What a wonderful week it has been. I’ve been out in the yard for a couple of hours every day with MacKenzie and a book or my knitting. The buzz of cicadas echo in the trees over my head, the squirrels frolic along the fence, and the flowers are starting to bloom again after the blazing heat of July. Life is good, I’ve raced through two books and last week started a couple of new knitting projects that are keeping my interest and making me happy. Let me show off my current knitting love, Koivua.
I had some issues with the planning of this sweater. The pink is left over from this sweater that I knitted last winter, Sturgill by Caitlin Hunter. I really liked the contrast of the rose variegated yarn with the grey, so I ran right out and bought some grey tweed yarn to use with my leftover rose yarn to make a Koivua. Good plan, right? Then I thought about things a little more. Looking at my Sturgill you can see that the variegated nature of the two yarns made it hard to see the colorwork pattern in the sweater. I liked that effect in Sturgill, but maybe I shouldn’t make another sweater that had the same fuzzy pattern effect going on with the same colorways. I snuck out to the yarn store and bought some yarn that would give me more contrast with the variegated rose yarn. I was on the hunt for a nice neutral cream yarn.
Buying 5 skeins of yarn puts me back a little on my yarn destash project, so I need to really start knitting fast now. I casted right on and after a couple of days I had this:
I’m much happier with the cream colored yarn than I thought I would be. I tend to avoid light colors in yarns, but this time it was the right decision as the colors in the rose yarn are just shining. The yarn is such a joy to handle I’ve been working outside in my garden swing in the late mornings with little gardening breaks.
I am on fire to get the sweater done by the end of the month, but that probably won’t happen since I need to keep on babying my wrists (which are much better), and life keeps on getting in the way. Still, I am hopeful that the next report on my destash project will be a good one. 50 skeins… I can do it… must stay out of the yarn stores…
It feels like the height of summer with the flowers and the buzz of insects, but there are a lot of crickets and some of the leaves on the trees are starting to turn yellow. The kids in the neighborhood have all returned to school, and it is only a few weeks away from the colors of fall. Yep. Must knit faster!!
Update on the Suburban Wrap:
The wrap arrived safely in California earlier this week and it has already gone to school!
Yarn, Books & Roses 
Your niece and grandniece look so happy! The wrap belongs with them. It just sings:)
Your sweaters are lovely. I can totally understand wanting them done soon so you can wear them but won’t you miss the knitting of them? I find when I’m working on a project I really love at the end I am sad to no longer be knitting it. Savor the knitting. The wearing lasts a long time but the knitting is fleeting.
That wrap does look good on them, doesn’t it!
I do love my projects while I’m knitting them, but you forget the size of my stash! Somewhere towards the middle of a project I start dreaming of new things to knit. I hunt for patterns, dig in the stash for yarn, locate needles, and get the new projects kitted up. They call to me as I work the end of my current project and carry me through that gap between projects.
Your Koivua is 😍😍😍 The color combo is 👌. Your niece looks lovely wrapped in her beautiful shawl.
As soon as I saw that Koivua pattern I knew I needed to knit it, and I already had that rose yarn, so it was a slam dunk. So glad I got the cream yarn.
Oh it’s always so great to see knitted gifts being used!
I love the two sweaters- both are neat effects, but you were probably right to make sure the second was different than the first.
Last year I did so well at destashing, and this year I’m doing so horribly:(
That’s why she is knitworthy! I’m lucky with the destash as I had the right yarns on hand to make a lot of the projects that interested me. As I continue it is going to get harder as there will only be fingering left…
I just keep buying random yarn- it needs to stop!
I hear you! It’s the colors for me. I need to stay out of yarn stores, but there is the internet…
Oh I’ve never bought online as I like to feel the yarn first. I’m doing pretty good this week, but my LYS has their yearly sale starting tomorrow😳
I also like to feel the yarn, but unfortunately many of the yarns I know and love are also sold online. The Yarn Along the Rockies yarn crawl is going on this week here in the Denver Metro area so i am staying away from yarn stores. So hard to resist…
Oh you’re good! I will try to stay away from my LYS as knitcity is at the start of October too.
Your sweater looks gorgeous! Also your flowers are doing so well – beautiful! So glad the knitworthy niece got her wrap and is enjoying it 🙂 Looks like the grandniece likes it too!
Thanks! It was a good week for knitting, flowers, and gifting. 🙂
This is a gorgeous post – I love the knitting and the garden pictures!
Thank you.