Knitting Log for December 17

While knitting away on the boring Opal Lollipop socks, I've been day dreaming about 2006 projects, which resulted in some swatching.

This is Knitpicks Shine a 60% pima cotton, 40% modal blend in color Blush.

I bought one skein of it to check out the color and the feel of the yarn.

I was hoping for a pastel pink. The color is bright bubble gum pink. I won't be buying any more of this color unless one of my granddaughters just has to have it.

The yarn was easy to knit on #5 bamboo needles. I made a large swatch to test if Shine would hurt my hands like most cotton yarns do. It didn't.

Knitpicks calls Shine a sport weight yarn, but I think it's a bit heavy for sport weight. On the stockinette swatch, I got perfect gauge for a DK weight yarn, 22 stitches over 4 inches after washing in the washer and dryer.


The stitch pattern on the larger swatch is for the Aguave sweater designed by Katherine Hunt and published in the Summer 2005 Knitter's.

This pattern calls for DK weight cotton yarn, and, once again, the Shine worked almost perfectly to the DK gauge.

In fact, the swatch results were so much to my liking that I just ordered 14 skeins of Shine to knit Aguave in River (dark blue).

This could be the beginning of the end of my Guidelines for Knitting Peace. I need to be very careful or I'm going to have too many projects going at once.

The Follow the Leader Aran Knitalong (FLAK) starts January 1. Keeping up with the group is going to be my number one priority. Unfortunately for my planning, I don't know how fast the pattern is going to unfold. Janet, the designer, is going to be knitting just ahead of the group, and I would imagine she is a fast knitter. On the other hand, she has many simultaneous projects, a newsletter to publish, and two children to slow down the FLAK pattern installments.

There is also an Anniversary Pi Knitalong on the EZasPi Yahoo List starting January 22. My thoughts on joining and what type of Pi shawl to knit are still so muddled, I'm not going to write any more about it now.

Has anyone noticed a lack of pictures of a finished Hanover Jacket? It's been sitting in the back room for more months than I care to admit to, so I'm not going to look up when I finished knitting it. It needs the sleeves set in and the side seams sewn. That's all. It's been screaming at me lately, so I think I'm going to sew it up soon.

Why do I avoid finishing garments once the pieces are knit?