Okay, I am not using the yarn that you are supposed to. I am using a variety of fingering yarns, some would come from Knit Picks. Some would not. After reading Sweater Quest, I am … uh, hesitant to mention more until I get this done.

I am cheating? Am I saving money by using…uh…other yarns for the yoke while dropping a bomb on the body yarn (wools often make me itchy)? Probably not. Shhh.

1/2011 Almost done with body and sleeves. Joining is soon, and then all those damn gauge and technique swatches will be very very closely examined. Drinking will occur. My head will need examining: floats over nine stitches long? Ish.

5/2011 I can’t do floats that long. I am (gasp) rewriting the charts so I get the same color changes but with …fewer stitches. Sacrilege!

10/2011 I decided to go with the original charts, plus a few amendments (more like slipping some stitches and catching the floats). I am ten rows in and remembering why I don’t do long floats. It’s a project that I have to do in a closed room at a table where no one can hear me count or swear. And just when it’s going along, poof, another purl to make me stop and reverse any flow that I get going. And I am only at the part where I have three colors going. Oy.

This reminds me of the article Elizabeth Zimmerman did on Bohus for Threads, back when they did knitting stuff and BEFORE the actual charts surfaced. She was trying to figure out the parts where one color showed up in a row every ten stitches - no one in their right mind would run a float that long, it just couldn’t be. No, it was. But they weren’t in their right mind. And now, neither am I.

11/2011 Plugging along. It does get easier, but I am cheating (dropping in a stitch from color1 into long block of color2 to keep it all from clenching up into bunches. And I have edited the colors heavily. Sue me. Sanity is expensive.

BTW: I am using some colors from Brown Sheep Waverly Wools, the short lengths for crewel work. By using it single strand it WPI at a fat 14, and I would get 30 yds. Which is enough for some of the colors in this sweater. And it can be spit-plied (let me hear you say EUUUUUWWWWW) together, but I am a knotter (also let me hear you say EUWWWWW).

10/2012 - Let me tell you why you should not mix superwash and nonsuperwash. One felts and shrinks, the other expands and wants to go in the drier to be returned to its original shape. This sweater is very lovely, very comfy and looks like hell. Call the Waaaaahbumlance!