was totally stoked...

that I had a plan! Knit up a quick swatch of the ‘Briggs and Little’ Durasport – it is their sock yarn but is slightly heavier that the high-priced, balled sock yarn. It’s a one ply, 80% wool, 20% nylon, 4 oz/113g/430yds skein and although it’s been around for years, there’s only like 8 colours for some reason. I had made myself a hoodie with fairisle stripes https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2015/12/random-thoughts-confessions-rest-of-plan.html , wore it a few times and then abandoned it, not sure exactly why but I chalked it up to the yarn not being as nice as the Forsell 4 ply I was used to. https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-final-of-that-4f-thing.html Could have been no pockets, though - got fed up with it by then…
So now, looking at the leftover skeins, I initially thought I’d have more than enough for a jacket for a man. 400 yds times about 8 skeins means 3200 yds and on the standard gauge, you’d have plenty. I had made the swatch on the LK150, double stranded, T9, washed and dried it, liked the look and feel but something held me back. I had also wound all the skeins into machine-useable cones and somehow it didn’t look like quite so much. I was excited to have a plan and wanted to get going – on the bottom of the swatch, I had made a small, quick hem – starting off single strand, every-other-needle, just for the cast-on, then all needles and  at T4, still single, knit about 12 rows. I could see it was not the weight I wanted and that’s when the idea to go double-strand came to mind. So, hung the EON row to make a hem, added the second strand, dialed up to T9 and made the swatch. After laundering, I loved the little single-strand hem, it did the job of making a nice bottom, didn’t pull in too much and was totally easy. The other option I was considering was making 1X1 ribs on the standard gauge machine and transferring them to the LK. Thought that would be less bulky that going with the doubled stockinette bands of the original garment but wasn’t looking forward to the extra work of moving everything from machine to machine if you know what I mean.
Tempted to throw caution to the wind, I could just start knitting and see how far the first two cones would take me but the thought of having to unravel double-stranded knitting stopped me. Decided to be scientific about it. Weighed the swatch. It’s 30g. Took the swatch and laid it out on the tweedy pullover, counting how many swatches would make up the entire area of the sweater – 6 for each sleeve and 10 for each back/front, total of 32 swatches times 30g means 960g total – more than a little shy – considering pockets and hood and a cardigan should be slightly larger than the pullover! Back to the drawing board?
On the plus side, got both pieces made, successfully, for the Rib’nShrug and the pattern well underway! ;)