Yeah, yeah, it's about ten degrees above the boiling point of water outside, but I like to think ahead to a time when the sun won't be so angry at us and the wind will bring the chill of autumn. I love autumn, more than any other season. It smells like heaven, and temperatures are actually comfortable occasionally.
So I took stock of my closet and realized I'm terribly short of sweaters. At first I considered saving up the blunt and just shopping myself warm and then I thought, Wait a minute, you're a knitter! Why bother shopping for the finished item when you've got a stash like the stock of a small yarn shop and the skills needed to turn it into whatever you want?
So I've finally decided it's time to knit my first sweater for myself. A little but uncertain about it, because that is a lot of knitting time on a garment that (with my history of crap gauge) may or may not actually fit, but I think it's time for me to knitter-up and give it a go. I mean, what have I got to lose? Just time, and that will slip away whether or not I knit a sweater in the interim. Might as well do something that will be useful -- if only from an intellectual point of view, depending on the fit of the finished sweater -- while I'm watching it fly by.
I've chosen Tubey for my first attempt. I browsed through the projects on Ravelry and looked at the Tubeys (Tubies?) knit by other Ravellers, and it seems almost universally flattering -- provided you knit a large enough size. I have measured my assets (hemhem) twice. I know exactly which size I need to make. I know how much yarn I need. I just have to...go for it.
I'm using this yarn:
For whatever reason, the purple at the left looks sorta blue, but it's not. It's more of a true royal purple than this picture shows, although the pink and yellow came out alright. I do not understand why digital cameras have a problem with purples, but they do. Frustrating for a fiber artist trying to convey her vision!
I was going to use these yarns for a sweater I, personally, designed, but time and money being what they are, if I want a sweater before winter this year I'll have to make do and use what I've got.
It'll also help clear out some of my auxiliary stash. That's always a good thing.
And if you aren't from around my parts, you should know we're in the middle of a drought. A pretty bad one, actually, and the constant sunniness is starting to depress me. But guess what we got yesterday?
Yeah! Rain!
It didn't last long, and in the return of the super-nasty heat, whatever water was left on the surface of the ground instantly turned into a hot mist. But for a few minutes, it was rain.
For the duration of the storms, life was worth living again. Hope returned and I no longer felt ground down by the eternal sunshine. Then the literal clouds parted and the emotional ones descended again. Sigh. The sun was shining yet again today. It's like a Dremel to the head, the sunshine. It just never stops!
We may get more rain this weekend, though. God, I hope so.
Maybe this is why I've been bit by the sweater bug. Thinking about autumn makes me happy, and autumn is about sweaters.
Before you ask, yes, I'm still working on the problem of Loki 2, the Avengers Scarf. I still cannot figure out how I want to knit it. There's so many options, and I'm trying to weigh them all out. I think I know how I want to work it, but I've got to give it a few more weeks to percolate.
Designing my own? Easy-peasy. Following a pattern? Eh, not so easy, but do-able. Using a woven item to design my own pattern? Yeah, take a number. It might take a while. :-p
Besides, I've got a ton of items in my "in process" bag. I think I need to clear a couple out before I can really concentrate on Loki Deuce. Maybe tonight I'll get another glass of chocolate milk (my beverage of choice for relaxation) and try to get a few more inches of my Double Cross scarf knocked out:
This picture is actually several weeks old, I've got about six inches completed now. It's coming along pretty well -- the stitch is a faster knit than I'd have thought, the yarn is like buttah in my hands.
I won't cast on for my sweater until the end of the month. Just so I can get rid of some of my pending items first. Not that it will help anything, and I probably won't be able to resist casting on before then, but it might help. Just a little.
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