More soup!

I nestled myself on the sofa with a nice cup of green tea and the most decadent and buttery yarn I've ever felt last weekend to cast on for another Duck Soup, this one in the largest size for my {not so little anymore} Jubilee Bubilee.

The yarn is Frog Tree 100% merino wool and even though it is technically worsted weight, I got the required gauge of 4 sts per inch with it on US 9s. It's nice and drapey, but not holey. This stuff is surely the closest thing to butta I've ever knit with and I can't tell you how many times I had to put down the knitting to check the label because I was in total disbelief that 100% wool could feel this soft and cooshy. And it has great yardage too boot - I used just over 6 balls to knit the 4/5 year size (that's how much Classic Elite Countess I used for Lolo's 18 month size)!

I really like the sagey gray-green too, but couldn't think of any colours that would work well for the frog closures. I didn't want it to be too babyish but didn't want it to be too grown up or serious either. It suddenly came to me just as I was finishing the sleeves: Behr's Color Smart tool!  

It's this really nifty tool that generates colour ideas. I started by searching for a colour that most closely matched the yarn ('celery ice') and then asked the tool to find coordinating colours and it generated 8 different palettes. I ended up going for the 'cool details 1' combo (the last one in the screen shot above) because it happened to be most compatible with my stash and ended up with this...

Not bad, eh? I think I'm going to use that tool a lot more from now on. It completely took the guesswork out of the equation and gave me ideas I wouldn't have even thought of on my own. This one's definitely going into my knitting bookmark folder ;0) 

I ended up knitting the frog closures from stash worsted weight yarns and it worked out really well though I did have to knit the i-cords for the buttons a little longer to be able to knot and fold them with the thicker yarn and still end up with a 2-inch button frog. I ended up knitting 4 inch i-cords for the loops and 7.5 inch i-cord for the buttons.  

I'm thrilled with how it turned out in the end and would love to wrap myself up in it myself. Julian wouldn't have a problem with that, because even though he looks perfectly happy with it on in the photos (he was bribed with a chocolate race car ;0), he decided he can't wear it because it's "not his favourite colour"! Well thats a new one. Hopefully he'll change his mind again soon and make green his favourite colour just in time for cooler weather.  

Fingers crossed...

ps - I ended up making a few edits to the pattern after knitting this one to give the sleeves a bit more ease in the larger sizes (the baby sizes are not affected). I issued revised pattern to all buyers on September 22nd (it says 'v.3' on the cover). If you didn't get it or if you suspect it might have been deleted by your spam filter, send me a note at annypurls{at}hotmail{dot}com and I'll send it along.