Last year, a friend moved away from Montreal.  In the process of expunging of all of her unnecessary earthly possessions, she brought a box of yarn by the local knit night for us vultures to paw through and pick out what treasures we might like.  I tried to play it cool and behave in a civilized manner, strolling over to the box in a relaxed way.  In truth, I dove in like a half-starved maniac, ready to elbow anyone in the face who got in my way.

There was a bag of unlabeled shetland weight wool.  I scooped it, thinking I would find a perfect use for it soon enough.  I was too excited about getting back into the box to dig around more to ask any questions, and I am still slapping myself for that.

I figured I would knit some cute little sweater for my kid, and it would be awesome and fun.  However, not knowing the exact information about the yarn I have is driving me a little bit batty.

I know it is 100% wool. I know it is some type of shetland wool. It is 2-ply, and is somewhere around a light fingering weight.  I have two full balls that are still in their original form, and they come in the centre-pull balls, 50g each.  I took a look at some shade cards from some different companies (Harrisville, Jamieson’s), but nothing seems to match the colours, weight, and ball shape that I have.

I have nearly equal amounts of the three yarns in the top row on the left, nearly equal amounts of the pink and dark purple (two on the right), and a piddling amount of the lilac (bottom middle). Exact measurements:

75g light grey
66g dark grey
78g purple
34g light pink
37g dark purple
16g lilac

This adds up to a total of 306 grams.  I just finished a fair isle yoked sweater (rav link) sized for a 4-year old, and it topped out around 175g (probably less, as my friend weighed it for me and her scale was only accurate to within +-25g), so I definitely have enough yarn to make a kid’s sweater.

What does that sweater look like? I break into a cold sweat when I picture knitting merrily along in my proposed colourwork pattern, only to run out of yarn with half a sleeve to go.

I suppose I could do something like Kristen Kapur’s Staccato, but that seems kind of a cop-out - I want to do something patterned or stranded.  I had a wild search today to find a pattern that would work for me, and Kim Hargreaves’ Moor (rav link) stood out. I’m not sold on that particular patterning for a little boy’s sweater, but I do like the general balance of the colours.  I might try riffing off this design, trying some different patterns as well as adding sleeves.

I remain undecided.  My mystery yarn and I are going to sit here for a little bit longer, sizing each other up.  If you have any suggestions of a pattern - or, even better, if you think you know what this yarn is - leave me a comment!

Tags: planning sweater Bug

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