Knitting: Sherwood Sweater, Day 1

I decided to make the Sherwood sweater by Angela Hahn next. (It's free, as are most of the patterns I use.) It's already seamless, so I don't have to convert it. That's a really good thing, too, if you take a look at the chart for this sweater:

Yes, the symbols on the chart are as small as they look - maybe even smaller - and my eyesight is about twenty years older than I am. But once you start into it, it's actually not as complicated or scary as it looks. It gets pretty predictable after a few rows, but it's still interesting enough to not be boring.

I'm making this in the 10/12 size, since that's the amount of yarn I have to work with. I'm using Lion brand Pound of Love. I know a lot of knitters who turn up their noses at acrylic yarns, but not me.

First of all, this was given to me. You really can't beat FREE, especially when you're working with it just for the fun of making something anyway.

Secondly, I'm not independently wealthy. If I were to buy all natural fibers for all the sweaters I make, I wouldn't be able to make any at all. A child's sweater can easily turn into a $50+ project. I choose to feed my family instead, thank you. (And yes, that's half my grocery money for the week, since the prices at the stores have nearly doubled in the last 2-3 years.)

Thirdly, I enjoy the process of knitting. I'm one of those people who just might knit something and rip it out to re-knit it again if I was stranded somewhere for a long time and had no way of getting more yarn.

Lastly, I actually like the feel of most modern acrylic yarns. Yes, there are some nasty vintage acrylics that I just can't (and won't) work with, but those are few and far between.

So if you're the world's biggest yarn snob, I may not be your favorite knitter to "follow". If I knit something from a natural yarn, it's going to be yarn recycled from a thrift store sweater. I can afford that! So please don't think that I don't like natural fibers. I adore them! I just can't afford them (or justify the cost) in any other medium than recycled from thrift store sweaters. And when this stash of acrylic is all knitted up, I have a HUGE stash of recycled natural fibers to start working with.

Anyway, back to my sweater ... I finished 55 rows today.  I don't usually figure out how many stitches that is per day, but this one was easy. There are 200 stitches to a row, so that was 11,000 stitches. It sure didn't seem like that many!