Recalculating

I promised myself that I would get the last of the peacock batt spun by the end of January. Came pretty close - I plied the last of it yesterday. 23 skeins total, and I figure about 1550 meters. Plenty for a sweater. Almost a sweater and a half, really.

I have been thinking for months that I want to make the Borealis sweater out of it. Only one tiny problem. I had started spinning rather before I decided on the sweater pattern - and didn't check what size yarn the sweater used. I just saw a friend's version, went, 'Ooh, pretty, that would probably work with my yarn', and acquired the pattern. Um.

So I went to cast on last night and had my first indication of trouble when I saw the pattern called for 15mm needles. The largest I own is 9mm, and when I tried a sample with them, my yarn looked really tiny. Seems I had been thinking of it as a bulky yarn when it's really around aran-weight. It's only bulky by comparison to what I usually spin.

Well, a quick look around Rav convinced me that the Borealis was still the type of thing I wanted - plain knit, fairly fitted, cowlneck. Out came the calculator, and I plugged in numbers, and swatched, and got a sleeve started. I think I can still do this.

Happily, the yarn is lovely to work with, and has the same quality as Noro or fair-isle, in that you just want to keep going to see the next color-change. All I have to do is remember to not get too into it and forget about things like supper...