The Little Red Squirrel: Starting the Briar Rose knit-along!

Briar Rose!

Today I started taking a look at the Briar Rose knit along over at by gum, by golly! and I have to say that I'm excited! Tasha is incredibly well versed in the ways of knitting so I already feel in very safe hands :) Every one of her posts is detailed and intricate, but she also has a way of putting things that stops you feeling overwhelmed, so even after being faced with some pretty scary looking maths calculations in regards to yardage estimations I remained cool - quite an achievement for me!

Today I used said calculations to work out how much yard I would need for my sweater. I'm keeping my changes fairly simple, reducing the width of the sweater and lengthening it slightly too, so my yardage was fairly close to Tasha's example in the end. And I also - exciting times! - ordered my yarn online, so it should be winging it's way to me any day now. Hopefully it will get to me before I head to Holland so I can continue working on the sweater whilst I'm away :)

My yarn

I decided to use the above yarn, Regia 4 ply, it's a nice wool/nylon blend (75/25) that is suitable for machine washing and quite hard wearing, so although I always hand wash my hand knits it's nice to know I have the option :) Tasha also suggested thinking about what you would wear with your sweater, so you just don't start knitting something with a purpose, and I think that the blue will go with most of my skirts and dresses. Although I am also thinking of making a circular skirt to go with the sweater out of this fabric:

The white rabbit!

How cute would a skirt look in that fabric?? Swoon :)

And let me leave you with some pictures of beautiful blue vintage sweaters, my inspiration! Are anyof you also taking part in the Briar Rose knit-along? Any interesting colour choices? I love hearing your thoughts!

Happy weekend everyone :)