Slanting Gretel Part 2

Excuse the non-blocked item with nasty lighting photos (not a helper to be found at home today!) Couldn't wait to show Gretel off the needles. I still need to pick up the sleeve stitches, cast them back off, and work in my ends. The second ball of Solo Silk was nothing but tied ends...20 to be exact. Very irritating to say the least. So my upper yoke has lots of yarn to weave in, but I'll deal with it.





This is the smallest size with an added an extra inch to the body length before beginning the armholes. I wish I'd done another 1/2", but it will probably grow in the blocking process any way. I don't like how wide the neck-line is on me. I have a narrow shoulder area & it is gaping a bit. That means redoing the cast-off to tighten it up or even undoing the seed stitch rows and continuing the decrease rows, me thinks! The purple pooling/striping is not my fave thing either, but I love the overall rose/terracotta color so I won't over-dye (though I was tempted!).

Slanting Gretel

I started Slanting Gretel on 1/28/10 using a Rhinebeck purchase. I'm 29 rows away from completion. Another day of knitting! Originally I was going to knit this in a peacock blue Sheldridge Farm Soft Touch DK wool yarn (also bought at Rinebeck '09 for the intent of knitting Gretel), but this Solo Silk was a better choice for the pattern at hand. I fell in love with the 50/50 wool/silk blend at the Brooks Farm booth. Had no clue what I'd make it up into, but couldn't resist the sale and scoffed up the last two skeins knowing the perfect pattern would eventually appear. And so it did. (Not to worry, the Sheldridge was way to many yards for this top, & will become a nice Nordique Swing cardi! See IWK Fall 09, pg. 44)


My hubby took me to Charleston, SC for our 20 year anniversary (March 17th, St. Patrick's Day.) It was the best three days I've had in a long time. We walked at least 8 miles each day sight-seeing, shopped til we dropped, ate great food, & even took a Carriage Ride tour. What fun! He "allowed" me to sneak a stop at my favorite lys, Knit of Charleston, where I made this purchase. I couldn't deny the lure of Louisa Harding's brand new pattern booklet Bijoux (call it the French Quarter of Charleston influence!) and bought the Merletto yarn to do the Moonstone tunic (the right-hand pattern pictured.) The shoulder straps are silk ribbon and the upper back closes with 7 small buttons. I'll make a day trip to buy the buttons when I'm finished as the shop has a great selection to pick from. (Yippee another expedition to Knit!) I also purchased two skeins of Nashua Creative Focus Linen to knit up a summer tank-top. As a side note, I thought I was getting a very unique color for the linen, but you can see this color was compelling to me once before, LOL!