My mother's vest aka Oregon Chillwarmer

It's been a long time since I've added anything to this blog!  It's been a busy year.  I have some down time this summer, and thus got inspired to add another of my old patterns to this blog.

I used to live in the Pacific Northwest.  It gets cool there as soon as the sun goes down.  My mother, who lived in the southern US, used to get chilly in the evenings.  She asked me to knit her a vest to wear when she was visiting me.

So I did.

She wore it whenever she visited.  It looked great on her.  It kept her warm and cozy, wrapped in love.  She is gone now, but I still have the vest.  The color does not suit me, so I rarely wear it.

The pattern is my own.  It is very simple.  Here it is.



My Mother's Vest aka Oregon Chillwarmer

The yarn I used is Fingerlakes Unspun Pencil Roving, which runs about 2200 yards per pound.  It comes (came?) in wheels of about 4-7 oz each.  I used one wheel and a small part of a second wheel.  My guess is that's about 700 yards, give or take a bit.  I don't know if it is still being made.  When used as a knitting yarn, it is very soft and fluffy.  Most patterns call for using 2 strands at 4 st/in (stockinette).  I used one strand as if it were a DK/worsted weight yarn.

The stitch pattern I used is brioche rib.  I knit it very loosely to give a lacy, drapey fabric.  Well, not too lacy.

Brioche rib stitch pattern

preparatory row:  *yo, slip 1, k1*
All other rows:  *yo, slip 1, k2tog (the yo and sl 1 of the previous row)

My gauge in garter stitch was about 4 st/in.  My gauge in brioche rib was about 3 to 3.5 stitches per inch and about 10 rows per inch.  It is a very stretchy fabric, which is why I was not too careful about my gauge measurement

In the pattern, I will refer to row sets, each of which is 2 rows.  Just as in garter stitch, where one counts ridges, it is easier in brioche rib to count row sets.


I made the vest with about a 40-45" circumference so it would fit comfortably over other clothes.  The armholes are similarly wide, so it will be comfortable over clothing.  I didn't actually know what my mother's measurements were.  I took a wild guess, trying to err on the generous side.  It fit, so apparently it was a good enough estimate.

It is made in one piece, all flat knitting (back and forth) except for the armholes.  It is a cardigan-vest that buttons up the front.  I made it very simple so I didn't have to deal with any shaping in the brioche rib.  Therefore, it has square-set sleeves and a simple square for raising the back of the neck vs the front.
I forget exactly how I decided that 128 stitches was the right number to use as my base number.  It probably was a convenient number for divvying up the vest into front and back, and was probably close enough or stretchy enough for the circumference.




The actual knitting:

Cast on 128 stitches (loosely, of course).  Do 140 rows (70 row sets) of brioche rib, about 14" (or desired length to underarms).

Then, do one of the fronts on 28 stitches, leaving the rest of the vest body on some kind of holder.  Work 80 rows (40 row sets).  Put the first 10 stitches on a holder at the end of the last row.  (i.e., the 10 stitches at the front edge of the vest)  Do 10 more row sets (i.e. 20 rows).  Put the remaining stitches on a holder.

Work the other front at the other side of the vest, reversing the shaping.  Start from the inside edge to stay in pattern.

Do the center back on the middle 56 stitches.  There will be 8 stitches for each underarm.  Put those stitches on holders as you work the back.  Knit 50 row sets (100 rows) for the center back.  You can work a few more row sets if you want to raise the back of the neck a little bit more compared to the front.

Do a 3-needle bind-off at each shoulder, leaving the middle 20 stitches of the center back on a holder.  I almost certainly bound off in a way that made sense for the stitch pattern, though it is not recorded explicitly in my old notes.

So, that's the body.

Now for the borders and bands, all in garter stitch.  I started with the center fronts and neck.

On the right side of the fabric, pick up and knit about 109 stitches per side (one stitch per loop after the first loop) and 60 on the collar.

1 (wrong side):  Knit back, decreasing to 4 stitches for every 5 you picked up.  (*k3, k2tog* works well).  I ended up with about 89 stitches per side, and 48 on the top.

2, 4, and 8 (right side): knit

3, 5, 7, and 9: K, increasing 1 stitch at the top of each front band at the 2nd stitch (i.e. M1, k1 or k1, M1).  I am reading my notes here and not quite sure what I meant by the "2nd stitch".  Basically, you want the garter stitch band to go around the corner from the front to the collar area.

