Hello everyone! Hope everyone is having a nice weekend. On Sundays I try to blog about my Year of Projects projects. Year of Projects is a group of bloggers on Ravelry who each come up with a list of what they hope to work on over a 12 month period, and then blog about getting those finished. This is the group’s first year, but my first. You can see the projects I’m working on here.
This week I was soley working on my Ranch Coat, and you can definitely tell! The cardigan has three main sections with cable patterns, and I just started the second one. There’s still a ton of knitting to do, but I’m definitely making progress! Yesterday at knitting club, my friend and I were both working on our sweaters using this yarn, and we were wearing matching masks made by another member of our group.
One of the things I said when I started YoP was that I wasn’t trying to put too much on there so I would be open to test knits and new designs that caught my fancy. And, well, one of my favorite designers, Tina Tse put out a call for a new test and I applied and got selected! It’s for a tshirt and I’m knitting in the recommended yarn, which is a Merino/linen blend which I’m really excited to try! The yarn is coming tomorrow, so I’ll probably shift over to working on that primarily for a bit. This morning I’m workin on plugging everything into Excel so I can jump right in once I have the yarn!
Have a great week everyone!!
Ooh I like your tag 20yop21! Clever.
haha yeah it was weird to have it be “yop2021” cause that’s a different year haha
I love how your sweater is coming along – and the shirt is going to look great on you!! Which colours are you going to use?
Thanks! The main color will be olive green and the contrast will be like a pinky peach
That test knit looks like a winner. Please let us know how it goes and when it is released to the public.
love that coat! And may I ask what yarn you will be using for the test knit? Wool/linen blend sounds delicious!
this is the yarn, the designer designed her top with it so I figured it would be worth it to try!
https://moondrakeco.com/products/merino-linen-3
Your coat is going to be soooo cozy. I love the rich colour and design. I enjoy test knitting too. Congrats on being chosen. Always good to support designers we love so they keep designing!
Yes indeed! This is the third time I’ve tested for this designer and I’ve always had a great experience.
The ranch coat is awesome! I wonder if you could add buttons if you wanted? Yours is going to be beautiful! Good luck on your test knit.
Hmm maybe! I’ll have to see – the front kind of does a bit of a weird thing with the construction so it doesn’t lend itself as nicely to buttons as some others I’ve knit.
The color you’re working with is beautiful!
It really is! And it’s soo much prettier in real life – what I can’t quite capture on camera is the heathering and the slight teal tint to it.
You’ve made such great progress and it was lovely to speak to you yesterday. When you test knit for people is this something that you get paid for or free yarn for or is it that people do it for the excitement of being one of the first to do a project and like the challenge of testing a pattern. Is your spreadsheet going to be to track yarn usage as you go? I’m very intrigued about it all, so hope you’ll share some more information about the process in some future blog posts. I’m sure others will be interested too.
It was great talking to you too!
The spreadsheet is something I do with every sweater – not just test knits. I like to keep track of how many stitches are in each row so I can see how far along I am and project when I’ll finish. But it’s also helpful for yarn usage. So like in my Ranch Coat, I have eight skeins of yarn, and I’m pretty sure I’ll be ok because I finished the first skein after the 12.5% mark.
For testing, I do it primarily for fun, I like supporting designers in that way. I actually wrote a bit about testing pretty early on in my blog life: https://backstageknits.com/2020/01/16/test-knitting-overview/
Great I’ll take a look thanks
How lovely to be able to meet your knitting friends. That is some progress you shared.
The test knit sounds very exciting. And Ranch coat is coming along very nicely.
The Ranch Coat is looking great! I hope you enjoy the test knit, too. 🙂
Your Ranch Coat is going really well and looking great! That tshirt looks great too! Linen merino sounds interesting – I look forward to hearing what you think of the yarn and the pattern 🙂
The color of the yarn you’re knitting your Ranch Coat in is just wonderful. It’s going to be a terrific garment. 🙂