i did the unthinkable

taking a page from june's book, i threw donegal in the dryer :-O
my gauge was a tad loose for donegal, the sweater body was 45" instead of the 41" in the pattern.



so after knitting the neckband and tacking down the steeks, i gave her a nice shampoo and conditioning. then i turned her inside out and put her in the dryer on low. checked every few minutes and when the body measured 21" across, laid the sweater on the dining room table to finish drying.

sorry terri, i was going to put donegal on the wooly board and take a photo for you. but then i realized that the corrugated ribbing is a little tighter than the sweater body, and if i would have put it on the wooly board, the ribbing would be stretched to the size of the body.

another thing i did differently, norman kennedy does the wrapped steek, and then weaves the ends in. i tried this with the small steeks at the neck and back. they were knit like regular steeks, then i unraveled them and wove in the ends. i like this, you don't get the bulk of the tacked down steek, but i'd hate to have to weave in all the ends for the armhole steeks ;-) i'll take a photo of the inside once donegal is dry.

now what to knit before the olympics...

p.s. i forgot to write which yarns i used for donegal. it drives me nuts when you read a blog, and can't figure out what the yarn is ;-) the original rowan yarn is discontinued, so i subbed mostly rowan yorkshire tweed 4-ply and 2 colors are rowan scottish tweed 4ply (or whatever they are calling it now). a friend of mine, thanks joy!, kindly made me a color card with the original yarns, so i could match them up. the subs are excellent :-)

p.p.s. i have a confession to make, poetry makes my eyes glaze over. i love to read books, fiction, non-fiction, anything. but poetry just doesn't do it for me. the only line i like is the host of golden daffodils bit.