Testing it forward

I'm a little verklempt that Knit & Crochet Blog Week is over--it was quite nice not to have a topic already in place and a huge list of blogs to read instead of working each morning. Alas, all good things must end.

But all is not sadness. My testers are plugging away on the Infinite Cabled Hat with minimal issues; I'm doing some testing of my own, on a sleeveless cowl-necked sweater. This all began two weekends ago, when a message appeared on the Ravelry board for my LYS that said they were having a sale that weekend. The store is changing hands, and the new owner wanted to get rid of some of the old stock. I convinced the copilot to accompany me down there, and came across this:


and this:


and a little bit of this:



They're all Classic Elite Yarns - Provence, an amazing cotton yarn. Previously, the only cotton yarn I've handled has been Peaches and Creme worsted - this is not a knock on P & C, but the stuff is more function than luxury. Ugh, talk about luxurious, I wanted to dump the barrel of the Provence on the floor right there and roll around in the stuff. But I refrained (not entirely sure of the legality of rolling around in someone's yarn), and just bought a few skeins in a couple of colors.

I go up to the cash register and my copilot gives me a scathing look. "What's it for?" he asks. Now granted, we had just talked about how we're moving into a new apartment and paying overlapping rent for a month and a half, so we needed to save money blah blah, but it was on sale. And it was crazy wonderful (crunderful?) yarn.

As I thought it over that evening, though, I started to worry he had a point. What the hell was I going to do with it? In my effort to be frugal, I'd only gotten a handful of skeins, but not all the same color, and not necessarily complementary colors. And behold, the next week there was a posting for a sleeveless cowl sweater needing to be tested. Great! Sleeveless! I could use cotton! It could be a summer thing! Let's not talk about the fact that none of the colors I got are very summery! I signed up right away.

I asked the poster what she thought of the yarn, and she mentioned it might be kind of small for the gauge. Holy Jebus, I didn't check the gauge beforehand, and it was biiiiig. I don't usually knit with large needles, but I thought what the hey. Let's Tim Gunn this thing and 'make it work!' So I swatched it out. I asked the opinion of my copilot and a friend who was visiting us, and the friend said (and I quote) "I think that will end up being a hooker vest." I thought about pressing onward anyway, but all I could hear was "hooker vest...hooker vest....hooker vest..." echoing in my mind. I have now done four swatches, and the only way I can make it less hooker-y is to hold two strands of the yarn at the same time. This puts me at the very lower end of the range of yarn needed (and I'm not making the smallest size)...eeep. Let's hope the knitting gods smile upon me once again.