fairisles

The weather lately is cool, compared to Singapore anyway. I got to work on a fairisle project and had to frog it as I wasn't enjoying the knitting. It was hard for me to see the pattern and too complicated for me. I really prefer something I can quickly memorize. I don't mind checking the pattern on every row, but once is enough per row. So I decided to use the yarn in my own design and since I'm very lazy, this is only my second fairisle design. However, it's very exciting to see it come into life and last night I reached the armhole steeks. I decided to dec 2" on each side or 8" total to make it less bulky but it does mean more work on the arms.

So anyway, I've gotten into a fairisle period finally and today I'm looking over my ufos to see what to do. I also want to make the AS Morning Glory see above, center vest. I made it once and gifted it to my sister and when she refused to return it (!) I ordered yarn to make it again, only Jamiesons decided I was ordering from them when I was just checking so they sent it to me also along with the amount I did really order from J&S so now I can make it two more times. It's a beautiful vest though.

A word of caution about Jamiesons here. They overcharged me on the wool and it cost me $100 for the vest. I asked why and they said they charge more for AS designs. Now I had checked off each color individually on their site and never once said it was for Morning Glory. So in the future, if I ever order again from them for an AS design, I will mix it up with something else so they can't overcharge me for an AS design. When I complained that it wasn't even an order, they offered to take it back providing of course I would pay the postage. Nix. And as far as I can see there is absolutely no difference between J&S and Jamiesons. So why does Jamiesons overcharge?

So anyway, I have the yarn in two bags one using some J&S and one pure Jamiesons and quite frankly, I prefer the J&S colors.

I am planning to make the largest size which has 43" for the finished chest. Since this is a cardigan vest, I feel that isn't going to be too wide. AFter that I will figure out what to do for my DD as she needs it bigger.

The sweater for myself I'm now doing is figured for a 45" cardigan which is roomy enough for me. I'm getting 30sts=4" on size 3mm needles so my tension is pretty good. I sometimes only get 28. I'm using my first design to help me get the right measurements.

At the same time with all of this going on, I finally finished the cotton pullover for DD in Heirloom cotton from Australia. This thing has traveled twice now to the far east so I was getting tired of lugging it around. Unfortunately DD was here yesterday but it wasn't ready and she flew off to Hongkong saying she'll be back in 2 months. It's a gorgeous periwinkle blue.

And I bought some chunky yarn from J&S recently as they're discontinuing a lot of their dk and chunky yarns. Now why would I need chunky for Israel? Well, it can double as a coat no less in the winter. I decided to make a raglan in plain st st and it is going really fast. Today I set aside the body and started the first sleeve. I ordered 8-100 gram skeins and it looks now like 6 will be enough. They got the yarn to me in 6 days from my original order. Impressive.