I realize this post is well over two months late, but I thought better late than never to describe my experience at this year's NY State Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck. I had been looking forward to this year's Festival for some time, particularly because I thought I might go for two days instead of just one. I now have a place to stay right outside of Rhinebeck, and so I thought, why not make a full weekend of it? Unfortunately though, as time approached the Festival weekend, I realized I had quite a bit of work to catch up on and that I should probably be responsible with my purchases, just as I was last year.
As it turned out, I think I ended up spending less time at this year's Festival than any in the past. I think because we had already visited the local food/wine vendors in the past, saw many of the yarn vendors earlier this year in Maryland, and didn't invest as much time traveling to this year's Festival, the pressure was off so we went more quickly through the event. I ended up purchasing only THREE skeins of yarn — all from Shelridge Farm of Ontario. I chose two skeins of their Soft Touch DKW 4-ply DK wool in Forest, and one in Spring Green. I picked the yarn with the idea of making a baby sweater from the Natural Knits for Babies and Mothers. As you can tell from my blog posts this fall, I just can't get enough of this book! The sweater turned out wonderfully, and the Soft Touch DKW is a great basic, versatile yarn that I hope to use again.
Hunter's Baby Sweater
Pattern: Jo Jo Basic Crewneck Sweater (6 mo. size), Natural Knits for Babies and Mothers. I omitted the shoulder buttons.
Yarn: Shelridge Farm Soft Touch DKW in Forest (main color) and Spring Green (contrast color). I used approximately 5/6 skein of Forest and 1/4 skein of Spring Green for the 6 month size sweater.
Needles: Two size 4 circulars for the ribbing and neck edging, and two size 6 circulars for the body and sleeves (I knit the pattern in the round).
Post-Blocking Measurements: 23 inches across the chest, and 11 inches from bottom to top of the shoulders. The sweater stretched 2 inches from pre to post-blocking (from 21 inches to 23 inches). The neck opening is 4.5 inches wide. Sleeves are 8.4 inches long, and the armholes are 5 inches long. After blocking the gauge swatch, I knew the gauge was larger than what was called for in the pattern, but I decided to just knit the 6 mo. version big because I was looking for a 9 – 12 mo. finished size.
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