knitting neels

My knitting fizzled out there for a few weeks because… I suppose, the well of inspiration was running a little dry. Nothing like a really good colour to get things going again! This green in the Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece that came in just after I got back from Sligo really got me thinking.

It is a top-down set in sleeve. It started out in my mind as a tshirt but I think I will make the sleeves three-quarter length. The gap in the front means I’m going to turn it into a henley – a fancy word for having buttons a little way down the front. I’m going to rib all the way around the neck and have the parts at the front overlap and form a button band. I am already at the waist so have been spending most of the time knitting this thinking about buttons and sleeves. I think cream buttons would be nice, don’t you? As for the sleeves, the more I think about them, the more I think I should knit them bottom up instead of picking up stitches around the arm hole. I love picking up stitches because it means no sewing and it gives such a seamless finish. But cotton isn’t very forgiving and I worry that the weight of the sleeve would show up little gaps in the sleeve cap where I picked up. Also, I have never figured out the numbers for working a set in sleeve cap before, so that’ll be something new.

I started Pioneer from this Spring’s Knitty this morning. I have had six skeins of Berroco’s Ultra Alpaca Light sitting in my stash since I visited Heidi last July and was thrilled to finally find a pattern worth of such gorgeous stuff.

The dark colour doesn’t show up the tiny cables in the pattern but perhaps you can understand why I fell in love with it! The Ultra Alpaca Light is a light double knit yarn, 50% super fine alpaca and 50% peruvian wool. At 133m for $5.25, I couldn’t leave without it. I think the pattern is really nice and definitely something I could wear during the winter under a cardigan… and during the summer… under a cardigan! (Why does summer only ever seem to visit other countries?)

In case you haven’t heard yet, the shop is moving out of Blackrock and expanding into bigger premises in the Powerscourt Centre over the June Bank Holiday weekend. You can read all about it over here on the shop blog. There are pros and cons to any situation, but I think the pros here are really good ones! Because of the location we’re going to be able to offer lots more midweek classes on top of the usual weekend classes… and we will be able to offer lots more of all the usual suspects as well as some new things, too. Exciting stuff, eh?