buld a v – Deb Gemmell: Top Down, Gauge Free and more

Last weekend I went to a knitting retreat I have been going to since 2008 (I think that date is right?). Except for the missing covid years, I have only miss it two other times. One of the missing years was last year and I can’t tell you how happy I was to go this year and see all my friends. Even though I only see them once a year it is a joy to be back knitting, chatting, laughing and eating like there was no break at all.

That’s not much of a photo but you get the idea. Imagine all the seats taken with women telling funny stories and knitting or crocheting.

We were in a new location. If you’ve been following me over the last summer you know this sort of place makes me very happy. Knitting, water, trees and friends. Perfect.

Have you been to a knitting retreat? Did you love it? If you haven’t I would highly recommend them.

I got quite a bit of knitting done on my Build a Better V, the re-do of the Build A V baby/child pattern. You may notice that it’s a different colour than the last post. I knit the back panel and half the front panel in blue, thinking the whole time that it was a little stiff and thick. It didn’t occur to me for quite a long time that I was working with worsted weight yarn and I meant to be using DK. Ooops. Duh. There was some mix up of yarn weights in my stash I guess. I should know better than depend on my organizational skills.

So here is the new one. The back panel is green and you can see how working the centre increases further and further apart from each other is creating a flat centre section which will make the bottom edge fairly flat when finished.

The two front panels are red, obviously, with the same increase set up, and the sides are navy. These are all left over balls of yarn.

With the navy I picked up stiches along one of the fronts and down the back. Then I knit the side to the width I will need for the finished cardigan. I have started the sleeve too.