On the needles: Love Note

The week before Red Alder, I went to St. Louis to visit DH’s mom. She moved to assisted living in January, and we wanted to do a check-in. I’m pleased that it’s been a fairly smooth transition, and that things are going well.

I finished my Chroma Worsted Aspen Leaf scarf on the plane home (FO pix soon). I’ve been working on sample knitting in the new year because I needed mindless knitting during a lot of travel: St. Louis, VKLive NYC, New Orleans, St. Louis again.

When I finished Aspen Leaf, I had a bit of a dilemma. I’m a fairly monogamous knitter, and I had nothing else on the needles.

I couldn’t go to Red Alder without knitting. And I didn’t have the mental bandwidth to design something to work on at that very moment.

I’ve been inspired by Instagram pictures of Love Note sweaters. It’s always fun to knit someone else’s design; it’s like a knitting vacation when I don’t have to dream up every detail. The pattern calls for two yarns held together, so I poked around in my limited stash, and came up with two purple yarns. One is this Lion Brand Silk Mohair that I won as a door prize at the one and only History Unwound Retreat in Colonial Williamsburg in 2015.

The other is Hazel Knits Artisan Sock in the Rogue colorway; I think that means that it’s a one off. I have 2 skeins from my gift basket from the Lantern Moon Retreat that I taught at in 2018. (Click the links for blog posts about these two retreats; they were stellar.)

Would these two yarns play well for a Love Note sweater? The pattern requests a single ply fingering weight paired with a laceweight mohair. The Artisan Sock is a plied yarn, but it’s what I have. I looked at projects in Ravelry, and others have used plied yarns, so why not? And I’m kind of tickled that both these yarns are retreat souvenirs. It would be great to use stash yarn for this project!

I did a half, um, hearted gauge swatch, figured it was close enough, and cast on so I’d have something to knit at Red Alder. I didn’t want to use too much mohair in my swatching, because it’s really hard to frog, especially when held with another yarn! And my yardage is *just* enough to make this sweater.

So we’ll see if I like the fabric; the jury is still out. So fuzzy! And we’ll see if the gauge I’m knitting results in a reasonable sweater. Did I wash and block my swatch? No; do as I say, not as I do! But the pattern recommends anywhere from 4 to 12 inches of positive ease, and I’m pretty sure my knitting will result in ease somewhere in that very wide range. It’s modeled with 7 inches of ease in my size.

I’ve finished another lace repeat since the picture above, and I’m almost to the sleeve division. But I’m not going to work on it for a few days.

I cut my thumb on broken glass, and it was deep! No stitches needed, though. We added a splint on top of all of this to keep me from bumping/using it. I’m hoping I can unsplint to teach classes all weekend. I’m trying to write instructions and knit a swatch for a new class for my Syncopation shawl/scarf. Wish me luck!