6:  Buttonhole row:  place buttonholes evenly along the front, however many buttonholes you want and whichever side you want (or both sides).  I did (yo, k2tog) for each buttonhole.

10:  Bind off in purl on the right side.

Then, do a garter stitch band for each armhole.

On the right side, pick up and knit about 110 stitches.

1.  Join, and in the round, purl.  Decrease to 4 stitches for every 5 you picked up (*p3, p2tog*).

2 and 4: knit

3 and 5: purl

6: Bind off in purl.

Hide any yarn ends, attach buttons, and wear.  It is reversible except for the shoulder seams and of course the buttons.  One could put buttons on both sides.  For the shoulder seam, consider it a design element, or put embroidery over it, or use some other kind of bind-off or grafting.  It's not ugly, just obvious.

Hopefully, if I ever make this again, this will be enough for me to re-create it.

I have a schematic of this vest.  It should allow for customization for just about any circumference and length and probably stitch pattern, too.

Here is the schematic, rather crudely transferred to the computer from my notes.

You can see a small representation of what the vest looks like on the bottom right of the schematic.  It's about 14" from the bottom to the armhole, and about 10" from the bottom of the armhole to the shoulders.  The armholes are indeed triangular and the neck square, but the elasticity of knitting (i.e., the garter stitch bands) totally softens it all into nice curves.

I suspect that the schematic and divisibility of all numbers were based somewhat on Elizabeth Zimmermann's Tomtem jacket.  But it could also be because I didn't want to deal with shaping in brioche rib, and thus kept it as simple as possible.  It's only slightly more complicated than a drop-shoulder pattern of plain rectangles.

Anyway, here it is, preserved for posterity.  Someday I'll make it again, or make something similar using the same basic shape.

The Knit-in-the-Dark/Bedside/Dishcloth Shawl

I have this urge to write out some of my old patterns so I can find them in one place. Thus, this old pattern of mine for a simple triangular shawl. As far as I can tell, I first posted it to the knitted-lace list back in 1998, though it's possible it went to the old knitlist a few years before that. I've probably shared it around since then.

At the time, I needed some mindless stress relief. I had some yarn I didn't know what to do with -- maybe not quite enough for a sweater, but a pretty good pile in spite of that. I needed something soothing that could be knit in the dark if necessary. Something that could be knit while sitting with a sick relative, in a hospital, at an airport, at a boring meeting... Well, you get the idea.

Thus, the dishcloth shawl. It's not an original idea, of course. It's a very, very old concept. It is based on the classic garter-stitch dishcloth, except that one never decreases the triangle back down into a square (if you do, and you certainly can, you'll end up with a very nice square shawl). This plan for a simple triangular garter stitch shawl is published in many places, each time with a bit of a twist. One of the famous internet shawls of this type is the Truly Tasha shawl (also known as the Tasha Tudor shawl) by Nancy Bush, for example. My version of this shawl is as simple as I could make it, since I needed something as simple as possible.

I've knit many of these over the years. They're dull, which is absolutely soothing when the rest of your life is suffering from an excess of non-dullness. They're warm if you knit them from thick yarn, which I usually do.

The Dishcloth Shawl (also known as the knit-in-the-dark shawl or the bedside shawl)

Pick some likely yarn and needles. It's a shawl -- who cares about gauge? You can unravel and try again with a different yarn/needle combo after a few inches if you don't like your initial choice.

Cast on 5 stitches.  (Lately I've been casting on 3 instead.  No matter -- it's all the same.)

All rows: knit 2, yarnover, knit to end.

When the shawl is big enough, or you're almost out of yarn, or you're bored and can't stand it any longer, cast off.

That's it.

The only attention you need to pay to this shawl is that yarnover for the third stitch of the row. After that, you can zone out for the rest of the row. If you have enough attention to spare, you can double-check at the end of the row to make sure you're knitting into a yarnover in the third stitch from the end. If it's missing, create it on the fly by picking up the running thread between the second and third stitches and knitting that. If you miss a few yarnovers here and there, no one will notice.

I usually slip the first stitch of each row for my selvedge, but it's certainly not necessary if you don't want to.

