Mulberry Nila - Front and Backs Joined!

Last night I got to the point where I thought that the front and back yokes were long enough to join for the body.  When I started working with the third skein I had the front and back yokes synced up with regards to length (when wearing) as well as where they were in the pattern repeat, so I worked them at the same time from both ends of my yarn cake.  Once they were where I thought they needed to be I measured them (as per the pattern) and darned if they didn’t match the measurements for the pattern size I was working.  I will confess to being a little dubious given the unusual shoulder construction, but it all works out.  I decided to complete the armhole shaping for the back, so I could cut the yarn and then do the armhole shaping for the front and join for working in the round.  When I was working those first couple of rounds I did pull out my markers (which were a motley of different colors) and just went with the beginning of round marker, but quickly decided having markers to identify the different stitch pattern sections was a nice thing to have.  I can read my knitting easily enough and so can see where they switch, but when I start knitting on autopilot it is easy to work a stitch or two of the next section, but in the pattern from the old, and then have to tink back, which just takes time and breaks my rhythm.  So I fished out enough of the green markers to mark everything, my beginning of round marker is yellow.

I tried it on and the fit looks perfect, now I just have to knit round and round until the body is long enough.  The ribbed edgings will be done in a darker color from this gradiance set, just because I like to do things like that.

This is the set that I am using, and you can see how those last four skeins in the top right get really dark.  I started with the fourth skein (going right to left on the bottom row).  The first three skeins I will use on the sleeves.  I should have yarn left over from this project, which I am going to use as the contrast color for another of her patterns - Maeron.  I will knit that one in the Denim Ombré, which was actually dyed to go with this one.

Pattern:  Nila by Natasja Hornsby

Yarn:  The Unique Sheep Kiwi in the Mulberry Ombré 

Needle;  US 2.5 (3.0 mm)