Slow Progress

I can't imagine how Wendy makes so much progress on her Fair Isle sweaters...she makes me look bad in comparison.

Donegal
Work is continuing to interfere with my ability to knit, but I persevere. I've done about an inch, including setting up the sleeve steek. I've also taken some tips from Wendy and put some stitch markers to separate the repeats. My two-handed knitting is getting more and more routine, so I think progress on this sweater will get faster and faster. You won't see much difference, but here's where I am so far.



It will be a satisfying day when I get back up to the neck steek.

Pattern Sock Yarn
Given how much more work it is to do the Fair Isle sweater, the ease with which this sock is moving along is amazing. I'm not even sure if I like the colors or pattern that it's making. I'm just enjoying doing all knitting and having a pattern emerge effortlessly. It's a good change up from the work on Donegal.



As you can see, I have turned the heel. I did a standard short-row heel on half of the 68 stitches.

New Jamieson Line
Here's the little bit of information that I gleaned when reviewing the new line of yarns from Unicorn/Jamieson.

First of all, it is clear that David (of Unicorn Books) is extremely tired of Shetland wool. You won't find a speck of Shetland in the new line.

There is an extensive line of merino, soft tweed, cashmere and possibly cotton, although I don't remember if there's any cotton since I don't like cotton yarn, and this is all about "me" afterall.

My favorite yarn is a worsted weight tweed. The colors are rich and have a lot of depth. The yarn is plied loosely (looked like two ply, but I could be wrong). There's a rich maroon color that everyone liked, but lots of other colors as well. The tweed includes little slubs of other colors, which I like, especially when making classic men's sweaters.

The cashmere looked like a lightweight DK weight, although I didn't validate that. Colors were limited, but nice. This will knit up perfectly beautiful garments, but I imagine it will also be pretty pricey.

The merinos came in multiple weight and had a pretty extensive color pallette, although no where near the 180 or so colors of Jamieson DK. The merinos were also smooth, and lofty yarns that reminded me of the Jo Sharp yarns, except softer.

I'm expecting to go back to the yarn store this Thursday evening, so if you have any more questions, I'd be glad to check it out further.