A new project

This weekend I lucked into two days off in a row so it was the perfect time to cast on a new project. I tend to find starting a project takes more time than knitting it. First yarn and a pattern need to be found and matched. This can take me months, especially since I tend to want to design my own patterns.

After yarn and pattern are chosen needles need to be found in my stash. Then the gauge swatch needs to be knit and measured and washed and measured and sometimes reknit on different needles and measured and washed...

The larger the project the more time this seems to take. I can decide on a sock pattern and get it started in about an hour unless I really love the yarn and am waiting for the perfect pair that will be worthy of it. Sweaters take me much longer in part because I am more likely to want to use my own design or because I have trouble finding the perfect yarn for someone else's design that I have fallen in loved with. The delay can be so long that the appropriate season passes me by and the sweater gets set aside until next year. This is why I have sweater quantities of yarn in my stash that should have been sweaters some time ago.

This year I am going to challenge myself to knit as many of these up as possible. I'm curious how many sweaters I can knit up in a year if I really put my mind to it. So far this year I have knit one sweater. I need to pick up the pace.

To this end I cast on for a Habu sweater that I bought in kit form when it was on sale. The yarn is two strands held together; one is a laceweight stainless steel wrapped in silk and the other is a 'paper' yarn made of linen. Needless to say this sweater will be like nothing else I own. So far I have knit about half of one of the sweater fronts:
I think this is going to be a very cool sweater. I fear it will be impossible to photograph well, though. The fabric has such an interesting hand and photographs just don't capture it. I'll keep trying so stay tuned.