A Final Friday FO

Dear friends, can you believe it's the penultimate day of May? It really has not felt like May for the much of the month, between all the rain (more like what I'd expect from April) and some unseasonably cool temperatures (more like March). It looks like we'll be heading right into summer weather next week, though, so I suppose I shouldn't complain too much!

Today I have a long-awaited FO to share with you. This top was started before Ruthie joined the family and thus took a lot longer than anticipated to finish, but in the end it did get done and in plenty of time. What's more, I'm delighted with how it turned out!

Pattern: Sugar Maple (Ravelry link) by Carina Spencer, size 36 in. bust
Yarn: handspun from Southern Cross Fibre, Mending Fences (70% superfine New Zealand merino/30% mulberry silk), 74 g/350 yds./320 m used, and Primordial (80% organic merino/20% rose fiber), 78 g/384 yds./351 m used
Needles: US 3/3.25 mm
Started/Completed: April 3/May 27

Though the impetus for knitting this top now was for the SSK make-along, it's been on my radar for a while, and it turned out to be an excellent choice for these silky, drapey handspun yarns. The pattern was designed to use a long gradient, but I didn't have enough of either yarn to use just the one and in the end decided that two-round stripes were the best way to go. Once I figured out how to manage my yarn so that I didn't get gaping holes at the beginning of round, it was all good. I love that there are areas where there's high contrast between the two colorways and areas where it's hard to distinguish between them. Both have some similar shades, but they weren't necessarily complementary or coordinating colorways, so it tickles me how nicely they played together. I suppose that is a benefit of using yarn spun from two batches of fiber from the same dyer!

I followed the pattern as written, other than working in the stripes, and I thought it was pretty clever in how the sleeves are done so that there's no interruption in the yarn. Usually sleeve and body stitches are separated and sleeve edging is added later, but that would disrupt a gradient, so the ribbing on these sleeves is actually done while still working the yoke. On the round when the sleeve stitches are bound off, there's a fancy little decrease done to snug up the fabric under the arms. I was less impressed with how some parts of the pattern was written, but that may be down to my job and the fact that my brain is primed to edit any copy I read (let's just say some additional punctuation would not go to waste).

I likely could have knit a size smaller than I did, my bust not being as abundant as it once was, but I'm always wary of a top that I'm wearing directly on my skin being too tight. I wear shirts under all my cold weather knits and as a result rarely have to wash them. I don't want deodorant and body lotion and sweat gunking up my summer tops, so I generally make them a bit looser.

All in all, I'm really happy with this tee and even happier to have gotten it done even with a new puppy in the house! With knitting time being so limited these days, getting anything done is a bit of a minor miracle, so it's a relief to meet my deadline and end up with a pretty new top to boot. And while I'm still working on my swatch for the next summer top, I could not let all my needles sit around empty. I thought, "What would Bonny do?" and cast on a Hitchhiker.

This won't count toward the SSK make-along, but it is yarn that I bought the last time I attended when some friends and I took a side trip to Haus of Yarn. It's Old Rusted Chair Sock in a colorway called Panic in Detroit. I have no idea of the meaning of that name, but one of the friends I was with was from the suburban Detroit area and of course my father is originally from the Motor City, so it seemed perfect. And it's the perfect kind of colorway for a Hitchhiker, not to mention that the pattern is perfect for the almost-mindless knitting I do while Ruthie is napping in the afternoon.

I'm actually on vacation today (taking a day off so I can accrue more), and I'll get to have a little fun because it's Molly's last day of school for the year, though using "day" is a bit generous because she'll only be at school for two hours for an assembly and then I go pick her up. A friend is coming home with her, and I'll be driving them to do a little shopping this afternoon. Then we're going out to dinner with my parents this evening to celebrate the rising high school sophomore (gulp). The only thing on my calendar this weekend is the first class of puppy kindergarten tomorrow morning, though the first session is for owners only. I'm looking forward to getting some help with training and to Ruthie getting a little less scared around other people and other dogs!

I hope the month is wrapping up well for you and you have a relaxing and enjoyable weekend. See you back here in June!