Arctic Flow Capelet - Off the Blocking mats

What a difference blocking makes.  For comparison, here is the before blocking picture on my dress maker dummy.

Pattern:  Ocean Blue Collar by Eline Oftedal, modified to be a capelet
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Super Wool Aran in Arctic Flow and Cinder
Needle:  US 9 (5.5 mm)

Arctic Flow Capelet - Four Skeins Done

Skein 4 didn't take too long to work through, even if the rounds are getting pretty long.  The yarn usage seems to be pretty much on target, and I like the size.

Pattern:  Ocean Blue Collar by Eline Oftedal, modified to be a capelet
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Super Wool Aran in Arctic Flow and Cinder
Needle:  US 9 (5.5 mm)

Arctic Flow Capelet - Three Skeins Done

I finished up the third skein on this past Thursday.  I put it on two 40" cables connected together to get this shot, but ordered a set of US 9 needles with a 60" cable to continue knitting with.  My 40" cable is getting pretty crowded.  It appears that the yarn usage on this pattern works out to the second repeat taking about twice as much as the first working of the chart, and the third repeat takes about three times as much as the first.  My skein 2 is a pretty dramatic difference compared to my skein 1.  I was worried that maybe I mixed up the order of the skeins when I frogged my first attempt, but looking back at my stash pictures and pictures of other sets in other stashes online, I think I just have a bit of a mutant.  I like the look, regardless.

Pattern:  Ocean Blue Collar by Eline Oftedal, modified to be a capelet
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Super Wool Aran in Arctic Flow and Cinder
Needle:  US 9 (5.5 mm)

Arctic Flow Capelet - Two Skeins Done

I have just finished row 18 of my second repeat of the chart, and am almost done with skein 2 of the gradiance.  For the photo I have it on two 40" cables, connected, so I could spread it out.  So far, so good.

Pattern:  Ocean Blue Collar by Eline Oftedal, modified to be a capelet
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Super Wool Aran in Arctic Flow and Cinder
Needle:  US 9 (5.5 mm)

Arctic Flow Capelet - Take Two, One Skein Done

I had been working away on my Arctic Flow Capelet, getting towards the end of the second repeat of the chart when I could not longer deny the truth staring me in the face - it was going to be too big.  The number of stitches on my needle was verging upon the unmanageable.  I decided to confirm my conclusion by putting the stitches onto some waste yarn so I could lay it out and really assess the situation and determine a way forward.  I had barely gotten the stitches onto the waste yarn before I had decided that I was going to frog and start again.  Before I did that, however, I looked at the current size and determined how many repeats of the motif I really needed.  I settled on 6, which meant a cast on of 72 stitches, instead of the 108 called for in the original pattern.  I did take advantage of my previous work to calculate my yarn usage and put together a spreadsheet.  Based upon my yarn usage figures I could just do 3 repeats of the chart - the same as I did on my Raspberry Blaze Capelet - so long as I didn't want to cast on and bind off.  I went back to my stash and pulled out this skein of the same yarn base, figuring I could do a contrast I-cord cast on and bind off.

So now I've made it back through the first skein of the Arctic Flow gradiance and through the first repeat of the chart, with a little yarn to spare and I'm feeling much better about how this one is going to turn out.

Pattern:  Ocean Blue Collar by Eline Oftedal, modified to be a capelet
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Super Wool Aran in Arctic Flow and Cinder
Needle:  US 9 (5.5 mm)

Arctic Flow Capelet - One Repeat Done

Sometimes I get a bee in my bonnet and decide that there is a yarn in my stash that I just have to make something with.  Last week it was this set of yarn from The Unique Sheep.

The colorway is Artic Flow, the yarn is Super Wool Aran.  As a rule I am not much of a fan of heavier weight yarns, preferring fingering weight and lace, but I wanted to try some of the heavier weight yarns that The Unique Sheep has to offer.  This particular set was the winter offering of The Unique Sheep's Four Seasons of Lace club.  The pattern really didn't appeal to me, but I did want to make something with the yarn, and I enjoy the challenge of finding the right pattern for a given yarn, when I only have a limited amount.

At first I though that I would make the Circle Vest pattern from the book Silk Knits, which I happen to have in my library.  I even cast on this past weekend and knit a few rounds.  The construction is intriguing, but I think the pattern needs some refining.  To determine where you place the slits for the arm holes you work until the radius is half the distance across your back, but the placement of the arm slits is such that the diameter is not the correct measurement.  The line between the slits is a chord of the circle formed by the knitting, not the diameter.  I also was not sure that the pattern would use as much of my yarn as I wanted.  So I frogged and decided to cast on another capelet.

I really like my Raspberry Blaze Capelet that I made as part of Camp Loopy 2016.  The color is amazing and the pattern was fun and easy.  I've been wanting to make more capelets because they are fun and easy to wear, so I decided to cast one one with this yarn.

Yesterday I decided to come home early from work - it was a miserable day, gray and rainy, and my brain really didn't want to work.  I finished up some fairly mindless detail work and left after a half day.  It made voting much easier, and I made us hot chocolate when we got back to the house and I knitted while we watched a movie.  I made it through the first repeat and part of the second.  I should have enough yarn to do two repeats, with enough left over for the bind off without playing yarn chicken.

Pattern:  Ocean Blue Collar by Eline Oftedal, modified to be a capelet
Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Super Wool Aran in Arctic Flow
Needle:  US 9 (5.5 mm)