I've been knitting for KG and, yarn companies and family and such and as always, I love it, but sometimes I want something that I don't have to design that is just for me. I had a skein of Lorna's Laces Superwash Worsted just aching to be something.

It was an easy decision, I decided to make a One Skein Wonder. The pattern calls for between 125 and 175 yards of yarn, and I had 225. I decided to make a little alteration to use up as much of the yarn as possible. This is what I came up with. Sorry for the bad lighting.





And here are all the details
Pattern: One Skein Wonder by Stefanie Japel
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Superwash Worsted in Icehouse
Needle: Size US #9 and US #6
Modifications to the pattern:

• Started with a provisional cast on to avoid having to pick up stitches across the top of the piece.
• Worked very simple lace at center of back
• After working the main portion as indicated, began doing ribbing along body before doing sleeves.
• Then, weighed the remaining yarn and split evenly into two balls.
• Knit each sleeve from a different ball, working in the round on dpns.
  
• Completed each sleeve with several inches of ribbing instead of the seed stitch indicated.

The longer sleeves worked out well, not only because I used up more of the delicious yarn, but also because it's more flattering for me. My shoulders are pretty straight across, there is really no slope in my shoulders, so the cap sleeve style in a variegated yarn, had a tendency to make me look like a pint sized linebacker. The longer sleeve keeps me warmer and is a bit more graceful looking on my shape. At least that's what I like to tell myself.

For those of you without a small scale to weigh your yarn, an alternative option would be to wind a center pull ball of your remaining yarn and work from both the center and the outside at the same time. It's probably easier to do this if you knit the sleeves flat and then seam them afterwards.

Final thoughts: This is a great little pattern, that's very easy to do and really lends itself to modifications. I love that you can make a cute top with so little yarn. I will probably knit this again.


Now for some Panda goodness. My step dad sent me a DVD of our kayaking adventure with Panda. For some reason, macs don't allow you to do screen captures while the DVD is playing so I had to photograph the screen. That's why the quality is so poor. But hey, you can still see how cute she is. If I can hack that little problem, I'll post better pictures. Feel free to offer up your advice if you have any.




And if you think that's cute, check out the little poopers passed out on the couch from two nights ago.

Makes you want to eat her up, huh?