What you end up with is a garter stitch triangle with an eyelet running up the two sides. It starts at the tip and gets bigger and bigger, deeper and wider, with each row. The first hundred or so rows go fairly quickly. After you get past about 200 rows, each row starts to seem endless. I usually call it quits well before 300 rows.

If you're feeling ambitious, you can do a row of *yo, k2tog* a few rows before you cast off in order to match the eyelets along the other sides. Or you can add fringe when you're done. Or you can add a lace edging. Or you can put in an interesting eyelet pattern as you knit the thing -- an occasional row of *yo, k2tog* would be both simple and lovely, for example. Or you can change yarns, knit colorful stripes, or anything else you can imagine.

Or you can simply knit, keeping your fingers busy while your mind is otherwise occupied. That's what I usually do.

I still have several of these around the house. The next time I drag out the camera, I'll take a photo to share.

---------------

I've finished my Orenburg honeycomb lace scarf. I'll try to get a photo at some point. I've started some fingerless mitts for my offspring using a pattern in the Fall 2010 Knitscene. It's not the most clearly-written pattern in existence, but it is attractive enough to be worth reading between the lines. I'll post my thoughts if/when they get done.

The next lace project may be a lace scarf pattern from an old issue of Interweave Knits. I'd probably use the leftovers from that long-ago cable and lace rectangular stole I did. We shall see.

I'm also starting the dithering process on the next sweater. I'm thinking a gansey. But I often think that. I'm swatching some ideas with the yarn I'm thinking of using. The yarn is handspun, brown, somewhat fuzzy. So, if it becomes a gansey, the patterns must be simple enough to show up in a somewhat fuzzy yarn. I can still use a gansey construction even if I don't include fancy texture patterns. Garter and reverse stockinette both show up well.

A friend on a list mentioned the Elizabeth Zimmermann Adult Surprise Sweater. Hmmm.... I have a pile of yarn -- pencil roving, actually -- that might work for this. However, the yarn requirements are daunting. Do I really need 2000 yards? And, if so, do I have 2000 yards of anything? One of these years, I'd like to make one using EZ's method of using every little bit of odds and ends from the leftovers basket.

I could stand to start another dishcloth shawl. I should go stash-diving to see what I have that needs to get used up.

And that's enough dithering for me for one day!

Orenburg Honeycomb Lace Scarf

I'm not quite finished with the scarf. It's longer than I am tall, but I still have half a skein of yarn left! Soon I'll call it quits anyway, then finish it. I'll give it a bit of blocking even though it looks quite good without any at all.

My inspiration for this was a pattern in the May/June 2010 issue of Piecework. The article is called, "An Orenburg Honeycomb Lace Scarf to Knit" by Galina Khmeleva.

She writes, "I discovered a lovely Honeycomb scarf for sale that a former student had knitted; I was so impressed with it that I purchased it for display purposes. The resulting demand for the written pattern for this scarf was enormous, so I immediately got to work to produce it."

The scarf in Piecework is more of a rectangular wrap than a scarf. Its finished dimensions are approximately 20" x 70", and then fringe is added to make it even longer! It is, of course, gorgeous. The pattern is pure Orenburg honeycomb stitch, as described in the article and in her books on Orenberg lace, with a border of garter stitch. It is made from a fine merino/silk laceweight yarn. The pattern is given in chart form only.

I wanted something a bit more humble. Thus, I went back to the basic version implied by Galin Khmeleva's words -- that image of the honeycomb lace scarf knit by a student trying to understand this basic motif of the Orenburg lace-knitting vocabulary.

Here is my version. As usual, I am rather vague about many of the details. My scarf is knit in the honeycomb pattern motif with a narrow border of garter stitch. I will provide the theory; you decide how to apply it to your yarn and your own personal scarf preferences.

My yarn is a very fuzzy mohair blend, 70% kid mohair and 30% acrylic. It runs 167 meters (183 yds) per 50 grams. It's about sock weight or slightly thicker for those of you who care about these things. By the time I give up, I'll have used about one and a half balls of yarn. My scarf will be about 7.5 to 8 inches wide and probably close to 6 feet long. The stitch pattern is remarkably open -- the scarf is more air than yarn! I love the fuzz of the mohair and how it looks with the pale aura of frizziness over the holes.

So, pick your yarn. Pick a needle size that's a few sizes larger than you would normally use for that weight of yarn. I won't tell you my needle size because I am a loose knitter and my needle choice won't necessarily be the same as yours. The first few inches of the scarf can serve as your gauge swatch. If your lace is too tight or too loose, if your scarf is too narrow or too wide, then unravel and start again.

