An unintentional BFF jumper

When we were in China Leon and I stumbled across a yarn shop around the corner from the Forbidden City. The guy working there didn't speak any English, but, when I picked up this lovely dark grey wool he indicated it was sheep, by making horns with his fingers and and baaing! I bought 750 grams of wool in dark grey.

It looks like an eight ply. I'm pretty sure it's pure wool, because it felts, which is good, because I will be doing felted joins. I bought it in 2 big skeins, but when it came time to ball it up I discovered that within the skeins the yarn was divided into 50 gram lots, so I have 15 little balls of wool.

I was originally going to make a Jo Sharp cabled jumper for Leon, but I discovered the smallest size would give him 9 inches of positive ease. Also, it was knit in pieces, which really isn't as nice as seamless, and he thought the cables were too chunky. So I headed back to the inimitable Elizabeth Zimmerman. I decided to make a cabled seamless raglan. I'm hoping that I've done the maths right and the shoulder decreases will line up nicely. Only time and knitting will tell.

I designed (or thought I had designed) a cable and rib pattern that is, I think, pleasing to the eye. I was knitting happily away on it at knit night, when I looked over at Nicola's BFF sock. I looked back at the jumper sleeve I was working on. I realised they have a lot in common. I have unintentionally used the cable and rib pattern from Cookie A's BFF sock pattern. Still, it means if I have any yarn left over I can make him a pair of matching socks.

In other fibre related news yesterday I took a very long lunch break and went by the Spinners and Weavers guild shop. I bought some green dye, some more of the red silk so I can actually finish my red wool and some bright green silk thread, which I am going to experiment with plying with some army green I have. But first I am going to actually spin that beautiful Corriedale I have prepped from fleece. I'm not sure if I keep putting it off because 800 grams of three ply double knit weight is an intimidating amount of spinning or because I want to be spinning the pretty shiny colours.

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What I made, by Sharon

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