WIP: Phinney

The second I had cast off the Queen Bee cardigan I had immediately started a new project, as per my habit. This time around, and probably the first in quite a while, I had cast on a sweater that's knit in pieces. I normally avoid projects that involve a lot of hand sewing, especially on dark coloured yarns like this grey, and opt for ones that are either seamless or require minimal sewing. But I wanted an easy and somewhat quick knit after the last 2 projects required using fingering weight yarns and tiny needles. Since I'm participating in 12 in 2011, I already had this project picked out and ready to go.

This is the Phinney sweater from the Berroco Vintage & Vintage Chunky booklet. I had purchased both the booklet and the yarn over the summer when I was in Kelowna. This is the same booklet that contains the Americano vest that I still have on the needles. So far I have to admit that I'm not loving the yarn. I'm using the recommended yarn, which is Berroco Vintage. I find that it's a bit too splitty for my liking and I've been finding a lot of thick slubs throughout the skeins. I have a feeling that these slubs are the equivalent to the knots you would see in wool yarn, since 60% of the fibre in Vintage is man-made. The yarn also doesn't give good stitch definition, and I'm not sure if this is because it's suppose to be like its namesake but the overall fabric looks...worn. I'm not quite sure how to describe it. Maybe it's the 50% acrylic content that makes the fabric look matted down, almost felted looking. Hmmm...I'm hoping that once this is finished maybe I'll change my mind?

The pattern itself is pretty darn easy and straightforward. But then again what would you expect from a basic pullover pattern? Since the front and the back are the same up to the armhole shaping, I'm knitting both pieces at the same time. To me the knitting seems to go by faster that way. And if past mistakes have taught me anything, knitting both pieces at the same time will ensure that I'll end up with a back and a front that will match at the side seams and shoulders! I'm also knitting the sleeves at the same time too. I get second sock syndrome if I knit them one at a time. I started the sleeves even though the body pieces aren't done yet. The pattern calls for 4 skeins of yarn and I had used up a skein for each body piece and was all paranoid that I would run out of yarn before the sleeves were knit to their proper length. I know I don't need much yarn to finish the body up to the point where I have to change to the contrast colour, maybe a few metres? I just wanted to make sure there was enough for the sleeves, cause that way, if I were to run out I could always start the contrast colour a little bit earlier.

I completely forgot how fast things knit up when using a worsted weight yarn. I haven't been knitting on this non-stop, only at knit nights and whenever I can squeeze in a row here and there, and already I'm halfway done. I highly doubt that I'll get this done before the month is over (even though that would be totally awesome), I'm aiming to get at least the knitting part done by mid February. I'm pretty sure that once this is knit up it'll take me awhile to get around to do the sewing up. I'm nothing if not consistent with my dislike for hand sewing.

Ok, back to knitting for me.