I chose garter stitch for my border. I'm using 3 stitches on each side, and 6 rows (3 ridges) at the beginning and the end. You, of course, may make your border wider or narrower, or may choose seed stitch or something else besides garter stitch. For the selvedges, I am slipping the first stitch of each row as if to purl, with the yarn in front.

The openwork portion of the scarf consists of the Orenburg version of honeycomb lace. This is a garter-based lace stitch and looks pretty much the same on both sides. I've mostly seen it charted rather than written out. That's fine. When I started knitting it, though, I realized that the written version seems so much easier to follow than the charted version!

Orenburg honeycomb lace motif (over a multiple of four stitches)

rows 1 and 2: *k2, yo, k2tog*
rows 3 and 4: k4, *yo, k2tog, k2*

That's it! Rows 3 and 4 are just like 1 and 2, except that they are offset by 2 stitches. If you'd like, you can think of rows 3 and 4 as: k2, *k2, yo, k2tog*, k2. (I don't know if that helps you understand or just confuses you. If you're confused, simply forget I mentioned it, and just do the pattern above.)

If you can count to 4, you can knit this pattern. You do need to keep track of which row you are on, which is sometimes harder than you might think.

For your scarf, you will need a multiple of four stitches, plus the border stitches on each side. For my scarf, I chose 20 stitches for the center and 3 stitches on each side, for a total of 26 stitches. Hmmm, that means I'm getting about 4 stitches per inch before any blocking, not that it matters.

Orenburg Honeycomb Lace Scarf Pattern

Cast on 26 stitches. Knit 6 rows then start the pattern.

Rows 1 and 2: slip first stitch as if to purl with yarn in front, k2, *k2, yo, k2tog*, end k3.
Rows 3 and 4: slip first stitch as if to purl with yarn in front, k2, k4, *yo, k2tog, k2*, end k3.

When your scarf is long enough or you're just about out of yarn, k 6 rows and bind off. Block it if you'd like, then wear it.

I'll probably add a photo of the finished scarf after it's completed and blocked.

Another decade, another sweater

Well, maybe not quite that bad. But I am not a very prolific sweater knitter.



This is the sweater I've been mumbling about for a while. I've done several rounds of rip-and-redo. Finally, I figured out exactly what I wanted to do. And then the knitting went smoothly.

The entire sweater is knit from spindle-spun yarn. I dyed the colored yarn; the gray and white are natural.

The body of the sweater is from a friend's Icelandic sheep. She had sent the fleece to a new processor and didn't like the results, so I ended up with it. It wasn't the easiest thing to spin. But it was fun anyway. The yarn is mostly bulky, thick and thin with slubs. I actually do like it a lot. It's white with some black hairs.

The rest of the sweater yarn is from commercial roving, though I'm not sure exactly what. Some of it was used two-stranded, since my normal spinning is quite a bit thinner than the Icelandic yarn is. It's from my Yarn Library, which is what I call all those small amounts of hand-spun and hand-dyed yarn I've accumulated over the years.

The yoke pattern is adapted from a pattern I found on the Istex website's free pattern page.

The sweater style is the typical Icelandic round-yoke pattern. I made it up as I went along, though it is mostly based on Elizabeth Zimmermann's percentage system.

I finished it just in time for today's very cold weather. I'm wearing it now as I type this.

I think I might have enough of the Icelandic left for a second sweater, especially if I add even more color-patterning. This was fun to knit and I like the results, so.... Check back in a few years to see if it ever happens. I also have a couple of other batches of yarn in quantities sufficient for a sweater.

In the last post, so many months ago, I wrote about Opal socks I was starting to knit. Here's a photo of what they looked like back then. As you can see, it's a simple toe-knit plain sock.



The socks were finished soon after that post. I don't have a photo of the finished socks. Since then, I've knit a few other pairs. One sock was highly annoying. I knit it two-stranded. When it was done, I discovered that it was too tight! That's not very common for me. Usually, I know my gauge, I measure as I go, and I try on socks as I go. Oh, well. I unraveled it for future socks. Unraveling and re-winding a ball of yarn that has been knit two-stranded is Not Fun. But it is done.

