I am knitting away on my cardigan, but 'tis rapidly coming into the season where temptation looms. Fall knitting books and magazines are starting to appear, along with knit-alongs, and dreams of cooler fall weather. Admittedly that last bit is wishful thinking; I live in a place where the reality of autumnal chill seems far far away. Or maybe it is just as simple as the idea that the fact of knitting begets dreams of more knitting.
First Up: I have finished the back of the Sweet Confection cardigan, which I have named Raspberry Confection on Ravelry. Does. the name matter? I don't know. Years ago, I used to create individual categories for each project but years ago I either knit more or wrote more about what I was knitting. Anyway, it is something I am thinking about.
I have finished the back and blocked it. Not surprisingly, as I was a bit worried about gauge due to the changing levels of pain and neuropathy in my hands. As I knit, I noticed that as my neuropathy lessened and my fingers became looser, the feel of the yarn on the needles felt less tight. As my fingers became looser so did my knitting. My stitch gauge remained mostly on point but my row gauge reverted to my normal form, meaning my stitches grew longer. Hence the body of the sweater is about 2 inches longer than I had planned for it to be.
As I approached the shaping for the armscye however, my fingers were becoming increasingly painful and knitting became slower, with fewer rows knit at any one time. My knitting was tightening up again as well, and much of the area above the armscye shaping, is knit more tightly, on average closer to the anticipated gauge determined during swatching. This is good, because I do not like deep armholes in my sweater unless the sweater as a whole is meant to be oversized; nor do I really want to rip it all back.
I am still thinking what this means for knitting the fronts. At the moment my fingers are a bit looser, and this should continue until a day or two after my last chemo infusion next week. I am inclined to think I should knit the two front pieces simultaneously to insure that the gauge matches on each piece, and work from there. I. will have to be cognizant of how the yarn feels on the needles, and there may well be some adjusting on the fly. I will let you know how it goes.
Secondly: a handy little gift has earned permanent place in my knitting tool kit. The boye crochet multi-hook arrived with a package of knitting yarn and pattern swatches. Four sizes of hook are included, and although it would not be useful for extensive crochet, it is useful for picking up the occasional dropped stitch, or small bits of crochet here and there. I seem to have an extensive collection of crochet hooks, which is surprising for a woman who intensely dislikes crocheting. Whenever I find myself needing a crochet hook however, I never have the correct size in my knitting bag. This should solve that problem. I don't know that this handy little tool will do anything in terms of allowing me to reduce my hook inventory, as it is awkward for all but the simplest of repairs, but it is bound to see lots of use.
And last, but far from least, a couple of knitting magazines have crossed my door. The Autumn 2021 Pom Pom Quarterly actually came a few weeks ago now. It may well have been the prompt that kicked off my autumnal knitting dreams. In fact the entire magazine acted much the way the Sears Christmas catalog did when I was a child — sparking fantasies of brisk autumnal days, walks in the woods, cozy sweaters. In short it is more a book of dreams than anything practical for my local climate. It had me reminiscing about my former home, about warm fires and all the good things about winter, especially thick cozy sweaters.
There is some part of me wanted to knit every sweater, wanted to live somewhere cool and crisp, cold even. But I realize this was as much about summer heat, about feeling miserable, about the way chemotherapy has knocked me further down than I had hoped, and how summer without the pleasure of summer activities can become unbearable. I don't actually know if I was yearning for a return to cool summers and cold winters, or just struggling with ennui. I suspect the latter. But I enjoyed reading the magazine anyway, and I enjoyed dreaming about a fantasy life where I could wear all these sweaters.
It is possible that I could knit some of the hats shown in the collage above, but I already have more hat patterns than I could ever need, and in Tennessee even my need of warm wooly hats is somewhat limited. There are two patterns I might knit. The most likely of these is this intarsia shawl, Silvatica, shown above. This would be both fun to wear and fun to knit (once my neuropathy wears off).
The other potential knit, although actually somewhat less likely, is this cardigan, named Saknes. It is knit in worsted weight wool, which I would not have considered particularly heavy in New York, and which I thought of as really pushing the limits much of my life in Tennessee. But I wore more sweaters last year. This may be because I live in an older house, which can be slightly drafty. It could be because I refuse to turn on the heat unless the house is downright cold, and my standard definition of cold seems to be lower than that of many of my Tennessee compatriots. Perhaps I am adapting slightly; perhaps I am just aging. I've been through chemo and lost a good bit of weight, which was necessary by the way, and I have no idea how that will affect my sensitivity to the cold. I still have worsted weight wool in the stash, so this remains a possibility.