November 29, 2005
From Every Corner of the Universe
You know how that phenomena of the same thing coming up again and again all of a sudden out of nowhere? My best friend refers to this as "plate of shrimp," a Repo Man reference. Well, I had a total plate of shrimp experience yesterday. Kay posted this shot of her youngin' in Durrow. I could finally see the sweater which I can barely make out on my monitor from the photo in Magknits. I was liking the sweater. Wondering if Wes might like it too. Then I went to Purlygirls last night. Someone (hi Daniel!) was making a sweater. I looked it over and asked, "Is that Durrow?" "No," he told me, "it's Donegal." "Are you sure?" Well, yeah, it was Durrow. It looked so nice all tweedy and in person. So I showed the picture to Wes. He thinks he might like it. This started the Search for Yarn. The Jo Sharp yarn called for in the pattern is spendy. It would be better to knit it in something I can get from work. Hmmm...not much there at 4.5 sts/inch in wool in Wes-approved colors (some shade of gray). I'm thinking about ordering some Lamb's Pride Worsted Superwash in Charcoal Heather. Anyone work with it before? The obvious choice was Cascade 220 but I don't believe them when they say you can knit it to 4.5 sts/in. It looks much nicer at 5 sts/in. Which gets me thinking that if I just knit a larger size and used Cascade, which comes in many shades of gray and wouldn't require a special order... And since this is my first ever man-sweater I'm also pondering ease. Wes is a slim fella. 36" chest. No. Really. The small size is 40". But that's at one of those "in rib slightly stretched" gauges. That would mean less than 4" of ease. But the next size up is 45". I don't want him to be swimming in the thing either. Any thoughts or comments from the peanut gallery?