Shortly after our basement flooded, and I packed up most of my yarn stash in bins, I grabbed 3 skeins of Knit Picks Stroll Tonal and decided to cast on a fingering weight top for myself. Because what you really need when you're in your third trimester and renovating literally half of your house, is a garter/cable ribbed slog along project. The pattern is the Vellichor crop top by Andrea Mowry.
For yarn we have Inverness Tonal (the dark blue, I had two skeins) and Eucalyptus Tonal (the lighter one) and the peach is some fingering weight that I dyed probably 3+ years ago that has been sitting in my stash after being frogged out of a Westknits Shawl.
Like a good knitter, I did actually swatch a tiny swatch for this, and I believe was pretty close to pattern gauge with the recommended needles (3.25 mm). Measured my bust, picked a size and cast on a whopping 400 stitches in the round.
And off I went. This was definitely a product knit not a process knit. There was just no getting into a rhythm with the knitting. Because it is essentially garter stitch in the round, with slipped stitches and cables, you just couldn't speed across a row. Every 5 stitches you must either work a two stitch cable (without a cable needle of course), alternate between knit and purl, or move yarn to the back of your work to run it behind slipped stitches. Thank goodness for the peach round every 6 repeats, otherwise it would have felt hard to see your progress.
But I persisted and eventually finished the garment, I believe I knit it a tiny bit shorter than called for, to avoid losing at yarn chicken on the Inverness (as it was I used 183 grams of my 200). Also, by the time I finished it in late June, I was so pregnant it just looked ridiculous on me. So it hung out on my mannequin for quite a while.
Now that baby Marshall is out rather than in tho, I tossed my Vellichor on for a quick trip into town to go to Walmart. And I love it! I really need more easy to toss on knit tops in my wardrobe. And fingering weight, as much as it may take forever to knit, makes for light and breezy knits, suitable for cooler days in Alberta summertime. Anyhow, not much else to say about this one, other than definitely give it a good wet block to grow the garter fabric lengthwise, because before you do, it will kind of look like you've knit a supper squishy wide rectangle, and you will wonder how that could ever be flattering on anyone.
