Some knitting too.

A second blog post in one day? Yes, this is a knitting blog after all. Once would think that the absence of blogposts had something to do with me not knitting. Well, that is not the case at all. I have been knitting furiously every evening and sometimes a bit in the early morning, when I sit on the veranda and drink my tea.

Most of this time has been consumed by my EZ EPS sweater. I signed up for two Ravelry groups - "Sweater a month" and "EZ EPS" and this sweater is the result.It should have been finished by the end of January, but I did finish it on Sunday (only 3 days late).

This was a good learning experience. Not so much for the techniques such as fair isle and knitting in the round, but in planning ahead. I bought some wool on impulse in Brits at the beginning of the month with no idea of how much I would need, nor how many contrast colours to use. By the time I had worked a few rounds of the body, I realised that I was hopelessly short of the main colour. No problem, I went back to the shop hoping to get some more. No one in SA buys wool in January, so they could not possibly be sold out. But they were. Or the knitting mice had hidden the colour I wanted. What now? Frog the whole project and start again. Make a sweater for a 10 yr old? I don't know a ten yr old!.

After a good hunt amongst the shelves, I found a lovely lighter shade of the same colour and decided that it would have to do. This meant re-knitting the sleeve and body hems. Originally they were meant to be hemmed, which means turning back part of the knitting and using double the wool. I decided to compromise and do moss stitch edges instead of ribbing. Anyway, the sweater is done, finished and klaar! Its a compromise and I'll have to do a really nice one sometime. I consider this a practice round.

At first I didn't like the damn thing at all, but a gentle wash and stretch has turned it into a soft, cuddly sweater which is starting to grow on me.