Vine Yoke is finished, well, you know, except for blocking, weaving in a few ends and finding and attaching buttons.

For the purposes of the blog, FINISHED!

What a brilliant project. I cast on at 5pm on Monday and knit my final stitch at 9pm on Thurs. Surely some kind of record. A happy, happy upper body garment for August’s resolution knitting.

I made a couple of wee changes, as follow:

• Left off the  sleeves and continued the yoke lace as a kind of sleeve cap by binding off the wrapped stitches from the body piece and turning the last stitch of the body chart into a k on the right side (p on WS) to match the edging chart. I worked 10 repeats of the yoke chart (may be slight overkill, but I have fat arms), then changed the last stich back to a p on RS, cable cast on those 5 stitches before adding the body stitches to the yoke and continuing on with the back.
• I cast on using long tail and left off the last row and bound off using Russian on the w/s.
• I slipped the first stitch of every w/s, because that’s what I do.
• I didn’t read the notes on the first page properly and picked up and knit all of the wraps. It still looks fine, but it took a tiny bit longer than it could have.

This working of the pattern used FAR less yarn than was indicated (3.15 skeins, rather than 7), which is good, because I only had five. In hindsight, though, I could easily have made the sleeves with the yarn that I had. On the positive side, I’ve enough yarn for a cowl and a hat, so…

The yarn (Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Worsted) is absolutely gorgeous to work with, slightly dry with an almost papery hand, I could knit with it all day.

Five stars for this project.

Still knitting along on Vine Yoke.

Day three ended with my having completed 13 of 17 lace repeats required for the back.

By my calculations, I’m 33 repeats in to my 53 repeat cardigan, so well over half way.

I’ve just joined my third skein, so either I’m doing something terribly wrong or the yardage requirements are out by quite a bit. Regardless, I’m very pleased with the way it’s turning out and can’t wait to wear it before the weather turns and it’s too hot.

I babysat my gorgous Goddaughter today, and here follows a cautionary tale of why you perhaps shouldn’t let knitters be godparents to your children.

I feel like I’m going great guns on this project, having completed 5 (of 17) repeats of the chart for the back. It looks like it’s turning out a wee bit large, but we’ll see.

I’ve been a bit… cast-ony of late, so when the new Twist Collective came out, I immediately went not-stash diving.

I’d been saving this gorgeous Lorna’s Laces Worsted for another project, Sideways Spencer Redux by Annie Modesit, but when I saw Ysolda’s Vine Yoke Cardigan, it was love at first sight.

I only have 5 skeins, and the pattern in my size calls for 7, so I’m going to do mine sleeveless and hope for the best!

Zephyrama and I cast on within 20 minutes of each other, so the heat is on to get it done before we hang out on Friday (four day cardi? Doable), so here is my first evening’s progress.

I’m doing the 44″ size, which is one inch of positive ease, and here I’ve done 5 of 7 lace repeats for the front right. I’m loving this project so far.

Another month, another upper body garment to knit.

I had intended August to be Matilda Jane month, having picked up some gorgeous teal-ish Jo Sharp DK that I thought would look smashing with some black Bendi Luxury 8ply that’s lurking around here somewhere.
Maybe next month, though, because the past week spent knitting with Lang Silkdream has resulted in my being bitten by the aran silk/wool bug. I bought a bag of ten balls of the burgundy. I didn’t really know what I was going to use it for and 10 balls seems like it should be enough for a jumper for me. At the same time, I bought 3 balls in the black with the idea of making a little triangle shawl or something out of it, because I thought it would be pretty nice to knit with and wear.

Ariel took 6 full skeins and another 8g from the 7th, which means I have 192g of the red and 150g of the black, which seems to me like enough to knit a nice stripey vest out of.

I started on Sunday, casting on 200 and starting to work in 2×2 ribbing. This is my first day’s progress:

I’m 2/3 through the waist decreases here, pretty happy with how it’s going, though not convinced it will be the most flattering garment!

Last Saturday, I finally admitted that July’s upper body garment was just not going to be finished in time. I’ve knit the body and sleeves and they’re ready to join in a simple colourwork yoke, but I lost my mojo.

I needed a new jumper project, pronto.

Sundays are usually a good knitting day for me, as we sit up late watching films until the MotoGP starts, and we’ve recently been using our Mondays (our day off together) to road trip down the coast to look at farms (more on that later), so I knew I had a good 6 - 8 hours of knitting time there. Combine that with a newly arrived bag of Lang Silkdream in a gorgeous burgundy (sold as red, but what are you going to do?) and a recent flick through the first issue of Yarn Forward and I decided to cast on an Ysolda pattern.

My intention was to photograph each day’s progress, but my camera battery failed while I was away at work.

Here’s the first day of knitting. Gorgeous.

I started this cardigan an embarrassingly long time ago, like, at the end of last winter.

I remember it well, Pants and I were off on a dirt biking weekend at a friend’s farm, so I cast on for greenjeans (I get the song ‘Greensleeves’ in my head every time I think of the pattern) on the drive down to Goulburn.

I knit diligently the whole time we were away, around the campfire, before breakfast, all the way home (thanks to Pants for being the best driver ever) and soon completed a big chunk of it.

It’s a really simple, easy to understand knit, and seamless, my favourite.

Alas, I picked up the stitches for the button bands and stalled there for 8 or so months. I threw it in a cupboard, then moved and unpacked it and threw it into a new cupboard before I decided I needed a little cheat to get my upper body garment done in a month that I mostly spent abroad.

The yarn, Valley Yarn Colrain is one of my favourites, a 50/50 merino/tencel from the kind people at Webs. I used 9 skeins (at $3.99 each), which makes this a brilliant cardi at under $40US.

As far as amendments go, I made it in a thinner gauge than recommended, so I made a bigger size, I lengthened the sleeves quite a lot (they reach my knuckles) and lengthened the body by a few inches. I gave it three buttonholes instead of the one, but upon reflection I like it held closed with just a single pin.

March Upper Body Garment Completed on time!

Still plodding along on the sleeves.

Realistically, I know that wearing super chunky yarn will make me look super chunky, it was never going to be the most flattering garment, but I do think it will be warm. It’s a loose, comforting huggle of a jumper to wear in the Spiraling bunker which gets really cold.

In more exciting news, we have a BIG action day planned for tomorrow. I’m going to dye a ton of yarn and pants is going to make a bunch of fun stitch markers for our sock and lace club friends.

We’re still working on the online shop, but in the meantime we have plans to list a few things on etsy.

See what I did there? I knit more than four inches of sleeves before I bothered to try them on and discover that THEY WERE TOO BIG!?!

Very frustrating.

We watched a few episodes of Leyland Brothers yesterday, and I knit until I ran out of yarn.

Five balls of gianna down and I’m up to the sleeve decreases. I’m going to have to try it on again, but I think I want one more repeat before I join the sleeves, I hate short jumpers.