Labor Day Knitting

Labor Day was meant to be the kickoff date for another Knitalong with knitting buddy Kmart. Back at MDSW 08, we decided to tackle another runaway knit, the Must Have Cardigan (made famous by the Harlot herself). K bought yarn at the festival and I bought some later in the summer.

Actually, I bought 6 single balls of various yarns and knit a bunch of swatches (one didn't even make the swatching cut). Here are some of them. I am always drawn to blue (my favorite color), but I also tried a couple of greens:
In the end, the winning swatch won for three reasons:

1. I thought a lighter color would show off the cables better than a darker color.
2. This yarn (Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in color"lake ice heather") is neutral enough to go with a number of other colors. This is a cardigan, after all, so we need to consider the shirt that goes under it. I don't know if the photographs really show it, but this is a light icy grey with a hint of bluish-purple in it. It's not truly grey. I don't think I could have endured a whole sweater out of plain grey.
3. This yarn is heathered. I think the heathered yarns result in even more versatile garments, and I wanted to try a heathered yarn for this project. Here is the winning swatch with the pattern:

While I was swatching, I figured out my gauge and decided I would be knitting on a US 5 for the bulk of this project (US 4 for the ribbing). I'm getting exactly 5 st/in on that needle, and I like the resulting fabric. I knit the Rogue on this same yarn, but on a size 7 needle, and the fabric is a little loose.

So... Labor Day dawned beautiful, and I could have knit all day. Except... my son thought it would be a great idea to "go berry picking and make jam!" So, we did. There is a great U-Pick place near here called Yellow Hill Farm, and the raspberries were plentiful and delicious. We made a double batch of raspberry-blackberry jam (YUM) and have enough berries left to make another double batch of plain raspberry jam.


Finally, after the jam was made and the kids were in bed, I cast on for the Must Have Cardigan. Here she is, just out of the gate. It's a slow start, but I think this will be a wonderful fall knitting project this season.