Evolution

Last year this was a majorly quilting related blog. This year so far it's a mostly recipe related blog with some knitting thrown in. Just one more way my life is "evolving" and constantly changing. This year I am knitting a *lot* and also trying to lose weight and get in shape, and this is the medium I am choosing to share my progress with the world.

Another evidence of creative evolution is this item I have been knitting for Hannah. When I first came up with the idea it was a svelt little fitted knit dress with decreases to the waist and ribbing to make it fit, then increases for the skirt with the adition of lace. It was also short sleeved. As I'm knitting it though it is evolving into a comfy loose fitting sweater.

I am using a wool/microfiber-acrylic blend yarn because I wanted the garment to be machine washable but since I was including lace in my design I wanted to be able to block it and have it keep its shape.
I cast on 96 stitches and knit in the round on DPNs for the ribbing around the neck and the first few rows of increases. I places stitch markers 30 sts, 18 sts, 30 sts & 18 sts and increased before and after each marker. 10 billion stitches later I put the sleeves on waste yarn and continued knitting in the round for the body. My plan was that this would take 2 skeins, but im halway through the 2nd and I've only finished one sleeve (and not the body!) so I'm thinkning it will be 3 skeins. Also, it's much bigger than I anticipated. I think it will probably fit her next winter, LoL!

As I knit I am wishing it were even bigger though and would fit me! It is *super* comfy! I used 1 repeat of lace around the cuff and then did ribbing. I am not sure I'm happy with it, I may end up pulling the ribbing back out and decreasing so the cuff is smaller. There will be a couple repeats of the same lace around the bottom of the body but done on a bigger circular needle so it shows up more.