Last month, while at TNNA in San Diego, I had the pleasure of spending a little time with Karen Templer of Fringe Association.  The last evening we had in San Diego a bunch of us decided to meet at a bar at the top of the Hyatt.  Karen, wearing her lovely one -sleeved Acer sweater, and I had a chance to chat about knitting.  I looked at her one-sleeved Acer and confessed my dislike of knitting sleeves and how I wish I could just knit the body of a sweater and leave the sleeves for someone else to do.  Karen looked at me and said she really enjoyed knitting sleeves, possibly more so than knitting the body of a sweater.  

Maybe it was the long day at the trade center or the salty sea air of San Diego or the one-sleeved Acer, but somehow we got the wild idea that we should knit a sweater together, Karen working on the sleeves and me on the body.  Ha!  What a funny idea.  That would be crazy.  We said good night late that evening and the next day Karen drove back home to Berkeley and I caught my flight back to Seattle.

That crazy idea was just an idea until last week when Karen wrote a blog post titled How Much Time Do you Have For Knitting.  I left a comment on her post saying how much faster a sweater would knit up if we worked together, Karen on the sleeves and me on the body (with four kids, a new yarn shop and a small farm, projects aren't exactly flying off my needles).  This was supposed to be a joke but I got an email back from Karen saying let's do it!  And so a plan was made.

The plan:

Two bottom-up sweater patterns.  Karen chose Brooklyn Tweed's Trillium by Michele Wang, I chose Carrie Bostick Hoge's Lila.

Today I will mail Karen the yarn for my sweater, Swans Island Pure Blends Collection in the color Seasmoke, and she will mail me her yarn, Brooklyn Tweed Shelter* in the color Thistle.

Karen will knit four sleeves, I will knit two bodies.  We will send each other our sweater pieces by February 28th and then each complete our own sweater yokes.

Karen and I will meet up at VK Live in Seattle wearing our finished (fingers crossed!) sweaters.  

Simple as that (HA!).  

Follow the madness on our blogs, Karen can be found at Fringe Association, and our Instagram Feeds, @karentempler and @toltyarnandwool.

* Tolt Yarn and Wool stocks Swans Island Yarn and Brooklyn Tweed patterns but we do not stock Brooklyn Tweed yarn, Shelter or Loft, at this time.  You can find Shelter and Loft at www.brooklyntweed.com or through our lovely friends at Churchmouse Yarns and Tea on Bainbridge Island.