesn't bother me. I don't usually knit in such a loose open pattern, I'm usually a tight cable-knit kinda gal, so this is a nice change for me. Who needs a cable-knit in Hawaii?? This will be the perfect weight for our cool nights with the windows open.


Above-mentioned daughter Maiya learned to knit when she was four. She decided she was going to knit a mermaid from 'Knit a Square, Make a Toy'. Here's how far she got before she lost interest. She's a pretty good knitter, just no attention span.