Well, it’s COLD today. We are really starting to feel cold up here in New England.
I am very excited about my next project because I love to learn a new technique. This “shadow-knitting” project started from weird coincidences. During my first meeting with the Nashoba Valley Knitters Guild I sat next to a member whose swap gift was the book by Vivian Høxbro. Then after my Christmas holiday I received a knitting store’s flyer about how they are specializing in Vivian Høxbro patterns for the month of January. I saw this as a calling and decided that I must try it out. I looked through her website and decided to order the
Ocean Vest.
So here is my gauge swatch. I am running at 25 stitches x 48 rows to what the pattern suggests as 26 stitches x 50 rows. I stopped in a new knitting store to ask about the needle size of US 1.5, thinking that I might try to remake a gauge swatch closer to the patterns’ suggested gauge. The store owner thinks that I’m close enough and that I shouldn’t go down a needle size. I’m relieved in a way because I really wanted to get started.
The other thing that this gauge swatch is teaching me is how to manage the two color yarn stripe at the edge. The instructions include some nice graphics and directions how to twist the yarns together before slipping the first stitch in the row.
I love how the gray/black stripes are obvious when looking at the knitted fabric straight on but when you look from the side the zig-zag pattern from the purl ridge becomes dominant. I’ll continue to post the Vest’s progress.
