use it or lose it....

Gosh, I feel like I’ve been sweating over that freakin’ pattern for the Church Cardi for the whole darn month! What’s the big deal? Between visitors, our crappy summer and family stuff, it’s been hard to concentrate and when I look back, it’s been a while since I’ve actually written a pattern from scratch. It was like I forgot what to do. I almost gave up but that’s not my nature and I did promise, so I knew I had to deliver. I was having trouble deciding on the sizing and then my numbers weren’t adding up. The break-through? Yesterday, it dawned on me! Just draw the darn thing out and you’ll be able to see what the problem is – oh man, then it was a cake walk! I used the full width KR half scale paper that is charted in half scale centimetres for the Silver Reed charting device and had green, black, blue and red ink lines for each of the four sizes and I feel so good and virtuous – this pattern will be perfect!
I even knit a sleeve to check the final lace pattern details and I know you’ll be happy with all the extras! Truth, of course, I didn’t just happen to have enough of the same yarn just laying around and, I didn’t want another one for me, but, since sister Janet booked our next hiking holiday to Ireland for next June, you know it…Janet is getting a Church Pullover for Christmas! ;-) I’d hate to waste a good sleeve! I’ve had this huge cone of cashmere/wool in ivory – yeah, I know it’s not her favourite colour but if she really doesn’t like it, I’ll dye it for her and likely, she’ll love it just because it fits! You may remember, she’s a little vertically challenged and before I started knitting for her, she’d never had a sweater that had the right sleeve length!
I know you might not have the exact yarn either so here’s my stashbusters tip. My original yarn is Cascade Ultra Pima, a 100% mercerised cotton with a beautiful drape and sheen that I used at T3.5 stockinette for a gauge of 23 sts and 30 rows to 10 cm. This is an unknown cone that I’ve had for eons and who knows what yardage or whatever it is, but it looks like about the same thickness. I knit 3 swatches, starting with T4 (because I could go up or down from there) and it seemed a little tight to knit and I didn’t want to have to sweat that much, so I made one at T4.5. After I washed and dried those I saw I still had a little leeway – T5 proved to be the magic number – my gauge is exact, it was smooth to knit and the finished, washed swatch is lovely, with a nice drape, so that’s what Janet is getting! I know I’ll be regretting giving up this lovely yarn but there should be an expiry date on some of this stuff anyway!
The Church Cardi/Pullover pattern is ready! I’ll post it here for sale, next week when I get back from St Cloud!