Friday 31 March 2017

Best Year Ever KAL, January–March 2017

At the start of this year I said that I would join in on only one knitalong this year, the Best Year Ever KAL being hosted by Nikki of the Tea and Possibilities podcast. I know I haven't managed to stick to that, and joined in the Sockmatician Sockalong in March, but I did actually complete those socks, so I'm glad I did (and that yarn definitely needed knitting - the finished socks are lovely!). Now we're a quarter of the way into the KAL, so here's a little update.


At the start of the KAL I aimed to knit an Antler jumper, a Lush cardigan, a purple shawl and a reindeer head (if you want to read the whole list you can find it here). That hasn't quite gone to plan...

My list has had a complete reshuffle. Item one on my Best Year Ever KAL is now my Dotted Rays shawl. I am really enjoying working on this. The rows are now LONG - over 300 sts, though now I've memorised the pattern the stitch count isn't critical, so I have given up counting the number of stitches (I gave up when there was a discrepancy between my numbers and those in the pattern; I am certain I am correct, but don't wish to question Mr West's maths...). I am a little way into the third of five balls, and suspect that when I sit down and work on it I will whizz through it. The Easter holidays are coming up, and the amount of mindless garter stitch makes this a pretty perfect soft play knit.


The second item on my list is my pink socks. They do have a planned name for when I release the pattern, but if that falls through I might just go with 'Whhheee!!'. I struggled a bit with these socks at first; they're part of a collection of three patterns and the first two went really smoothly. This pair was meant to be the easiest, but that turned out not to be the case. To make matters worse I started these off as two at a time socks and it messed the gauge up, so I had to start again. But as soon as I had sorted out the pattern and fixed all the early glitches I started to really enjoy them; the spiral nature of the rib means it really does feel like you're going whhheee! as you're knitting them! And the pink is so wonderfully vibrant; these socks have made me very happy.


I am undecided on my Antler jumper: I had been having gauge problems, so when I got to the end of the sleeve it wasn't long enough. I could just about have coped with that, expect that I am wondering whether the yarn might be too itchy for me to be able to wear it. I fished it out this morning to photograph and I am wondering whether it might be salvagable. If not, it's not the end of the world - I am considering casting on a new jumper for myself in the next few months, possibly a Pavement by Veera Valamaki, which looks like it might be a good transitional season jumper.


Have you been joining in with the Best Year Ever KAL? How are you getting on? It's not too late to join in the fun; if you want to know more, head over to the thread in Nikki's Ravelry group.*

*Ravelry link, you must be signed in to Ravelry for the link to work.

3 comments:

  1. Oh my those pink socks are fab! With the itchy jumper, can anything be done with fabric softener? I have no experience of this personally but I have some vague memory of reading about it online.

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    1. I've not tried it, but if it's good enough for my hair it's probably worth a go... It would be a shame for the yarn to go to waste.

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  2. Did you get my reply to your email btw, sent yesterday afternoon? A response to your email which hadn't got to me originally. If no, fb message.

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