Vacation startitis

Wheat-ear sweater started
Originally uploaded by knitswithasilentk

I basked in the long days with hours available for knitting - in between hiking, boating, and socializing on the beach. I had brought 3 of my 12 balls of Berrocco Ultra Silk, which I purchased when the Bustalong ended from the WEBS Anniversary Sale. One of the local shops has it and I always stopped to pet it, so as a treat to myself I got what I figured was a sweater's worth. My first impulse was to try and knit Josephine from the latest Interweave Knits, but try as I might, the gauge just wouldn't work out. I hadn't realized that the pattern called for fingering-to-sport-weight, and I just wasn't going to knit it on a size 3 needle - it didn't drape well, and it was too tight.

But just a few page flips later landed on the Wheat-Ear Cable Yoke, and wouldn't you know, at my favorite size needle (I had done 3 swatches in 3 sizes, goody-two-shoes me) I was spot on gauge. Stitches per inch and row gauge too! Unbelievable. I did another mini-swatch of the yoke pattern, and it looked good.

Problem was, I knew I wanted to modify the pattern to fit me. I am so short waisted that pretty much my natural waist falls just below my bust and part of the point of making sweaters for yourself is making them to fit. So, I'm committed for this sweater to do knitty math (I can't believe I was a math major and resistant to this) and figure it out.

I won't bore you with the long story, but I had several tries before the latest iteration which is what I think is about right. But it's resting right now because I mistook the stitch count you want to end up with, and the repeat is 12 stitches long.

By the way, anyone out there want to weigh in on negative ease? I measure pretty close to a 40" bust but I felt that making the 40" size would make it baggy or droopy. But I don't want to have obvious stretching in the sweater in the bust area. I pulled 10% negative ease out of my head and I think that was for socks. However, using those numbers is getting what I think is a pretty good shape for the hip/waist area. I'm just not so sure about the bust area.

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Oh, and I might have started some other lace, bringing my complicated charted lace WIP count to 3, a direct and unabashed violation of my rule to have only 1 such project in progress. But what could I say? The yarn screamed Lake Tahoe to me, and so I had to knit it a bit on the beach. Mountain stream scarf, Artfibers Tsuki (silk 40%/superkid mohair 60%), size 4 KP Options needles.