Still in sweater land

I got my birthday present from my very talented college friend in the mail yesterday. Such Royal Plantinum Alpaca goodness! Who said non-knitters don't get it? But then she's very talented and artistic (I'll have to post the ring she made for one of my previous birthdays one of these days.) and has always had elegant taste. I think these DK skeins will be slated for an Argosy scarf/little shawl.


I also got a call from Purlescence Yarns yesterday that Monkey1's "Safety Pink" Jitterbug yarn had finally come in from Colinette. The Alizarine skeins (even toned down w/the photo software it's seriously bright) are slated for Monkey1's pullover, so I don't feel I'm cheating on my sweater only month w/buying sock yarn.

And while I was at Purlescence I managed to knit a few rows of the start of my Twist cardigan. I had gauge issues with the different needle sizes swatching my Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. Either I had a terrible time correctly counting the stitches when I measured for gauge or I swear the swatch shrunk. (Not what I was expecting as I figured it would grow/bloom instead.) I finally decided to go with the slightly tighter gauge I got with size 8 needles with the hope that I'm not taking a big risk knitting the size I chose for the cardigan. When I'm a little further along I'll try to post to the KAL blog.

For some reason, all the issues I had with my Twist gauge swatch 'caused me to re-check my swatch for my Grace sweater. And I found that this swatch definitely shrunk. My only thought is that the swatch was not truly dry when I measured it after washing over a month ago. So now I've knitted another swatch another needle size up and am waiting for it to dry completely. In the meantime Grace is on time out. I expect to frog what I've done so far and start over. On the plus side, better to find out now than when I was much further along.