This summer, the host of one of the podcasts I’ve recently started listening to,
Subway Knits, was holding a summer “Armchair Knit Along” while she was
in Greece for 5 weeks over summer vacation. The premise was that we
should knit patterns inspired by Greece or photos of Greece or use yarn
inspired by the same. At first, I wasn’t going to participate because I
had absolutely no ideas and no yarn that I thought would work and even
less time for adding another project to my days, but inspiration struck
me and the prizes were SO AMAZING that I just couldn’t say no.
This was my first KAL experience and while I’m glad I got such a
great FO out of it, I’m not sure I got anything much out of the actual
social aspects of the KAL. I’m new to the group and I admit that I’m not
sure exactly how one becomes part of the inner sanctums on Ravelry
forums anyway, so maybe that had something to do with it, but in this
particular KAL there wasn’t a ton of participation and I feel like the
only chatter that was going on was by the moderator of the group and
some incidental posting by a few others. On the other hand, I’ve seen
groups with 4000 people participating in a KAL and I feel like it’s easy
for your posts and what you’re doing to get lost and it’s even more
impossible to keep up, so perhaps it’s better to have something smallish
to start with.
The tank I knit for the KAL was the Aran Necklace Camisole by Caroline Bautista out of Interweave Knits Spring 2010.
About halfway through the KAL, while not at all searching for
inspiration but somewhat lusting after all the amazing prizes, I
stumbled upon an idea. In my stash I had a few remnant skeins of Knit
Picks CotLin from SO’s cardigan that I knit back in May, and one of the
colours is a beautiful deep blue colour called Planetarium. This made me
think about the night sky and how much reference to Greek mythology is
(or used to be) in astronomy/astrology, which then felt to me like a
pretty great tie-in to the KAL. I knew I didn’t have enough of the
Planetarium colourway to make a full sweater, but when I found this
pattern and saw that the yoke part was knit separately from the body, I
knew I could supplement with the remaining Cashew colourway (a rich tan)
to make sure I had enough yardage. Added bonus, the cashew colour could
be reminiscent of the sandy beaches of Greece to fully round out the
theme.
I’m really happy with this tank overall, and it was easy to knit and
fairly straightforward, My only issue with the pattern is that a portion of the gauge
swatch was done over the cable pattern so swatching
for the yoke part of the sweater was overly complex and meant a bit of
adjusting. It all worked out in the end, although I had to knit the yoke
3-4 times (some of this was my own fault for not counting rows
correctly and trying to knit while I was in meetings and other social
settings and losing track of where I was.) The only major mod I had to
make to the pattern was that I needed to rip back the strap portions
because of gauge and because I didn’t want the back to droop as low as
it would have if I stayed with the pattern directions.
This was also my first foray into airplane knitting. I had finished
the final iteration of the yoke while waiting in the airport (first time
taking knitting through security in a carry on. Zero problems, but I
was also flying out of the smaller terminal), and since I had a very
short flight to get across the border to see my family I thought I’d see
about knitting on the plane. For long flights, I don’t think I could do
it because I get terrible pressure headaches on planes and I’m sure
that hunching up in my seat to knit would cause more damage to me than
good. Perhaps not. Perhaps I’ve now become an airplane knitter.
Regardless, I managed to pick up for the back and get a significant
portion of the back (down to the armhole joins) done on the plane with
no problem whatsoever. My Knitters Pride Cubics traveled brilliantly and
no one seemed shocked or annoyed by my knitting and all I had to do at
that point was miles of stockinette, so I consider my first airplane
knitting experience a success.
No comments:
Post a Comment