Yarn Selections and Casting On For the “Easy V”

Having grown up in the 60’s there is some bohemian / hippy blood in my veins. I love a unique boho pattern and the “Easy V” sweater caught my eye.

The designer is Caitlin Hunter of Boyland Knitworks. I’ve knit a huge shawl of hers, which was a lot of fun (see it at the end of this page). Also my very first sweater knitting project was one of hers called “Umpqua”. It was a fail for me because I used the wrong kind of yarn (superwash) and it grew huge! I didn’t know any better at the time.

The Easy V has a colorwork yoke and colorwork on the sleeves. I believe it is meant to be a loose pullover. The pattern link is down the page if you’d like to see examples of the pattern and buy it.

Time to Cast On – Twice

I hope this is not a bad omen, but I had so much trouble beginning the cast-on. First I used the wrong needle size (I’m blaming that on the wine.) Before I realized my needle size mistake, I had decided to add some green mohair with the Plotulopi to give it strength.

I cut the yarn and didn’t bother to frog it. I began again with the correct size needle (size 4). This time I ran out of yarn in the tail of my Old Norwegian cast on! I finished it with a regular cast on.

Holding the two yarns together will be fiddly, but that Lopi yarn by itself breaks very easily.

I don’t know what is up with the cakes of Plotulopi as they are all attached together in the center. I have plenty of the yarn, so loosing a bit to that weirdness is okay. Getting a good color shot of that wool will be tough it seems!

Two Necklines Begun

After I had worked a bit on the green neckline, it began to look pretty large. I decided to begin again with a size 3 needle using some white Lettlopi yarn. It’s hard to tell a size on this sweater because the neckline is very unqiue. I did not do a gauge swatch mainly because I didn’t want to use up my hand spun yarn on a swatch. BUT… once some knitting had been done I did check my gauge and it’s very close. Of course the item has not been washed and blocked either.

I kept the green collar / neck and will end up making two of these sweaters!

I began the colorwork using the size 6 needle, but ended up going up to a size 7. This yoke gets large around with over 300 stitches on the needle. I’m knitting sweater size 3.

Working with this type of colorful hand-spun yarn can be tricky. I love the colors, but they can end up looking very different once knit into a project.

The yarn I chose for this colorwork yoke are: Primrose Yarn Company’s “Undergrowth” shown in the middle of the three skeins below. Also used the blue “Magic Hat” (below in skein and ball) and the speckled “Starling” (ball).

Looking at the skeins, I thought that “Undergrowth” would be more pink, but actually it is more tan / brown. Unfortunately you don’t really know until the item is knit. This yarn is too expensive to waste on a swatch, IMO.

The colors are good together, but not really what I had expected. The white color area used up nearly one skein of my leftover Lettlopi, so the main color for the body and sleeves will be brown Lettlopi.

Easy V in Green

My second Easy V is knit with Plotulopi and mohair held together. The colorwork yoke contains some variegated lime green-blue, dark blue plotulopi and other yarns I am using up.

Buy this pattern: Easy V Pattern Page at Ravelry

I will be writing another page about the completed knit of this pattern, but at least it seems I have finally decided on size and colors.

It turns out that this yoke had a line on the colorwork chart that used three yarn colors at once. I changed it to two for my yoke, but the designer has updated the pattern so they are all two colors.

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More by this Designer – Moon Sisters – Shawl by Caitlin Hunter

The Moon Sisters shawl is a great way to use up yarn. It is done in mostly knits and purls with a fun bit of colorwork in the center.

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Here’s what else I’ve been doing