Lopi | PDXKnitterati

I love my blue Stopover sweater; I wear it a lot! The sweater is light as a cloud, and the Lopi yarn does not pill at all.

I knit it last spring in 8 days during the BangOutASweater KAL. I’ve decided I need another one, this time in red.

My first color combo made sense in the skein, but when I started knitting my swatch the black was too harsh. It was red, black, and one of the grays. Note how the black is the darkest tone in the picture above. I wasn’t happy, so I pulled out some pink and green from my leftovers to see if that helped. I wanted a cloudy feeling to go with my light as a cloud sweater.

We had an ice storm last week, and that meant I couldn’t get to the yarn store to pick another color. I almost got desperate and cast on with the green to go with light ash and red, but was afraid it would be too Christmassy.

On Saturday things were thawed enough that I could stop at the Knitting Bee and pick another color, as well as teach at For Yarn’s Sake. Here’s what I have now.

I love that the garnet red as the main color is the deepest tone, just like the lapis blue is on my original sweater. The light ash and white are like frosting at the edge. I’ll still use the spring green, but only as the color pops on the yoke (where the yellow is on the blue sweater). Just a little Christmas, but not overwhelming. I’m cruising along, and have finished one ball of red and am on to the waist shaping. Go, go, go!

What’s on your needles? Are you gift knitting? Done? I finished my Kilter hat for Mom, and it’s on its way and hopefully will be helpful on her trip to Antarctica. I want pictures!

Having fun so far with the #BangOutASweater project. Sometimes planning and dreaming is the most rewarding part.

I didn’t love the spring green Lopi that I chose for my color pop when I swatched with it. Through the magic of duplicate stitch, I auditioned several other colors to see if I could find something I liked better. I used six different Malabrigo worsted colors that were leftovers in my stash.

Purple, yellow, red (actually Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride)
Moss, orange, apple green

I’m leaning towards the yellow, so I tried that by itself.

Maybe. Maybe just a little too much? I also like the moss, which is almost the same color as the original Lopi, but maybe a bit softer.

I asked for opinions on Instagram, and they’re all over the map! Some people liked the idea of using All THE COLORS, which could be fun, too. I may just knit the MC and not put the pops in, and then duplicate stitch them in afterwards. That would have two advantages: One fewer color to manage on that row, and I could swap out colors whenever I wanted to, like a necklace. Crazy? Maybe not!

With all this prep, how could I go wrong? I cast on yesterday morning. The contrast color borders were looking disconcertingly pastel, but all was well once I got to the main color. It looks like a blue valentine!

But it was also looking suspiciously small. My gauge had dropped to 14 st/4″ rather than the perfect 13 st/4″ on my swatch. Grrrrr. I frogged it. I think my gauge swatch is laughing at me from downstairs. Swatches lie!

I don’t want to use a bigger needle, so I’ve cast on the next size up. That will compensate for the difference in gauge, and it should come out the size I originally intended. Hopefully my gauge doesn’t switch back! But it’s looking pretty steady, and the fabric is neither too dense nor too holey. I’m on my way to banging out this sweater.

It’s a good thing it’s not a race, because I’m also in the middle of banging out a poncho. More knitting, more fun! I’m designing with this gradient set from Three Fates Yarns.

It’s pretty wild having a project in Aran weight and two projects in fingering weight at the same time. (I’m leading the Black Trillium Fibres Twin Leaf Crescent KAL this quarter, too.) But I’m enjoying them all. Knit like the wind and bang out all the knits!