Hole in One

Here's the front of the Mo-cha Latte BullsEye before I picked up the stitches to create the circular area.

Almost On Target

I'm ambivalent about this project at the moment. I love the look of the bullseye part (I think the striping came out well), but the addition of the circular center is causing more distortion than I would like -- the front grew length-wise and width-wise by about an inch. And, probably not surprisingly, the BullsEye area pooches out a little bit. And, finally, the edge of the BullsEye looks a little "dirty" because of only one row of stitches in the charcoal color where I picked up the stitches.

I need to think a little bit before I go on. I'm going to try pulling in the BullsEye seam on the back of this panel and see if that pulls the shape together a little better. If that doesn't work, I am going to have to decide whether to frog or just to block the other pieces into a compatible shape. Fortunately, there's enough give in this fabric that the blocking option isn't necessarily a bad one. And his sweater is already a little on the large size for me (38" at the bust line), so a little extra roominess probably won't hurt the look.

I'd love to hear any other opinions or suggestions!

Bulls Eye Shaping

Not so much knitting tonight because a good friend from Denmark arrived today and I spent the evening talking to him. But I did make some progress. I'm really fascinated by shaping right now. Mostly because of the felting thing. Bags lend themselves to all sorts of novel shapes. The idea of knitting a circlular piece intrigues me.

In this sweater, you leave a space for the circle and then pick up stitches and knit inward. What you see here is the shaping for the base of the circle. Each side is knit from a different skein of yarn. I made no attempt to match the colors. I like the contrasts as well as the blending.

This is knitting very fast. I can definitely see the front of this sweater getting finished over the weekend. I just love things that come together quickly!

What I am about to talk about today is a perfect example of why it is important to have store model sweaters. If this sweater had not been hanging in the window of Knit A Round, I probably never would have noticed it. Or I would have said "neat" and moved on.

Right on Target

It wasn't really the striping that got me (I love Noro, but a girl can only have so many striped sweaters) -- it was the big circle in the middle and the airy gossamer quality the yarn had. How perfect, I thought, for a sweater to wear over a turtleneck. This is when I realized why people like mohair.

Up to this point in my knitting career, I have avoided mohair like the plague. It seemed pretty obvious to me that any ripping adventures would be met with frustration and that it wasn't stuff I could wear against my skin unless I wanted to take up itching as professional sport. But this sweater is all stockinette and it was meant to be worn over something. It seemed like the right time to try something new.

Reynolds Fusion comes in a number of colors. For once I acted like a real midwesterner contemplating a long winter and picked something subdued -- browns and greys with blue undertones. I figured it was bold enough to have a bulls eye on my chest, I could probably keep the color more simple. Fusion is 64% mohair, 27% acrylic and 9% wool. There's a dark center cord with a lot of fuzzy mohair blossoming out of it. Almost like eyelash but somewhat more diffuse.

In spite of there being 136 yards in 50 grams, the stuff knits up on US #10 (6 mm) needles. So it knits up fast.

The Back of the Mo-cha Latte BullsEye

I started the sweater late Saturday afternoon and finished the back on Sunday morning. It took a skein and a half. Yes, it's all sockinette and there's no shaping except at the shoulders. But it knits up so fast, and I had so much fun watching the stripes that I never really got bored. I just love the chocolately brown stripes... I can almost smell the coffee.

Here's a close-up of the back that shows off the texture a bit better:

Up Close and Personal with Fusion

Soft and fuzzy and light as a cloud. And the mohair hasn't given me one iota of grief so far. Probably the only drawback is that I have picked yet another pattern where one of the pieces is worked with two balls at once -- and I am going to have to pick up a bunch of stitches. Otherwise, its perfect to work on while I am waiting for my Cascade 220 from ThreadBear -- they had a skein of the color I needed in the dye lot I needed. How could a girl get more lucky than that? A big thanks to Rob for helping me get my project back on track! I have access to a lot of local yarn stores, but I don't know a single one that I can get personal service from at 11 at night.