My latest travel-knitting project is yet another scarf. It is based on a pattern from the May/June 2010 issue of Piecework by Galina Khmeleva. The original pattern is a very lovely and elegant wrap, a large rectangular scarf with fringe on both ends knit from laceweight merino/silk. Mine is a humble scarf knit in a thicker (and very fuzzy) mohair blend yarn. I took the honeycomb lace stitch pattern and went from there.

An open stitch pattern such as this really makes the yarn go a long way! The scarf is getting longer and longer and longer. I still have plenty of yarn left. Soon I will decide that it is Long Enough and that will be that. I'm not sure what I'll do with the leftover mohair. Will there be enough left for a cowl or neck-warmer? I can combine it with the leftover mohair from the other mohair scarf I did, the dark blue one with a cable and lace design.



The photo below is a close-up of the lace pattern. It's garter-based. It's very easy to knit -- two rows of one kind of knitting followed by two rows of another. The only stitches are knit, yarnover, and knit two together. The lace is quite open with no blocking whatsoever. There is a slight bias, though. I'll probably give it the usual minor wet-blocking treatment after it's done.



I might write out the pattern for others to use. If you like it, I urge you to check out Piecework. Galina Khmeleva has been publishing beautiful patterns there for a while.

There's been more knitting and spinning and crocheting and what-not since my last post. But it's all pretty boring, nothing worth going into unless/until I have photos. I don't even have any good doily-knitting photos to share.

I'm not sure what I'll be making next. Hats. Mittens. Scarves. Shawls. Another sweater, perhaps. Maybe a doily. In other words, the usual.

Still No Photos

Still no photos.

1. I finished the giant granny square afghan mentioned in a previous post. And then I crocheted yet another. I think I'm done for the moment. I do like this style of lap blanket (or whatever you call it). It's good travel knitting, it's nicely mindless, and the results are pleasant. After three of them in a row, though, I'm taking a break.

2. The Opal socks mentioned in a previous post are almost done. These are what I use as travel knitting in places where dropped dpns can be easily retrieved. I have a couple of inches to go on the second sock, and then it's on to the next pair. I like these. The pattern on the yarn consists of narrow stripes in three different colors, separated by stripes with a speckled pattern.

I have whittled down the self-patterned yarn stash, finally. So, soon I get to decide whether to do another single-strand pair of socks, or if I should make some two-stranded socks. It might be heresy to some, but I actually prefer wearing the thicker socks. Most of the sock yarn I have left is either a single color, or consists of harmoniously-colored stripe patterns and thus could easily be knit double-stranded.

3. The Ashland Bay mystery roving I referred to in a previous post turned out to have something very, very slippery in it. I am spinning it up and doing a lot of cussing. I don't have a lot of experience with spinning slippery fibers on a wheel. It doesn't help that my brake band decided to be annoying. It either doesn't pull in at all, or it yanks the yarn out of my hand. I did some cleaning, adjusting, changing brake bands, etc., and it has helped somewhat.

The yarn has a nice sheen to it. I'm sure I'll like it just fine after it's done.

I'm also spindle-spinning various blobs of dyed roving whenever I'm in the mood. The blobs are all about 1-2 ounces each, a good size for spindle projects. I'm being very, very careful to wind the yarn on the spindle the correct way.

4. Next up has been a lot of little projects -- hats, mittens, scarves, etc. No doilies, alas. Nor have I finished my sweater yet. I did a bit of braiding and wove some narrow bands. I've also been starting to catch up on the sewing backlog.

My current travel knitting project is a plain black hat. It will be finished today or tomorrow. Sure, it's fairly nondescript, but that's by request. The recipient will like it.

5. I'll need a new semi-large travel project soon. Perhaps a lace shawl, quite possibly from handspun...

Important Reminder...

...to myself.

When you are using a spindle, and you notice that you are winding the spun yarn on the spindle in the wrong direction, you should stop immediately and fix it.

Yes, it's a hassle to unwind a few dozen yards of yarn and then rewind it again, but it's far less of a hassle than it is to deal with the irritations that occur by winding the yarn on the wrong way for the entire batch of yarn.

Ugh.

Hassle 1: the yarn frequently flipping off of the hook so that the spindle drops to the ground and a bunch of already-spun yarn tries to escape, letting its twist run up into the half-spun yarn to the detriment of both.

