I haven't given up

I'm almost to the armhole shaping on the front. I'm still hopeful that this one will be finished soon enough to actually be a summer sweater (which was the idea in the first place).

The installment sweater-jacket had more singles spun up for it last night. There's about 2/3rds of a spindle-full done. For those dying to know (there are so many, I'm sure), I'm using my ball-winder to remove the singles from the support spindle, then plying from both ends of the center-pull ball using my Kundert drop spindle. After skeining it onto my mini niddy noddy (say that three times fast), the yarn gets a bath in warm water with a little Dawn dishliquid, then a rinse in warm clean water. If it's nice out (which it has been), it gets to hang from a tree limb in the back yard to dry. I'm getting a balanced yarn out of all of this - it hangs nice and straight and doesn't show any signs of bias when I knit.

I was having problems getting a good gauge swatch - the yarn is so dark it's hard to see individual stitches and it tends to go thicker and thinner. I went ahead and starting knitting and then took it off the needles after about four inches (aka when I ran out of yarn). I was afraid it would be waaay too big, since the gauge swatch kept counting up as a significant one stitch off (3 per inch rather than 4 per inch is pretty drastic). In the (semi) finished product now I'm getting 4 - 4.5 per inch (go figure). I finally just wrapped the whole thing around me and decided its going to work. The jacket's worked in one piece until the armholes.

Yes, I could probably get this done a lot quicker by spinning the yarn with my wheel - but I'm enjoying the slower process and most likely getting a more consistent product because of it.

Plans for the long Memorial day weekend -
Finishing the ShineWorsted sweater front
Spinning 100 yards of Nefertiti's wool
Knitting said wool into the installment sweater-jacket.

Oh ... and spending time with my husband, playing with the kitty, and doing the usual chores.

And going over to Mom and Dad's - Mom just called. She's dropped a stitch and can't find it (neither can Dad). I'll go over and have a stitch hunt 'til I find it and pick it back up for her. Mom is legally blind, so knitting is a real challenge. She's making the Yarn Harlot's Poncho in a pretty spring green yarn.