old yarn...

The weather has  definitely turned – no sleeveless and something warm required! Really like the shape of that tunic so my next attempt is same but different. A bit longer, with long sleeves. In checking over my wardrobe, I realize I have nothing very casual and zero in the way of a pullover/old sweatshirt sort of thing so, here goes! Pulled out 2 cones of Forsell Suva Nights in midnight, black and dark navy, really old stuff, wool with a cotton slub, knits as 4 ply. Used this yarn lots in the past but it was discontinued long ago so this could have been on my shelves 15 years or more. I want to knit the 1RT (one-row-tuck) loosely again to create a thinner fabric and I go back to one of my favourite Knitwords patterns, ‘Caped Wrapper’ from #43 https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2013/01/hybrid-knitting.html Swatched, making sure to use waste yarn before the ribbed cast-on because this yarn is already on the soft/not too strong side, without factoring in the age thing. Got the swatch made, with T9 and the second set at T10. After getting it off the machine, I could see there were a couple of breaks in the rib but because it was Full Needle Rib, it picked up and knit without me noticing, not something you’d want to happen in a garment but the single bed stuff knit perfectly. I determined that the loose tension on the rib was the source of the problems and after washing and drying the swatch, jumped into full garment mode in spite of the few little breaks. Using a tighter tension for the rib worked fine and I had the Back done in no time. In case the yarn breaks across the row, here are a few tips: https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2019/05/even-i-had-my-doubts.html Another thing I do is the position of the machine: https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-sound-of-silence.html Long story short, on the Front, the yarn broke once, but the ‘thwack’ alerted me in time and no problem. Feeling confident, and knitting slowly, the first sleeve just about did me in - I stopped counting after 9 breaks, but persevered because it was always happening at the end of the row and nothing was lost, didn’t have to rip out or rehang anything. By this time I was contemplating sleeveless but determination kept me going and what do you know, the second sleeve came off like a dream, no breaks! Got it finished up, washed and dried and love it! It will be my Thanksgiving dinner outfit.

PS  Blogger has changed things and I'm not figuring it out...