Hassle 2: the yarn sliding around on the spindle as it spins, causing the spindle to lurch around at unexpected moments and also causing the already wound-on yarn to unwind and try to ply back on itself instead of behaving like a nice, well-behaved single strand of yarn.

Hassle 3: spending so much time dealing with 1 and 2 that one does not do a good job of spinning, both because I'm managing already-spun yarn instead of drafting roving, and because the whole thing is so annoying that I want to get done as quickly as possible.

This batch of yarn will have one ply that is not as consistent as I'd like. It will have thick and thin spots, sections that are underspun or overspun, and so on.

I'm spinning up a blob of teal roving, dyed by me. It is from some old Romney roving, originally mostly white with streaks of gray. It's slightly compacted (from before it was dyed). That's part of why I'm doing it on the spindle. I can spend a bit more time dealing with imperfect roving. It's also a very good quantity of roving for a spindle, since my spindle holds less yarn than the spinning wheel bobbins.

I'm sure the yarn will end up OK in spite of it all. Plying and setting the twist balance out some of the flaws. Knitting the yarn hides most of the rest.

But I re-learned a lesson the hard way. I haven't made that mistake for a long, long time. And I'm now quite sure I won't make it again for an even longer time.

What is the right direction? For me, it's the direction I'm spinning. I twirl the spindle the same way for spinning and for winding on the yarn. If you do it differently, more power to you.

------------

Whenever I get around to downloading photos from the camera, I'll put a few up on the blog. The photos include the last batch of spindle-spun yarn (red-orange), this batch (teal), the sock I'm knitting (Opal self-patterned sock yarn), and a few other odds and ends. By the time I actually deal with the photos, there might even be more.

Dithering

Here are a few photos. The first is a close-up of the blue mohair scarf. I think you can see how there are cables on one side (the bottom half), and the lace panels on the other (the top half).




This other photo is of one of the hats I knit last year. I grabbed some oddballs from the stash, double-stranded them, and started knitting. When Color A ran out, I doubled Color B and knit until the yarn was pretty much gone. It's thick, warm, fuzzy, and very red and orange. I am happy to have gotten the yarn out of my stash.


That's it for photos.

I've made rather a lot of progress on the long-stalled sweater. No photos of that, though. I've finished the lower body and both sleeves. Now it's time to unite them all and do the upper body.

Here's where the dithering comes in. What kind of upper body? The last sweater I did from handspun was a raglan style. While it's very nice, and I always enjoy doing raglans, perhaps I should do something different this time.

I'm dithering between a saddle shoulder or hybrid saddle shoulder (either from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting Workshop or Priscilla Gibson-Roberts Knitting in the Old Way), or perhaps a round yoke. If it's a round yoke, chances are I'll put in some nice color patterns. I've been looking around for interesting color patterns to use. I certainly have plenty of small quantities of handspun that would be perfect for this!

That's the excitement for the day. Everything else is progressing in a calm and placid manner -- socks, afghan, spinning projects, and so on.

Now you understand why I haven't been updating the blog all that much.

Other exciting ditherings are about the next sweater project. I have a couple of problems. One, I have a lot of smallish batches of yarn, and two, I am very neurotic about running out of yarn. Therefore, I am always convinced that my bigger piles of yarn are still not enough for a sweater. Of course, when I do knit the sweater, I often find that I have way more than enough. And then I have a smallish batch of yarn leftover, probably not quite enough for another sweater.

So... Do I take a chance on a smallish batch of yarn? Spin up another humongous batch that will be way too much for one sweater but possibly not enough for two? Plan on a mixed-color sweater, where the worries about Not Enough Yarn can be spread out over several batches of handspun?

You see the problem. It's good for a lot of dithering.

I have a batch of brown yarn that I'm pretty sure is enough for a sweater. Although it would be fun to turn it into a gansey, I think the yarn is too fuzzy to show off stitch patterns. I'd have to use something a bit more obvious, such as a wide rib or garter rib or moss stitch.

I also have a large batch of white yarn that I'm quite sure is enough. That would end up being knit into a top-down Aran-style sweater, drop shoulder with square-set sleeves, possibly also with saddle shoulders.

I think the white yarn I'm using now will have enough left over that I can use it as a major color in another Icelandic round-yoked style color-patterned sweater.

And so on.

Then I move on to dithering about hats and mittens. I won't bore you with that. Something should be cast on and started within a week or two. But for now, I'm dithering.