The journey of a million stitches starts with a single swatch

I was taken in, transfixed by this beautiful gray laceweight yarn from Daizie Knits.

It was a lovely, soft, merino/silk blend and nearly 3000 yards in a single skein.  If you’re wondering, yes, that’s crazy good yardage for one skein.  It took a REALLY long time to wind this tidy hank into a ball.  And maxed out the capacity on my ball winder.

Pint jar for scale

As soon as it was successfully wound, the hubs reminded me of the yarn spike I had recently purchased and this giant ball of yarn was immediately moved from the winder to the spike.  I don’t even want to think about the mass of knots 3000 yards of lace could create.

Deciding to knit a Featherweight Cardigan by Hannah Fettig was easy.  Getting gauge was a little harder.

It took a few tries…

FINALLY!

Months later, the body was finished and needed a little blocking before the collar was picked up.

Collar completed, I readied things to pick up the sleeves.  I knew that my gauge (number of stitches per inch, which affects the size of the knitted object) changed when I went from knitting flat (back and forth, like for the body) to when I knit in-the-round (around and around, like for sleeves).  But I had no idea how much this changed with lace-weight yarn.  Sadly, I didn’t learn how much this affected things until I was halfway done with both sleeves.  And those both got ripped back.

Back to more swatching… 3 more swatches later, and I finally had a close enough approximation of gauge that I felt like the sleeves wouldn’t be too tight.

November was the month to finish this bad boy.  It’s been marinating a long time and it needed to be off of the needles.  Needed to be done.

And shortly before Thanksgiving, it was.

Fresh off of the needles, all it needed was a nice wash & patted into place to dry flat.

I was so happy when it was dry, I totally took a bathroom selfie in my pajamas!  #Sorrynotsorry

It’s been worn several times already & I love it.  It’s surprisingly warm for being such light fabric and I hope to wear it for years to come… since it took years to make!!