Mona's Knitting Room

I joined an online Knit Along for the sampler exercise in Jackie Fee's Sweater Workshop. This is a very interesting book as it describes how to knit sweaters with no seams with any gauge yarn. I have enough Colinette Point 5 yarn in the Blue Parrot colorway to make a sweater but with the large gauge of the yarn, I haven't found a suitable pattern to make a sweatshirt style sweater for it. I think the technique described in Jackie's book will work perfectly.

The sampler exercise teaches you a variety of techniques that you later use to design your sweater. I started the sampler the day after Thanksgiving after deciding to make it a lazy day. I decided to make the sample using Cascade 220 yarn. I cast on 72 stitches on size US #6 Addi Turbo needles and started knitting away. The first step is garter stitch in the round, followed by stockinette (with a detour lesson on joining new yarn), K1 P1 rib, K1 P1 twisted rib, K2 P2 rib, changing colors in rib and then a cardigan band. Whew! I can't believe I did all of this in one day!

I attended a fabulous knitting retreat in Gloucester, Massachusetts at a nice little motel on the beach during the weekend of November 5-7. The weather was windy but mild, the views were spectacular and the walks on the beach were soothing. The sponsor was Claudia at Countrywool (www.countrywool.com) and the topic for the weekend was gansey/guernsey sweaters. I opted to make an infant sweater and nearly completed it during the weekend. The pattern was developed by Claudia and is called the Wee Seagull Gansey. I used Cascade 220 Superwash wool and size 4&6 US needles. After nearly completing the sweater during the workshop, I couldn't resist making the matching hat and coordinated socks. Here is the complete set:


Here's a closeup of the hat. Can't you just imagine the red tassles framing a cherubic face?


Aren't the socks appropriate for the recent World Series win by our Red Sox?