With the cooler temperatures, I've felt an urge to cast on a bunch of new projects, though I've managed to limit myself to two. First is Rainbow's new school sweater, which I started Monday night. I'm knitting her the Gramps Cardigan again, this time in the largest size in the pattern (a size 8). Because I've knit this pattern a couple of times before, I didn't bother to swatch -- yes, I know, a knitting cardinal sin! I'm using the same size needles I used the last two times, even though my yarn is a tad thicker. A true size 8 would still be rather large on Rainbow (who is mostly wearing a 6 or a 7 these days), so I figured being slightly off on gauge wouldn't be a big deal. I haven't touched this project since I started it, but I've already finished the bottom ribbing and nearly one cable repeat.
Unfortunately the yarn is quite a dark green, which makes it hard to photograph on a rainy day, but at least you can see proof that some knitting has been done. Now that I've established the cable pattern, I expect this will knit up fairly quickly (it's nice to knit a sweater with no shaping for a change -- no counting of rows involved!).
I did finally graft the striped/stranded cowl over the weekend, though that final step was not without drama. I guess I was really tired when I sat down to do it, and I completely forgot that I needed to use the attached black yarn for grafting. I didn't remember this until I had already cut both strands of yarn and woven in all four ends. Fortunately it wasn't too much of an effort to join a new strand of yarn, but I was feeling rather like an idiot for a bit there. In any case, the graft is done and the cowl has been blocked, so I just have to finish the last bits of the pattern and take some photos to get it ready to send to my tech editor.
Shortly after I finished the knitting on the cowl, I cast on for a new design idea in some sock yarn that I was sent by Ginny of FatCatKnits. I worked on it for a few days before coming to the conclusion that it really wasn't working up as I envisioned and frogged the whole thing. I promptly started over with a different idea, and this version is going much better.
This yarn is highly variegated, so it really needed to be something with a relatively simple, plain stitch to allow the yarn to shine. I really like how garter stitch shows off all the colors without looking muddy.
I suppose given the weather I shouldn't be surprised that tomorrow is the last day of September, but truly I'm amazed at how quickly this month has gone by. October looks to be just as busy -- and I really want to find time to knit myself a sweater before too long!
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