Project: Arachne

 Arachne by AndiSatterlund 

This jumper was released as part of a set last year and I have been thinking about this jumper ever since. I decided that this was going to be my project for October, I'd knit a long sleeved jumper in 4ply in a month, I thought I could totally knit one in DK with time to spare. The 'time to spare bit' I was a little short on (there was also a plan to crochet a matching Tarantula but she is still a WIP).

Awkward selfie!

There were some bits about the pattern I wanted to change from the off, the original has a very high neckline with I'm not a massive fan of generally, t-shirts sometimes feel a bit claustrophobic, and I didn't want long sleeves as I tend to run a bit warm. The pattern was written for sport weight which isn't hugely common in the UK and I'm not sure my LYS stocks any, so there was some working out of which size I needed so I could make it in DK.

I've done some stranded colour work before, I have a lovely pair of wrist warmers made from a Third Vault Yarns  kit, but the floats were only ever a few stitches long. WoollyWormhead posted a great video on her instagram that I found really helpful and I used this every 3^rd stitch or so. I think this might have been a bit overkill and made the fabric a bit inelastic, but I'm hoping with a bit of wear it'll loosen.

Yarn:

My LYS is Sew Much To Do (who doesn't love a pun), and although it is mostly a haberdashery they have a decent enough selection of yarn. I picked some West Yorkshire Spinners Colour Lab DK, which is 100% wool and reared/sheared/spun in the UK. I picked a rather garish green MC and a purple/pink CC (I have a set of 50 colour pencils and didn't have a matching shade for my notebook). It smells a bit sheepy and doesn't specify a sheep breed, and not currently the softest yarn, but also not massively scratchy.

Needles/Gauge:

Using 4mm needles I got a post blocked gauge of 22st x28rows in stst. If I had been knitting the pattern as written I would have been making an XL, but I worked out a L in my gauge would be the same.

3.75mm DPNs for the arm holes and 3.5 crochet hook for the neck.

Modifications:

Arms: I picked up the stitches as per the pattern, knit 2 rounds, then all in 1x1 rib [knit 1 round, decreased 2 under the arm on next round] twice then did a stretchy bind off.

Body: I only did about 20 rows of rib at the bottom, and had to switch to the purple because I ran out of green. I'm on the short side so if I'd continued the rib it would have been too long for me.

Neck: I had to do something with the neck because it was curling over. The pattern calls for picking up the stitches and knitting the neck band, but I didn't want a high neck line. Instead I used my crochet hook to double crochet two rows in the purple. This gives a slightly stand up collar which I maybe could do better, but right now I'm ok with it.

Difficulty:

Bit tricker than what I knit normally because of the stranded colour work, but the general construction wasn't difficult, maybe because this was not my first jumper, not my first pattern from this designer, but I felt the instructions were very clear. I'm not the biggest fan of knitting from charts but writing it out for all the sizes probably would be a nightmare to do and follow.

Worth Repeating:

I'd be happy to make this jumper again, but as I bought the whole pattern set I'm thinking of making a Morticia at some point – those sleeves!

Books

I worked pretty much non-stop on this jumper all October so no blog posts, no art, no gardening but I did read some amazing books. 

Kindred by Rebecca WraggSykes. This is a really interesting, thoughtful, compassionate round up of all the science and archaeology of Neanderthals. It's aimed at people who know nothing and people who might know about one aspect of the Neanderthal story but not other parts. It looks at the story of their discovery, which is an interesting story in the history of archaeology, how they've been portrayed by historians and how they may have interacted with Homo sapiens.

MexicanGothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. I wanted something spooky for Halloween and I'd seen a lot of people saying positive things about this book, and now I am one of them. It's a classic gothic country house style story, think Northanger Abbey, but set in 1950s Mexico. Given the chance I could have read this all in one go, unfortunate I have to work and reading in bed means sleep sometimes wins. I still hold the opinion that reading in bed can be an extreme sport, there's always a risk of dropping a book on your face.

AFatal Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum by Emma Southon. I really enjoyed her book about Agrippina, and this is just as good. It looks at all the ways it was ok to kill people in ancient Rome (and there were a lot of ways) and stories of the people who committed these non-crimes. I love the way Emma shares history, making it accessible and fun. I don't know how she'd feel about the phrase “Horrible History for grown ups” but that's what it feels like.

Garden

This is the after, honest.

I said I'd neglected the garden during October, but I managed to get in it yesterday to clear the flower border and plant some bulbs. I'm so sore today, but as it had forecast rain today I wanted to get it done. Of course the weather seems nice now but if I'd left it I'm sure it would have been miserable. I trimmed back some of my perennials (no idea how they'll feel about that), split and planted some goats beard and something else with white flowers that I was given by my aunt last year, not split plants before so I hope they survive too. I had a whole load of tulips and daffodils planted last year, so they should come back and I've set a whole load more tulips bulbs as well as ranunculus, alliums, anemones and eremurus. Putting bulbs out feels a bit like planting hope, almost the same way that making jam in summer feels like bottling sunshine. Fingers crossed for some interesting germinations.