dillydallying?...

 dragging my feet? lollygagging? procrastinating? camping out? Yes, yes and hell yes!

Honestly, I was pretty pumped with my design. I had knit the two plain stockinette sleeves first while thinking and re-thinking the body of this lacy jean jacket. I had it all planned out, sideways knit, making it in one piece, planning out pockets (that’s the lime green ravel cords awaiting further developments), shortrowing some shape and I was all gung-ho! I added more of the lace circles in the stitch pattern, spacing them alternately every 10 stitches, increasing the hands-on work (by the way, there are 8 RTRs in every 36-row repeat!). But, approaching the centre back, I started thinking, ohmigosh what was I thinking? It was going forever! And as the first centre front edge hit the floor, after reminding myself that this was cotton and would/should shrink up a lot, I was re-measuring my swatch, re-calculating the row counts, re-measuring my shape, totally questioning my sanity. Do I cut my loses and quit? Admit defeat? Continue into madness?  

I was really close to losing interest, having an increasingly difficult time motivating myself to continue. I had another project that I’d like to get into but felt that abandoning this mid-stream would mean relegating this precious yarn to UFO status. Not acceptable! Persevered, finally on the home stretch of the last half front, pulled out all the stops and got ’er done!

Taking it off the machine, stretching it lengthwise and folding it into the garment shape, saying, what the haich? No worries, this will be fabulous!

jean jacket re-visited...

Don’t know about you but I’ve come to hate that term, ‘hunkered down’! I prefer to think of it as just getting on and doing what needs to be done. So, I’ve been sitting around, wasting time, putting in time, whatever, but I have been knitting!

A while ago (LOL! turns out it was like 4 years ago) I had a plan of knitting a lacy denim jacket https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2017/09/regifting.html

and after a bit too much research, that was abandoned. https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2017/09/missteps.html

Last week, after realizing I was cabled out, I started making a quick list of things to work on. Went through my knitted wardrobe, tried on several things and I remembered that recurring dream of denim and lace in a jean jacket style. Pulled out those old notes and swatches and just by chance, the RTR Lace Cardi was at hand. I really love that fabric which is a sideways knit combination of purl-st ridges and hand-transferred simple lace. My first thought was that I never really get to enjoy that stitch pattern because it is basically in the back of the cardigan and it dawned on me that using it again would give me those vertical lines I was looking for and still satisfy my need for a hands-on approach to knitting in general. Revised my design and it’s a go!

all Aran-ed out...

The red one was fun, a lot of cable variations, and it kept me busy for a bit! Made it, overall, quite a bit longer than the original, more like a tunic length. 

The Sleeves have a combination of 2X2 and 3X2 cables in a chevron pattern and the Back is basically the same but more cabling because of the length. To add a wee tweak to the Front, I ran a 6-stitch (2X2X2, turned alternately every three rows) braided cable up the centre, then the 3X2, turned toward the centre every 8 rows, 2X2 cable every 6 rows, another 3X2 and then the 2X2 again next to the armhole edge. The Back and Front are not identical because the braided cable, but I respaced to make sure things matched over the shoulder. Just wanted to show you the finished product but I’m pretty sure I’m over cables for a while!

Been dreaming up new things! Stay tuned!