It seems that I’m in a mood to work with the color blue lately. There was the cabled pools shawl that I showed you a few weeks ago. And the experimental spinning project – though I really expected that to turn out more purplish. Apparently I’m not done with blue yet – it is my favorite color – because after I finished the shawl I cast on another project in the exact same shade.
I will admit that this project represents a bit of a wild hair. No, it’s not a sweater. It’s not a shawl. It’s very definitely not a pair of socks. What is it, you ask? A skirt. Specifically, a summer skirt knit in fingering weight yarn (the same weight used for socks). Because I wear skirts all the time in the summer. Not really.
Like I said – wild hair.
I’ve been wanting to knit a skirt for a long time. My Ravelry favorites is full of them, mostly in heavier weights for the winter. And winter is definitely when I do not wear skirts. I have yet to learn the northwesty habit of layering a heavy skirt over thick leggings and knee high boots when it’s cold and wet outside. I wish I could figure it out, because it’s a very good look! I grew up in the south, where we use light, airy skirts as air conditioning when it’s hot and muggy outside. So I went on a Ravelry search for the middle ground – a mid-weight skirt I could wear without leggings in the not-quite-as-hot-and-oppressive summers here. Friends, I came up with nothing. Everything I like has been written for heavier weight yarns. And if I’m going to have to do math to accommodate the change in gauge, I might as well start from scratch and get the skirt I want. This is why I started designing my own knit and crochet patterns in the first place; to fill what I saw as a gap.
So…a few measurements here and there, a few calculations here and there, a few jotted down notes, and I was off to cast on. (I’m so glad I started keeping a knitting notebook a few years ago as a place for all of my experiments. Super handy things, notebooks.) The skirt starts at the top with a fold-over waistband, and ends with a lace border at the bottom.  I’ll insert a wide elastic band during the finishing. So far, it’s just miles of stockinette with regular increases at the side ‘seams’ to give it an A-line shape.
(Well, what do you know. My knitting matches my favorite drawstring project bag!)
Now that the skirt was well underway, I needed another project or two to throw into the mix. So I went back to the spinning project and picked that up for a few minutes each day. This weekend I started the third and final bobbin, and saw that finish line coming up fast. I put on the speed. Husband assisted by putting a few baseball games on the TV. In no time I was plying the three bobbins together and winding off the finished yarn into a skein for washing.
The abnormally warm weather over the past few days assisted in speed drying the washed yarn. I love it when I don’t have to wait forever for my yarny things to dry.
This polwarth fiber went on and on for miles and bloomed into a lovely soft and squishy yarn. I ended up with over 400 yards of a 3-ply sport weight yarn. That’s a lot for a 4 oz skein. Unfortunately, I don’t have a knitting project in mind for it. (My spinning habit seems to be enhancing the yarn stash at a growing rate. Maybe I should think about adding some of these to the shop or visiting the buy/sell/trade forums on Ravelry?)
My other knitting project is a pair of vanilla socks for Husband. I’m reserving those for purse knitting, to be pulled out and worked on when stuck waiting somewhere. Waiting on an appointment, waiting for dinner at a restaurant, slow times at work…etc. But they’re not blue.
Ah well, I can’t work in blue all of the time! I’m thinking I need a new spinning project now. Maybe the new one won’t be in blue.
For the spinners:
- Fiber:Â Woolgatherings Polwarth, blue-purple color family
- Ravelry project page:Â here