It’s time for me to begin designing what I will knit for my nieces’ Vernal Equinox 2012 sweaters.   I’m thinking definitely  seamless-yoke construction (as I am a hopeless addict) , definitely short-sleeved, but wool, as they must be cozy but not too cozy, for warming-yet-coolish spring days .  They must be rugged, so I bought sock yarn, because the key word for the use of these sweaters is ‘play’.

I was fully expecting to design a stranded-color in the yoke with something decorative and showy, but the truth is, I want my nieces to actually wear and really love them.  So I’m changing my course.  I think bright, energized, and fashionably predictable is more their taste, and not my ‘downplayed artsy exotic traditional’.  I chose colors which are not only the colors they asked for ~one will be turquoise with pink , and the other purple with light green~ but they are supposedly hand-painted varigated style yarns  which will make them more intriguing all around.  I am remembering what a great hit their last sweaters were Autumn 2011  indeed very stripey, and well, why not  go with what works, and do another pair. Okay, decided !

 Actually I’m quite relieved I’ve just been let off the hook to design and incorporate through a series of yoke decreases, a motif of some significance to each of them,  because the hard reality that exists is I have bought fingering weight yarn (what was I thinking… um… light fabric for hot afternoons in the playground, breathable and loosely gauged? ) to knit up with #3 or #4 needles, and I’ll have a zillion stitches per inch.  No stranding, nope, just straight color changes at the row. Can you just feel my sigh of relief ?

I’ve bought for each sweater, in KnitPicks “Tonal” ~ two 100g skeins of the main color and one 100g skein of a contrast, so the stripe pattern ought to be two-to-one, or there about. ( I’m planning on having yarn leftover).  As always, the sweaters ‘ will be what they want to be’ (my motto since learning to knit in the 80’s).  I am ready,  the way to proceed is now nailed, and I shall cast on today after knitting a gauge swatch.