Violets are Blue

  I figure if I am going to spend a lot of time knitting, and we know it really is a lot of time even though we don't admit it, that the odds the recipient will like and wear the item goes up with having it in their favorite color, style and texture.  So I do green for one of my grandson's and turquoise for a grand daughter, browns/greys for my sister and natural colors for Jim.  Right now on the needles is a sweater in silver, denim blue and greyed red for my mother.

 Following with this premise, the same is done for me .  These are the items knit for me by me from the last few months.

Notice a theme here?  Yup, purple. (Those are my first ever gloves, from Handknitting with Meg Swansen)  I also have a purple vest languishing from too tight Icord.  At last year's guild Garage Sale I picked up a knitted purple vest made by another member who wanted to trade for the item I brought.  Win/win.

  So when I wanted to spin some yarn for Meg Swansen's Shawl Collared Vest from the same book I assumed it would be purples.  But no purple fibers appealed. Odd, very odd. I have lots of purple leftovers in my stash,  probably have enough for an entire sweater and another Sipalu bag.  Right now though purple is not what I want to knit or spin.  hmmmnnnn

Meanwhile a shipment from Ashland Bay arrived with some of their merino/silk.  I can't quite remember ordering Sea Mist, but I must have.  When it came out of its bag the colors really appealed to me.  More oddness.   Sea Mist is mostly a pale camel pewter with aqua streaks.  I hardly ever wear brown of any kind.  However the yearning stayed so I allowed myself to start spinning it.  What a pleasure.    

But spun up the aqua streaks just about disappear. Clearly it needed some sparking up so its being plied with aqua.  Tweedy effects have always pleased me.

I went whole hog and got the DVD explaining how to start this vest including finishing techniques that might take several pages in a pattern to explain. Meg shows quite clearly what to do and how to do it. She even shows how to cable without a cable needle.  I had thought that was a new idea.  Even though the video was from at least 20 years ago it remains pertinent. After watching the first 5 chapters about 3 times I felt confident enough to plug in my EZ Percentage numbers, start the sweater and only needed to frog once. The ribbing section has many things going on which simplify once the stockinette takes over.  Now it hums right along.

I'm thinking it might be ready for next winter.