WIP Wednesday: Knitting Machines, Plant Based Sweaters, and Plans

Last week, I mentioned that I had a sudden desire to use some of my plant based yarn to make a summery project. This is an extremely spur of the moment notion, but it has stuck with me. So after thinking I would make a Hetty or Liesl with the Cotton et Lin I got at Hobby Lobby on clearance, I have now had to take into consideration how much yarn I would leave with each project and what I could do with it.

Because of this, I now think I've decided that the Apple Cider color will become a Liesl. The Liesl pattern is very lacy, and stretches A LOT with blocking, so it take a deceptively small amount of yarn. I only have 3 skeins of the apple cider colorway, but that should be enough for this project. Good stuff. I will be making my Liesl with longer sleeves than shown in the photo, but just how long will be determined by how much yarn I have left when I get to the sleeves.

I cast on Monday night and managed to make almost the entire yoke in a few hours. This is going to be a nice, quick project for sure, which I'm feeling right now. Considering that I don't even have the back piece done on my Susan Shaw cardigan yet, I could use some quick gratification.

For the additional skeins of this yarn, I'm still thinking of making a striped Hetty cardigan. So I'm officially separating the photo from last week, lol. There are several fingering weight sized projects I would love to make up, but I don't have any linen in lighter weight yarn, and I'm operating on stash right now so that will be for the future sometime. Will this second sweater actually get knit up this summer? Time will tell, folks. I'm inclined to think no, but who knows what tomorrow will bring?

In other things I've been working on, I have been playing a lot with my knitting machine. I have a standard gauge knitting machine now, so I can finally make a fingering weight or thinner sweater on a machine - something I have always wanted to do. These machines definitely have a different learning curve than hand knitting. Don't go into machine knitting thinking you'll get it right away because you know how to hand knit - no sir, that is not how it works, lol. But while I do make some mistakes and have to start over, I'm learning each time and will (hopefully) not make that mistake as often in the future.

When a friend of mine destashed her epic yarn stash to me this spring, she gave me 6 big cones of fine gauge yarn, so this week I've been making swatches on my knitting machine that I will use to decide what I want to make with them :) All of these were washed and dryed in the machine with a load of my kids clothes (crazy) except I also swatched some yarn I ordered from China (the flat beige one) that came in much finer than I anticipated when I ordered it. The knitting machine makes using that yarn so much less daunting. Love it. It's honestly been very fun to play with. It's a weird jump in hobbies, for sure, but I like it.

So that's what I have going on this week. Anyone else making summer sweater plans? Or playing with a knitting machine? Let me know!