This was one of my most favorite knits EVER! I absolutely LOVE the finished project, but more importantly, I could not put it down while I was knitting. Even though it’s a pretty straight forward knit (easy even with a bit of prep work on the charts) it is completely engaging. There’s something mystical and wonderful about knitting the sky!

The yarn was dyed for me by my great friend Vicki. I asked her to dye the sky for me and she NAILED it! Made the project that much more special for me.

I used a lot of great tips I found on ravelry:

Started by using SlpBeauty’s tip to cast on and do the first couple of rows with a needle two sizes smaller to avoid a nipple effect in the middle. Worked great!

Used this video for the cast on, which I found over at AnOtterChaos. Worked great!

The most important tip I found was from mrsrobinson. She marked up the charts before knitting so you knew what each row entailed. I did mine a bit differently. It’s takes a little bit of time but made the knitting almost a no brainer.

This is how I did it: I marked every YO with the corresponding stitch number between 1-72. Each chart represents 72 stitches, so instead of having to count to like a hundred million, between each marker you only have to count as high as 72. So for instance, if there was one YO on the row, I’d mark it as 5 or 25 or 45 - whatever the number.

Also, I marked each row in each chart with either a straight line (a YO row), a B (a bead row) or a K (a knit only row.) This made the knitting super easy! A quick glance at the row told me whether I had to pay attention (a YO row) or I could pretty much just knit. I also checked off each row as I went along.

The one modification I made was to use different colored beads for a few of the constellations. I used pink beads for Pisces (my oldest daughter’s sign), purple beads for Gemini (my youngest daughter’s sign), and greenish-blue for Leo (my husband’s sign.)

It was a bit tedious to figure out where the YO/beads feel on the charts for each of the constellations because each one fell over multiple charts. But I did it!

I also used 2/0 size seed beads because I used a thicker yarn.

As I said, I LOVED this project! I can’t wait to knit it again in the form of Southern Skies so I can knit my sign, Capricorn, with super special beads!