Fast, but not quite Furious

Fylingdales is flying along. Considering the amount of time I'm spending with Halo 3: ODST, I'm rather amazed that both sleeves are done. I have the buttonbands and the collar to finish. Fingers crossed, I'll have it on it's final blocking Monday. (of course I always underestimate how long it will take to knit the collar... but I'm optimistic).

This Fylingdales is a lesson of "right yarn meets right project". The yarn I'm using (Bartlett Fisherman wool in Wild Grape. Yum) is the third yarn I tried for this project.

I started this cardigan years ago before Lisa Llyod's book A Fine Fleece was published and she was self publishing individual patterns. (her site is gone... I'm hoping that it will return one day. I keep checking it). While I liked the yarn I used for it, I just sort of stalled on it. I used Reynold's Dover, a smooth and shiney aran weight yarn. It had excellent stitch definition and it was in my standard shade of green. Well, eventually I realized that it was never going to move forward, so I took it off the needles (I needed them for an other project) and realized that either I started the wrong size or my gauge was way off. It was going to be too small. So something in my brain had made me stop working on it.

When A Fine Fleece was published, I was re-inspired to make it (as it's included in the book). Plus I was seeing lots of pretty versions of it on Ravelry). I had some very pretty Cottage Craft yarn in a dark denimy blue that I thought would be sharp and practical (would look great with jeans). I would work on it here and there (the long ribbing followed by the st. st. section made it an easy "mindless knit"). When I got to the cabled section, I was in love. The Cottage Craft yarn was lovely... nice to work with and I loved the color. It's a nice soft wool. Actually it was too soft. I could not see the cables or seed stitch in the dark color and soft wool, especially at the gauge of the sweater. Sigh... frogged that one (never made it into Ravelry or here on my blog).

Meanwhile, I cast on Portland for Matt (after seeing a gorgeous one on Ravelry). It's a lot of cables and I'm using a wool/cashmere/silk blend (Jo Sharp's Silkroad Aran). It's not a "smooth" knit. While I love how it's looking, the actual knitting seems a bit tedious due to the lack stretch in the yarn. I needed a nice simple (mindless) project.... and since I had A Fine Fleece sitting right here... the third attempt at Fylingdales was cast on.

I remembered how hard it was for me to slog thru the ribbing and st. st. sections on the Fylingdales the first two times. Thought that would be a nice balance with Portland. Something to pick up and just knit. No charts, 100% wool. My intention was to stay concentrated on Portland.

I could not put the Fylingdales down. Since the cable pattern is super simple, I just kept going. Now I expect to have it done over the weekend.

There are many lessons here: sometimes a pattern and yarn are just made for each other. Sometimes a project goes into hibernation for a reason... even if you are not quite sure what isn't working. I can love a cardigan that isn't green.

Hopefully, I'll have photos of a finished purple cardigan on Monday.