So I decided on a whim that I would start my handspun sweater. I had dyed up a particularly glorious batch of Blue Agate merino roving without a clear plan of what to do with it. Spin it? Sell it? Sell it spun or as roving? Keep it?
Then I noticed that a few other Etsy roving-dyers had posted what looked to me to be colours that would coordinate very well with my Blue Agate. I ordered them and started spinning. I saw a picture in my head of a basic cardigan that would stripe out in different, but coordinated colorways from similar rovings.
This is the front:
This part will really blow your mind. When I had spun enough of the three different rovings to get started, I looked at the yarn and thought, hmmm, maybe a size 9 needle. and then I looked through my copy of Fitted Knits by Stefanie Japel, and thought, maybe something like this (looking at the short sleeved yellow cardi), but without that big panel thing.
And then I cast on. I made a guess about gauge (no swatch) and I made another guess about how much to start with, and I started knitting. Basic top-down raglan with open fronts. I'll add a band later. I knitted and worked increases, took note of the happy marriage of yarn with those size 9 (5.5mm) needles and carried on. I changed yarns, increased some more, knitted some more, put it all on a string, tried it on, put it back on the needles and kept on going.
This is the back:
In the spirit of making things up as I go along, I worked increases until the top part fit to where you divide off the sleeves. I knitted and tried it on again and decided where a bit of waist shaping should go. I'm working on that part now.
Here is a pic of two of the three spun yarns I'm using with some of that delectable Blue Agate roving. The spool has more yarn, cuz I was starting to run low on that colour.
Today, I'm working waist decreases, and I just put it down this second to take an up-to-date photo of where it's at. Stay tuned for more updates...
By the way, I'm having fun with this :)
