Circle Cardigan

After an entire summer of knitting, I'm FINALLY finished with the Vogue Knitting Circle Cardigan. This knit is beautiful, but it takes A. LOT. of patience!!

I really like it, and I'm really glad that I finished it in time for the beginning of school. My building is famous for blasting the A/C, so I always need a little something to help out! Staff meetings in the library are notoriously cold as well!

Here it is:


Yarn: Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece - 5 skeins (I JUST tapped into the 5th skein, so I'll knit up a chemo cap with the rest)
Size - Larger
Modifications - the yarn I used was a bit of a bigger gauge, so mine is a bit bigger than others out there, but then again, I'm a bit bigger than others out there, so SCORE! I also left 9" open for the armholes (again, probably because I'm a bit bigger than the supermodel who's modeling it in the magazine). Other than that, I knit according to the directions, which were great (besides the little rant over semicolons - see my RAV notes!)

I also spun up a little skein (131 yards) of some California Red wool for the Spinner's Study group I'm in on Ravelry. Each month we "study" two different fibers - those who knit it share their experiences and findings for the good of the rest of the group. Such a sacrifice!

What I found was this - if oriented the fiber the right way to spin (the way it came off the factory machines, I'm assuming - it would spin nicely up with a long-draw style. The fiber I had was also very "rustic" feeling and would be ideal for outer wear or a vest, but nothing like a scarf or socks - not something you'd want next to the skin. Now that it's spun up and two-plied, I feel the same. BUT! The thing that endears this fiber to me is the RED hairs in the fleece that, when spun up, give the fiber a bit of a tweedy look - very interesting! I hope it comes out in the pictures:





Tomorrow, I hope to try dyeing this stuff up with some easter-egg dyes. I'm leaning towards a yellow or a green. I want the red hairs to still be visible, so I'm going to probably stay away from the blues or reds . . . I'll post my results later on in the week!

Hope everyone's having a great summer. Stay cool - it's finally gotten hot here, and besides the school shopping that I just HAD to get out of the way, I'm only venturing outside to go to the pool if this keeps up!

:O)