I Walked the Line

I kept a close watch on this sleeve of mine
I kept my eyes wide open all the time
I saw the signs and now I'm gonna whine
I'm out of twine, I walked the line

My apologies to Johnny Cash, but this song has been going through my head all day.

I finished the first sleeve of my Sawyer Sweater late Friday after piddling away at it for a few weeks. When I finished, I saw that I only had a a little over two balls of yarn left for the second sleeve and the collar. I weighed the first sleeve -- 104 grams. I had 108 grams of yarn left, so clearly I would need to get more yarn for the collar, but at least I had enough for the second sleeve with a tiny bit to spare. Or so it seemed.

Saturday afternoon, I rode to my LYS and checked -- they were out of my dye lot, but I was okay with the collar being from a different lot, so I got two more skeins of the closest match. There was enough of a difference in the texture and the stitch patterns between the body and the collar that no one would notice on a galloping horse. While there, I got 5 buttons as called for in the instructions. I admired some wooden ones and even considered some rugged antler buttons, but decided on these metal ones with a yellowish patina that might bring out some of the yellow/gold flecks in the yarn.

This weekend I was able to get a LOT of of knitting done. I cast on for the second sleeve Friday night and all but have it done now. That's right. Almost done. Because I'm going to have to dig into one of the new dye lot skeins for the last 8 rows. Grrr. Maybe I need a better scale? I didn't think adding an extra inch to the body and sleeves would eat up that much more yarn, but now that I think about it, yeah, it would. Still, I kind of wish patterns would indicate a bit more exactly what "11 balls" means. Does it mean "10 balls and one more yard" or does it mean "Every freakin' last centimeter of 11 balls -- you know what -- better make it 12"?

So, I have a bit of ball winding to do, followed by a few more rows, some binding off, putting on a collar and some buttons, and some sewing together. And I'm rapidly feeling my enthusiasm ebbing away, despite my recent rapid progress, not least because of the unseasosonably warm weather. It really was "June in January," and not, as Bing sings, "because I'm in love," but because it was 85° Fahrenheit. In January. Beautiful, but I'm just not ready for it yet.