Sweater Love

KnittingMachine KnittingWork in ProgressYarn

Jun 22

Written By

Happy Wednesday!

We are having a sweater weather for the last couple of weeks in our corner of the world. It is a thunderstorm season, almost every night it is raining and the mornings are so fresh and cozy - you just want to wrap in a light sweater, drink tea and read. No wonder I am all in sweater knitting mood, but on second thought - when I am not in this mood? :)

I am knitting away on the squishy cables of Gesture Sweater by We Are Knitters. It is such an addictive pattern! The back is almost done, I put it on scrap yarn to block and check the length, just in case. It looks like I need a couple of inches more to knit, but I've never worked with this yarn before and I don't know how it will respond to blocking on a big scale. Better safe than sorry, right?

While the back is blocking, I decided to switch things a little bit and start working on sleeves before the front part. I chose one of my favorite ways - work both sleeves at ones using circular needle to accommodate the stitches.

This method has its pros and cons. The main "pro" - when you are done, you are DONE. If you suffer from the second sleeve syndrome, this might be the best way for you to knit sleeves. I also notice that this way my gauge is much more consistent in both sleeves and all my increases match perfectly. I can think of only one "con" - you have to watch your yarn balls, so the yarn doesn't get tangled.

My knitting machine needles have been empty for several days now after the latest FO - Sand Sweater. And I am planning to make two more sweaters on it before I go to visit my family in Russia. I am going in a month, it still will be summer there, but you can never trust Russian summers! I definitely need knitwear, just in case. I love working with baby alpaca for Gesture Sweater, so I decided I need one more sweater in this fiber. I have Alpaca Cloud (100% baby alpaca) by Knit Picks in my stash.

It is very thin, like a web. To knit a sweater with it by hand would take half a century, but it is absolutely perfect for a machine knitting project. It may be a little bit too thin for my machine, but the swatch turned out OK, so I'll give it a try.

This is one of the biggest advantages of having a knitting machine - you can make knitwear in such thin yarns that you would never knit with by hand! I am thinking a long cozy cardigan with the overlapping fronts and extra long sleeves. I hope I have enough yardage for it. If it turns the way I picture it in my head, it will be an amazing piece of knitwear for layers. And look at this color - so rich and deep!