The knitalong for Mary Jane Mucklestone’s fabulous designs in Field Guide No. 17: Lopi starts on Monday, March 22. This is the place we will gather to share photos, ask and answer questions, and just general have a good time. Stay tuned, things are about to get lively!
As ever, Allison and Nell and your fellow knitters will be here with ready assistance, coffee, and sandwiches. (The latter two only virtually, sadly.) Tutorials and relevant posts will be linked here as we go along, so they’ll be easy to find.
I’ll be Daytripping and using some recently purchased MDK yoke Lopi along with long marinating Lopi puchased on an Iceland trip (sigh, travel dreams). One of the best things about purchasing yarn in Iceland, after scraping your husband off the ceiling and reminding him of the exchange rate, is years later you still get a kick out of how economical it is.
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Watch cap to go to Operation Gratitude, an organization providing goodies to first responders, veterans and service men and women, they prefer no pom poms
I’m going to be Daytripping, and I’m SO GLAD I ordered an extra skein of Lettlopi for swatching. It took nearly a full skein and multiple swatches to discover I was going to need a size 11 needle and a 13 for the colorwork portions in order to get gauge. (The picture shows all that’s left of my extra skein!) The swatching also gave me a chance to discover that stranded colorwork is a whole different animal on large needles, having only done stranded colorwork on DK and fingering yarn in the past. So it’s making me feel like a beginner again! What I thought would be a bang-out breeze of a project is going to be a challenge, afterall. I can’t wait to get started casting on!
This little hot mess is getting ripped out and officially cast on after lunch. It’s been my practice work for the past few days. True confession time - I am totally unable to knit with the yarn in my right hand so color work is always a slow and interesting process for me. There’s a Norwegian knitting thimble snuggled in there that I am learning how to use so that I can do cool color work like the big kids and not hide over on the far side of the playground with my “Drop and Grab” technique (patent pending).
Finished a hat with mountains and sparkles and am figuring out the colors for the cardigan. I have Lopi stash for the MC and the trim and ordered a few more plus the field guide from MDK. Cant wait to start tonight after we get our mail with the yarn in it.
I so want to do this knit along but everyone is on the Lopi wagon right now and its so hard to find the colors and amount I need:((( I’m still going to join in and get all the encouragement I can to do either the cardigan or pullover. At least I have the book. Thats a start:))))
Only used Lopi once. My son and daughter-in-law brought me back a couple skeins from Iceland. I was so tickled. I made some mittens and use them over some thin gloves. Love!
So I left the question under the comments for the launch but I want to ask the question here too. I have never knit to gauge because I’ve never made anything where it mattered. I am currently doing the destinations scarf in preparation for the destination pull over. I’ve made about 20 rows and did a stitch check and I have 15 stitches instead of 13. Wondering if I should take it out and go up a size so that I get the correct gauge to practice for the pull over. What do you think
Sample scarf is ready for blocking. Some things I discovered being a newbie to stranded knitting: traveling magic loop helped with tension, catching the floats across the bigger spaces looks better, and I should have stuck with my usual right handled knitting. Also I need to go up a needle size for gauge.
i’m also going to be working on the day tripper but when i got to near the bottom of the body, i realized i would want this to be longer so i put those stitches on hold and then started the arms so i wouldn’t run out of the main color. but i’m thinking i will need to improvise a color section on the body to get the length, and that means i’ll need to do the same on the sleeves so it doesn’t look like an after thought. so i’m knitting and pondering … and yes that is my kiki mariko swatch underneath it
Getting started on my Daytripper Cardigan today! I can’t wait to see how this turns out. I’m hoping my swatching was adequate…
I settled on the color scheme on the left in the sketch below.
