I wanted to thank anyone who bought Captiva Wrap over the last few weeks , donations from the sales came to $154 which I was very happy to send to MSF this morning.  I am very glad to be able to send a little more.

I seem to be juggling a lot of different projects at the moment, all at different stages.  I send off another secret project last week, however I think I might start a new version of it for myself with some cascade eco + I have here from last year.  It is a lovely deep purple, it would be wonderful for everyday wear but I think too dark to photograph well.  I wish I got more time to knit for myself, I am almost afraid to wear anything I do finish on the off chance that I might need it for display!  I think that it’s about time my knits got a bit more wearing.

Before Christmas I finished a lightweight sweater for my sister.  She recently returned to office work and was looking for a stylish lightweight top for everyday wear.  I know that she loves turquoise and I found the most perfect shade of Turquoise in Cascade Heritage sock yarn.

I know it is knit in sock yarn…BUT it is at a loose gauge (for lovely stretch and drape) and the 36 inch size takes just under 3 skeins.  Not a bad price for a new sweater!

It is knit in one piece (body knit from the hem up), with set-in sleeves knit from the top down in the round after the body if finished.  Lots of fun and not too complex so a good one for knitting on the go.

It will be a couple more weeks before we finish the final layout but it has been tech edited so it is getting close to being ready to release.

Thanks to the kind help of a fellow knitter on Ravelry I think that I may have figured out how to do those sleeves.  Now the fun part – I need to actually make them!

My problem had been that in order to get the armhole large enough on the body I needed a 18 inch opening.  I had assumed (always a bad idea) that I had to pick up the correct number of stitches for this opening so that I would be at the correct stitch gauge.  This would mean that I needed to pick up 90 stitches.

However – and this is where I started having issues – with the lovely short row shoulder shaping you end up at the bottom of your sleeve cap with the same number of stitches as you started (90) but at that point the width of the arm needed to be 14.5 inches (68 stitches).

What I have been told – and I think that it should work, is that you only pick up the number of stitches that you need for the sleeve width at the end of the cap.  So… it is 68 stitches not 90 stitches that need to be picked up.  A real Eureka moment!  Now my last concern is how picking up that many stitches will look, will the spaces between them be too obvious?  Will keep you posted on progress!