For those that don’t know, tinking is un-knitting. I am seriously thinking of tinking my hemp sweater. I don’t like how it is finishing up, I thought if I just kept knitting it would evolve into a sweater I would wear. The pattern isn’t well written, which might be part of the problem. It’s vague in many places, and I don’t have enough sweater construction experience to figure it through. The pattern has you make three tubes, a body and two sleeves, then somehow they are knit together and the yoke is formed. I am having trouble with the pattern interfering with the diagonal decreases. I think it is in part due to the centering of the pattern on the sleeves. In short, it’s a hot mess.
Happily, Curious Handmade has released the first shawl pattern of the Shawl Society lll. It’s called Maytham, part of the Secret Garden theme this year.
From the pattern notes:
THE MAGIC OF The Secret Garden takes place high in the Yorkshire Moors, in the grand and gloomy Misselthwaite Manor and its rambling estate. Frances Hodgson Burnett found the inspiration for her story almost 20 years before she penned its first lines, when she moved to a noble but slightly shabby country house, Great Maytham Hall. The sprawling, overgrown walled gardens which surrounded the house sparked a passion in the author, who immediately set to work bringing them back to life, ripping out the wild brambles, digging out old hedges, and planting masses of roses.
I am using three skeins of Malabrigo yarn in plums and eggplant.
In quilting news, I got the Storm at Sea on the frame yesterday. I decided to try 80/20 batting with this quilt. It’s a little lighter weight and a bit puffier than Warm and Natural 100% cotton. I’m quilting simple wavy lines to accent the illusion curves of the pattern. These lines will run diagonally, so there will either be lots of scrolling or stopping and starting. Decisions, decisions.
I am also working on my That’ll be the Day. PIQF quilt. I have a basic pattern drawn to size, but I need to color/shade it in with colored pencils to figure out fabric placement. Then I think I can trace it on to vellum and cut out a bazillion pattern pieces. I need to figure out if I am going to use wonder-under or glue. I was recently on Susan Carlsons website, she makes and teaches fabric collages. There is a tutorial there called Why Glue? which is intriguing to me. I would like to try it on this project, as it is a show quilt and not a “to be used” quilt. More decisions to be made.
Linking up with Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict for “Can I get a Whoop Whoop?” Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it up Friday, and Judy at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts for Design Wall Monday.
Touch of Grey 
Mmm… Malabrigo!!! Any chance you have some random bit of number 807 Cote’ de Azure in sock weight? Ran out of yarn before running out of sleeve on my first sweater. :o((
Have you checked on Ravelry? I ran out of a discontinued yarn last year and I found someone who had an extra skein in their stash. Just look up the yarn and the color way, and then click on “stashed” you can then narrow it down to people who are willing to sell/trade that yarn, it’s all very friendly.