Advent Calendar mini skeins are delicious and addictive but a swine to use if you don’t want a shawl.

Enter the Iridium inspired 2023 Advent Calendar from The Wool Kitchen. As it’s June it’s OK to show a spoiler of all the yarns in order…

I loved the way they all blended and flowed into each other. I threaded mine on a length of yarn to keep them in order an realised that the set is “circular” – i.e. the last skein flows into the first one – this means you can start at any point and work in either direction – GENIUS! I was so impressed.

I was good to myself and also ordered add-on of matching Iridium Silk/Mohair blend (You know I’m a sucker for anything Kidsilk Haze like – I have to say – this is softer and nicer to work with 😮). Now what to make with this gorgeous heap of lovely.

I have previously made Sorrel by Wool and Pine in 2021. Its written, top down, to accentuate a fade, achieved with fingering and lace weight held together and gradually blending from one colour to another over 20 rows. The fade was a real faff.

I was happy with my first Sorrel, but I’ll tell you all about it in my next post or this is going to be a lengthy ramble!!

Here’s the pattern piccy for the Wool and Pine Sorrel – isn’t that dip stitch neck fantastic?

I decided that, as the yarns blended so well, I’d skip the complicated fade and just do stripes and allow the mohair/silk to blur the edges.

The yoke was easy. I knit until I ran out of mini skein and started the next colour…

Now the hard part – matching the sleeves…I’ve said before – I’m a slightly obsessive “matchy-matchy” kinda person. I could not consider having differing sleeves and body.

Once I had split for the body and sleeves – I put each sleeve and the body on it’s own set of circular needles. I worked the sleeves then the body for each mini skein.

I did a lot of maths. Worked out ratios of sleeve stitches to body stitches wound separate carefully weighed mini balls of yarn (weighed on my drug dealer scales!)

Then I realized, for my size, for each mini skein, I needed 13 rows on each sleeve to leave enough for 13 rows on the body. It will vary for you, your tension and your size.

My top tip is to do the sleeves first and match them – if the body is out by a row or two, who cares! Unmatched sleeves make me twitch in an unflattering, psychopathic manner….

I’m nearly there. The sleeves are going to need more stripes of mini skein than the body (maybe I should have done slightly more rows on the sleeves than the body for each skein?) but I think it’s going to work.

Progress so far….

Can’t wait to finish this!