Hempathina

I'm coming late to this party, but I'm here to have a good knit! I took my sweet time deciding on a yarn for this, so that takes care of half of April. I spent an anxious 10 days waiting for my Hempathy (Elsebeth Lavold, 34% hemp, 41% cotton, 25% modal, modal being a rayon-type fiber). Finally the package showed up on my doorstep, and inside:


So I swatched it up:

And actually washed and dried my swatch. I've never done this before. I want Orangina to fit, darn it. With wash and dry, machine no less, the guage remained the same. How easy is that? The yarn isn't too rough or stiff, which I was wondering about. It does feel a little irritating going across my finger while I knit. But come on, hemp is a cool "green" fiber. Gotta try it.

I'm not sure why, but casting on was a *@#$. Just one of those moments. I'm finally started, and now that I know the end of the official knit-along is the end of May, I have hope.

A question for you Orangineers out there: Did anyone else change the skp to a ssk?
I did, out of personal preference. It just felt better. (The swatch is skp, I'll post a pic of the ssk as soon as I have enough to show off the pattern.)