The yarn's Wendy Mode DK in the scarlet colourway.
So far, I've done up to the armpits on the fronts and backs (it's knitted in one piece) and this morning I ignored the ironing basket and knitted the right front. I frogged part of the front back as I wasn't happy with the neck decreases, so when I did them the second time, I purled the last two stitches of each wrong-side row and the ssks at the neck edge are now lying much flatter.
The other modification I've made to the pattern is on the staggering of the Deco pattern. The pattern's slip 1 purlwise, purl 3, but the instructions are written so that as the pattern's incorporated across the fronts, you end with a slip 1. The left front was fine, but with the right front, despite trying practically every tip I came across on the Internet for neat ribbing, etc, the slipped stitches were skewing a bit and the knit stitch to the left was coming out too big and uneven as the rows progressed. So, I decided to end with a purl 1 instead, which I'm much happier with. Once it's blocked, all should even out.
Next is the right front. The pattern says that this will start with a WS row, but if I do that, the stitch pattern will be out by one row, so I'll slip the back stitches to the right-hand point, slip the underarm stitches to waste yarn and start with a right-side row. I could do the back next, but previous experience has shown me that leaving the middle stitches until last means there's less weight on the left part of the work.
I've also cast on for a pair of vanilla socks using some Wendy Happy sock yarn in the Virgo colourway, which is reds and darkish pinks with a splash of cream every now and then. Once I start the Wendy Johnson shawl once the yarn's out of quarantine, I'll definitely be in a red phase. It's not intentional, it's just the way things have turned out, the same as earlier this year when several things I knitted were in purple/green/blue colours.
This morning the postman delivered a pack of 25 ziplock bags I ordered a few days ago so in a couple of days I can start migrating my yarn from the freezer into bags. I'm planning on putting one or two skeins into each bag and then closing it tightly. By doing it that way, hopefully if I do suffer a moth attack, only one or two skeins will be affected. I can but live in hope!
That looks lovely. I have this in my queue, so it's interesting to read your comments on it. Good luck with the rest of it!
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