Sneak A Peek -

Okay so here's what I have been up to since Saturday.

After the wildly successful completion and enjoyable wear (Sorry, Misty) of the purple sweater with the mild Fair Isle technique, I decided to go crazy and do one full-on.



Yes, it's FIVE colors, all going at once, knitted in the round with the intent of steeking it and making it a cardigan once it's done.

These are all color variants of one yarn: Suss Cotton. When I first started to knit I bought WAY too much of this stuff and it's just been sitting here. So I decided I'd get it all into play and out of the way.

This is the same Elizabeth Zimmerman-style seamless sweater as the purple one. She recommends wool but I much prefer cotton. This is 4 stitches to the inch.

I had SOOOO wanted to try the Top-Down Seamless Raglan (yay, MJ!) but the truth is I chickened out. Instead we have this Fair Isle Madness, which is coming out great.

The one thing you really should know about this technique is that it uses twice as much yarn as just knitting, so if you're trying to clear out your yarn bins (as I was) this technique is either more than ideal or a slippery slope to disaster.

What the hell do I mean by that?

Well I had a full 4-oz (180-yd) skein of the green, orange, white and pink, plus maybe a third of a skein of the black. That would be WAY enough to make a whole long sleeved sweater had I STRIPED the thing. The way it's going now (I'm just at 14'' high - the point of the armhole - and stopping body work to make sleeves) I HAVE TO GO BACK TO SUSS FOR MORE YARN!

I have enough to finish the sweater as a sleeveless shell, but if I want to have sleeves (eew, a sleeveless cardigan is - what - a VEST?) I need more yarn.

Normally I can get one whole sleeve per skein, but remember this takes TWICE that - so today I found myself back at Suss buying Four More Skeins (one each color) and am still keeping my fingers crossed.

So much for a project that HELPS me by depleting my yarn stash and requiring no cash outlay....