knitting up a forest

I realised yesterday afternoon that I never told you which of the two wools I decided to go for. I chose the Forest coloured Melody wool – the smooth one. I decided not to just get both, as my life really is quite busy, and while I might be able to devote enough time to knit one jumper, I really don’t think I can find the time for two right now!

I ordered my wool on Thursday last week, and then have been waiting waiting waiting very impatiently ever since! I had hoped that it might arrive on Tuesday so that I could take it on the long trip to and from Adelaide with me. I could have had about 7 hours of knitting time (with bamboo needles)! But that didn’t happen. 🙁

However, it did finally turn up yesterday, and it is lovely. It is so soft and smooth, and really nice to work with. I took my knitting needles and a ball and knitted by tension/gauge swatch as I walked to and from school in the afternoon, to pick up my girls. I walk through a park, with no paved paths – just a track – but tree roots and that sort of thing are not going to put me off walking and knitting!

The other mums thought I was a bit obsessed, bringing it with me like that, and really, they’re quite right!

So I think I’ll be eeking as much “spare time” out of my schedule as possible this next week in order to knit. I am off to Maitland for some classes over Tuesday and Wednesday, so there’s more long train trips there, during which I can knit.

The jumper I am knitting is worked on circular needles. The pattern specified two different length circular needles and some double pointed needles. Rather than get all those together, I decided to look into the technique called magic loop, that my friend who is a dedicated knitter told me about some time back. Wowee, that’s an amazing technique, and means that I can get away with just having the longest length of circular needle. If you’ve never seen it before, check out magic looping!