Another month has come and gone, I can’t believe July will be over in two days. For the second month of Camp Loopy 2020, my hands took on the challenge of knitting a large sweater (just under 1200 yards, worsted weight) for my partner’s birthday. Before getting into the details of the challenge, I want to take a moment to discuss how much I love using Tincanknits’s Flax sweater patterns (worsted and fingering weight) without the garter stitch pannels to make classic raglan sweaters. I’ve knit several of each for myself and others and am always happy with the fit and the color pooling, but always have over 200 yards of yarn leftover. Seriously, I was anticipating this sweater needing 1400 yards! Anyways, here was the challenge for July:

The July Challenge:
We are celebrating The Botany Lab, The Zoology Lab and The Entomology Lab in July.Your project needs to reflect plants, or animals, or insects.You can show this representation in the colors you pick, or the color name, or the pattern itself, or the pattern name, or the designer name.You need to use a minimum of 600 yards of yarn, single knit or crocheted (not held double).Examples for Botany Lab (plants): You could pick colors like Dragonfruit, Joshua Tree, Rose & Iris, Mountain Wildflowers, Garden Party, Holly Hock, Pomegranate Blossom, Vegetable Medley, Seaweed, Ivy.

OR patterns like: Graceful Leaves Pullover, Maple Ridge Vest, Hibiscus Cardigan, Protea Cable & Lace Scarf, Tree Seeker, Sprouted, The Rose That Grew From Concrete, Peaslake Shawl, Fairy Leaves Wrap, Violeta Tunic.Examples for Zoology Lab (animals): You could pick colors like Flamingo on my Lawn, Grey Tabby, Silver Fox, Rainbow Trout, The Cat’s Pyjamas, Manatee, Koi Pond, Dirty Panther, Turtle.

OR patterns like: Koi Pond, Llama Drama, Goldfish Memory, Wild Swan, Crayfish Party Socks, Simple Tee (by ChurchMOUSE), Barklines,Examples for Entomology Lab (insects): You could pick colors like The Unicorn Beetle, A Butterflies Dream, Lightning Bug, Firefly, Beeswax.

OR patterns like: Bee Fields, Dancing Butterflies, Jimi Cricket, Wool and Honey, Honeybee Cardigan, Dragonflies Jumper, The Love of Spiders, Queen Bee Pullover, Butterfly, Arachne, Mothed.

I know what you’re thinking: With so many choices, why would you choose to do another flax sweater? For starters, I wanted to make something with more yardage than the minimum as I finished last month’s challenge so quickly. Due to the pandemic and working from home, I have a lot of knitting time on my hands during meetings if the project is simple enough. This brings us to my next argument for choosing a simple project: it’s simple and doesn’t require a lot of brainpower. In other words, I can use my hands to see my stitches instead of having to look at or think about what I’m working on. The most important reason, however, is that I knew my partner would love another handknit sweater (re: my feelings on the sweater curse). 

Having finished this challenge in about 10 days, I’m realizing I may need to take on something bigger for August if I want the project to last. It’s weird to think that this time last year all my free time was spent hiking and traveling. We’re still hiking, but our ability to travel several hours to make a weekend event of it is temporarily out of our control. In the meantime, my partner has started requesting I knit him another sweater in a different color (for his birthday, since this one was gifted sooner), so I will take comfort in the knowledge that he loves his sweater and we still have a life time of adventure before us.