In April, the Textured Temptation program began, and on Saturday we brought our cables to a gradual close as we worked our way up to the neckline.
We knit our cardigans in Atlantic purchased here, or Cascade Eco purchased here.
We chose Cirilia Rose’s Aidez as our class project, making many changes to suit our learning needs and preferences.
We converted the pattern so that all the separate body pieces were worked as one, on a long circular needle. This same long needle was used to work the sleeves in the round, with the magic loop technique.
Bringing it all together at the armhole level, required some conversion so that live stitches were held on waste yarn, ready for the kitchener stitch grafting when the sweater is complete.
We are changing the collar/border application as well, to work an alternative to the seam running up the back of the neck. This will require knitting the border on as we go, maintaining live stitches again, rather than casting off as the raglan shaping brings pieces up to the neckline. Details on these changes will be posted on ravelry as they are fine tuned. Diminishing cables resemble a country road disappearing from view as it fades into the horizon.
Knit correctly, it is a soft closure, with lines fading naturally into the background. This takes careful planning, and sometimes a few runs at it! But this class of six students, has not been phased by the challenges, and each has personalized the cardigan for a good fit. The sleeves in this pattern tend to work up very slim, so calculations were made to adjust sleeve size for two students, who measured arm length, circumference at the wrist and upper arm, and used these numbers along with stitch and row gauge from swatches knit and washed in April, to rewrite the sleeve pattern.
These programs are designed to accommodate the needs of students who come from all over. Some travel quite a distance to the studio. In this program one student travelled from Victoria, another from Sechelt, two from Vancouver, one from Coquitlam, with only one student living locally. To make travel possible, we meet once per month for a minimum of 4 hours, sometimes adjusting our meeting days to suit students’ work schedules. We maintain constant email and telephone contact during the program, and share each other’s questions and solutions as part of our class notes. During this program we have worked our way from rainy day indoor classes, to our final sunny, breezy, beautiful last class in the outdoor classroom.
Towards the end of our day, we had a special toast for a sweet and gentle principal, Riz Hemraj, who died suddenly this week while playing at home with his children. Riz was a kind and patient man who leaves us a legacy of honesty and thoughtfulness.
The Bend in the Road by Paul Cezanne 
from The Bend in the Road, Chapter 38, Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery. . . .
Anne went to the little Avonlea graveyard the next evening to put fresh flowers on Matthew’s grave and water the Scotch rosebush. She lingered there until dusk, liking the peace and calm of the little place, with its poplars whose rustle was like low, friendly speech, and its whispering grasses growing at will among the graves. When she finally left it and walked down the long hill that sloped to the Lake of Shining Waters it was past sunset and all Avonlea lay before her in a dreamlike afterlight– “a haunt of ancient peace.” There was a freshness in the air as of a wind that had blown over honey-sweet fields of clover. Home lights twinkled out here and there among the homestead trees. Beyond lay the sea, misty and purple, with its haunting, unceasing murmur. The west was a glory of soft mingled hues, and the pond reflected them all in still softer shadings. The beauty of it all thrilled Anne’s heart, and she gratefully opened the gates of her soul to it.
“Dear old world,” she murmured, “you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you.”