Twisted

I do appreciate the supportive comments regarding my last post. I don't want to go into exactly what upset me; I have always been a very private person, and although I have read many posts about other blogger's personal tragedies, that's not how I roll. Fortunately, I have several IRL friends to talk to, and they have been a great help. But the virtual hugs are nice - many thanks. Luckily I am not back to work until next week, so I have some time to sort things out. *********************************************** Ages ago, during my second SeaSocks cruise, we went to Tricoter in Seattle. One of the women who run the shop is quite a talented designer who can sit down with you and come up with a simple pattern that works for you and the yarn you have selected. There was a sample tank top which had been knit out of 2 different types of Blue Moon Fibre Arts yarn: Twisted and a mohair blend (Silkmo? Kidmo?) I wasn't crazy about the texture that the mohair added, so I instead got a skein of Twisted and a skein of Geisha, (which is a mohair yarn with minimal halo), as well as a pattern for the tank based on my measurements. It has sat in the stash with other potential projects since then. A few weeks ago, I decided to instead use the Twisted to knit a Jellybean Vest. I had hoped that I would be able to complete it over the Labour Day weekend, but I ended up doing other things that weekend so didn't make that much progress. A single skein of Twisted is 512 metres, so based on the pattern requirements, I knew I would be cutting it close. In an attempt to make the yarn go further, I cast on with contrasting yarn which I will use for the armhole edging as well as the "wrap". The mock wrap is an I-cord which runs up the front and the neckline edging; at the end, stitches are picked up along this diagonal band for the applied I-cord. Very neat idea. After knitting the front, I had exactly half of the skein left. Since the back will use more yarn, I knew that I would not have enough yarn. It would have been OK if I hadn't had to lengthen it, but then the waist would have sat at the bottom of my ribcage. Luckily, there was another Toronto knitter (Dr Steph) who had used the same colourway of Twisted to knit a baby sweater, and she has been kind enough to send me her leftovers. By the way, the colourway is "Carbon". Initially I thought it was the magenta that drew me to it... ...but maybe there was more to it than that: Somehow, shedding on this is much less satisfying than usual. One of the "other things" that kept me from The Twisted Vest" on the long weekend was this: This is a Buttonhole Mobius Wrap. I am knitting it with Silk Garden Sock yarn held together with Estelle Cadenza. The idea for that mix came from a shawl pattern created by Martina at Kniterary . The one-row buttonholes are much easier than I had initially thought. My goal is to finish this in time for me to wear it to a wedding at the end of October. I also visited Mokuba (which is a totally awesome shop - makes me want to knit more projects that feature ribbons!) on the long weekend and found some ribbon for my Honest Tee: There was a different ribbon which appealed to me more on the spool, but surprisingly, this ribbon looked much better threaded through the eyelets. Kind of like how sometimes handpainted yarn looks better in the skein than it does knitted up. Now it is just a matter of figuring out the best way to anchor the ribbons at the top and bottom. There needs to be a bit of give to it; I will have to try the top on and do a bunch of torso contortions to figure out how much exactly.