Summer knitting - Petra

Like any self-respecting knitter I planned on having a project to work on while away on vacation. I settled on the Petra pattern by the extremely talented Pam Allen. I was attracted by the simplicity of this pattern, by its clean lines and the little bit of pizzaz the twists at the top add to it.

I had some Cascade Dolce yarn in my stash that I had purchased especially for this project, so that decision was easily made. I worked on getting gauge before leaving, so I was all set... or so I thought. 

I cast on within the first few days of arriving in La Jolla, but quickly realized that the needles I had with me  were wrong after all. The sweater is knit in the round starting at the neckline, starting with 120 stitches that you are supposed to knit with a 31 inch circular needle. I really had to stretch my stitches apart in order to be able to accomplish this, and this would have resulted in an extremely wide neck-line. So I was stuck, as I had no other needles with me.

A bit of Google detective work showed me that there were a couple of yarn stores in the area, but by no means close by. I put my project aside, thinking that was it for vacation knitting. A few days later we decided to drive along the coast line, and all of a sudden, while stopped at a red light I glimpsed a store sign that said "The Black Sheep". I confess, I may have screeched!

Naturally we pulled over and I was able to purchase the right set of needles, after having thoroughly inspected their yarn offerings, of course! I was really impresses by the choices of Manos Del Uruguay yarn they offered, it really is beautiful, and I am thinking I may stock up on some in the future.

But my adventures with this sweater continued. I happily carried on knitting away at the pattern, and it may have been the vacation mood, but I did not quite read the pattern instructions well. I was convinced that I had to repeat the pattern 8 times and then it would be smooth sailing in stockinette. Alas, after having gotten that far, I realized it was only 4 times that I had to repeat the pattern....So I did put the sweater aside for now...and I will continue working on it....but I have gotten side-tracked by other projects.

So this is it, it seems my vacation projects are always sprinkled with a bit of drama (see Spain Summer Sweater pattern notes), but in my mind that just makes them memorable!