On opening further, I immediately fell in love with the baby alpaca wool - it is incredibly soft and delicate. I ordered the yarn because I plan to use it for the #BackToSchoolSweaterCal starting this Saturday. This CAL (short for crochet-along) has been organised by Tamara (craftyescapism.com) and Helen (makingatnumber14.blogspot.co.uk) and is a great way to encourage everyone to crochet a sweater (jumper) or cardigan between now and Christmas. A blog hop has been organised to accompany the CAL and it will take you on a journey via the participants blogs, finding out about all sorts of differnt aspects of garment making, starting with Tamara on Saturday (see link above). Helen approached me back in early summer, asking if I would like to be involved with this project and of course I was super keen to hop on board!! I will be writing 2 blog posts: the first in October will be all about designing a garment and my second will be in November with an update on my personal crocheted sweater progress.
For the CAL, I decided that I wanted to create a warm, winter version of my own design - Summer Cardigan. As well as changing the yarn from summery cotton to cosy alpaca I will be altering the fit to make it a more close fitting, snug cardigan. I have chosen Eden Cottage Yarns Whitfell DK which is a beautifully soft baby alpaca yarn and I can't wait to get started! The colours will be totally different too - the main colour will be dark brown "Ebony" and the colourful yoke will be in "Laburnum", "Fuchsia" and "Natural". My first step will be to work up a swatch and see how the yarn behaves in comparison with my original cotton design. From this point I will calculate my guage and sizing and the rest should fall into place ...
Anyone else joining in this CAL? Leave a comment below if you are!
Happy hooking,
Marta xx
