Garn Boet - The Yarn Nest

Right! Zoom out, there are four of them!

I have been a busy bee when it comes to sleeves. All four sleeves are knitted, the gorilla long sleeves of the spring cardigan and the short but patterned sleeves of Venezia. Both knits have been very satisfying in their own way. I don’t know when I have enjoyed a knit as much as Venezia. It’s addictive, looking at the pattern emerge from the different colours, and even if almost constantly changing colours is a bit annoying, is the way the colours work together beautiful, and I think adding to the addicting way of this pullover. (Weaving in all those ends there are before the steeks, my friends, is not going to be a beautiful or fun story. I predict blood, sweat and almost tears. Thankfully do the steeks take care of all ends from the colour changes, and so from the sleeve openings and up there will be no ends to weave in). I have washed and blocked the sleeves, and they really bloomed up and filled out beautifully. And the yarn got much softer.

The spring cardi is heaven when it comes to softness. It is a perfect knit for those moments when you can’t concentrate fully on knitting (Venezia is not going to share your concentration with anybody else, but that is hardly a surprise), and all pieces has been small enough to be stuffed into the handbag without problems. And that is the reason why the cardi has advanced this far, I’m already behind the sleeve openings on the back piece. The gauge is pretty fine, 26 stitches to 10 cm on 3,25 mm needles, but one row here and one row there while waiting for one thing or another to happen and more while watching TV adds to the about one hundred rows there are before the increases. There are still plenty of rows left before the neckshaping, but the biggest part of the back is knitted. The fronts will be a piece of cake after the back.

Look at all those small green things called grass! Spring is finally here again!

Venezia’s most time consuming part is without doubt the hem and the first rows. The beginnings of the sleeves are so short that the slow progress of the hem part doesn’t disturb, but my, I thought I would never get the body hem finished. It was like a big black hole, steeling all the stitches I knew I had knitted, and picking up the provincial cast on took forever. But the result is neat, and I don’t hesitate to add the same hem to other pullovers in the future. Once the provincial cast on was picked up it went pretty smoothly to knit the two rows of stitches together, and there it was, the hem. The first row with two colours is always a pain. One mistake, and you don’t realize it before you have knitted half the piece, and the stitches doesn’t match in the side seam. But here I am, already into the sixth row from the hem, and the increases have started.