The Good, The Bad, The Consolation Prize

The Good
She Said Aran is done. Every last end is woven in and it's ready to be washed and blocked. As soon as it's dry I'll be looking around for someone to draft into taking modeled pictures.

The Bad
I had planned on using my new Elann Superwash Bamboo (65% superwash wool, 35% bamboo) for my next project - a short sleeve summer top. The swatch knit up so nice. Lots of good stitch definition, elastic ribs, smooth sheen, crisp fabric.

Then I washed it. Yuck. The ribs collapsed, the swatch grew, the crispness is gone, and worst of all, it's fuzzy.

The bottom two rows of leaves have eyelets. They didn't look pretty even before I washed the swatch so the top two rows of leaves were knit without the eyelets.

I can't believe I spend months wanting to buy some of this yarn before giving in and never bothered to wash the little swatch I knit from the sample skein back in February.

This yarn is a big disappointment. I'm not going to use it for a short sleeve top. I'll probably strand it along with some wool and use it for a CIC sweater.


Consolation Prize
Meanwhile, I had 3 full skeins and several partial balls of purple Cascade 200 left over from the She Said Aran, so I started something fun - a little gansey for CIC.


Pattern: Guernsey Gals by Kathy Zimmerman in Best of Knitter's Arans and Celtics.

Knitting the smallest size, about 24 inches around. Modified pattern to knit sweater in one piece. Added underarm gussets.

Yarn: Cascade 220, 100% wool worsted weight

Color: 7808 Violet

Needles: Options #6