Cherry Tree Hill package

Hi Knitters,

Is there anything more fun than coming home and finding a bag full of brand new yarn on your front porch? 

Part of the agreement with Cherry Tree Hill for their 2009 Design Contest was that if your garment won they got to keep it.  They would however replace all of the yarn so that you could reknit it if you wished.  That part of the contest was a teensy bit difficult.  Parting with "Sasha" after nearly six months of birthing it was a tad like sending a loved one out into the world.  However the surprise and excitement of finding out that my design had won (as well as the $1000 prize money) far outweighed the momentary parting pangs and I got over it quickly.

My six months work on Sasha included a whole lot of thinking, swatching, frogging, reknitting, rethinking, reswatching, reknitting again, etc.  Now that I have the finished pattern I think I could re-knit Sasha in a few weeks give or take.  But I never have been one to enjoy repetition as far as knitting is concerned.  I'm always ready to move on to something new, to something I haven't done before and I can't imagine knitting the exact same sweater twice.  For this reason it took me days to choose my replacement yarn.  Last week I thought I better put in my yarn request before CTH forgot who I was so -- after staring at all the gorgeous Supersock Select colors and Semi-Solids on their web page for hours -- I finally e-mailed Becky at CTH.  This is what came in my package yesterday:

This is one of my very favorite times in knitting -- after I have chosen the yarn and just before I begin a project. The possibilities are limitless and I feel the excitement and anticipation of wondering exactly what it will become.  I remember shapes and  details of clothing that I have seen on people, in shops, magazines, etc.  I think about which stitch will show off the color and texture of the yarn to its best advantage, and I spend hours in my favorite inspiration books: Vogue Stitchionary Books and Nicky Epstein's "Edge" books are a few of my favorite go-to 's.  Most of my knitting is for others and I picture them in it, moving around, working, shopping, etc. 

I gather the materials in front of me at my desk or on my bed: the yarn, a few different sizes of needles for swatching, my sketch book, colored pencils, and an ink pen. Then I swatch and sketch, sketch and swatch. Sometimes I feel like the garment has already been designed and I am just bringing it in to tangible form.

I knit a few rows of each color in stockinette and garter stitch to see which colors look best next to one another, which one I will choose as a dominant color, and which ones I might not use at all.  Here are the skeins that made the final cut this morning and will eventually be my next sweater. Stay tuned.......

Happy knitting, Josey