A Little Yarn On The Side

Some people are "process" knitters--they knit for the love of knitting and care very little about whether or not anything actually gets finished. Others are "product" knitters--they're in it for the sweater. I am a much lesser-known breed of knitter. I'm an "obsessed-with-the-little-tally-on-the-right-of-her-blog" sort of knitter. So, in a shameless push to have a big yardage total for February, there was no post yesterday while I worked on The ribbing looks a bit long right now, but this is about the length of ribbing I normally use for a sweater, so I'm sure it will be fine. I used the same K1, P2 ribbing that I used for the bottom of the sweater. It's nice--the extra purl stitch really makes the knit rib stand out. And that one last skein brings me to 3498 yards for the year so far. Still less than where I would like to be, but not bad. Also in a desperate grab for yardage--and to at least get Andy's Valentine's PJs done ...

While I haven't actually cast on the fabulous sock yarn I haven't actually put it away, either. And there was some browsing of sock patterns on Ravelry.... BUT, today the January Aran (from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac , though if she actually knit the whole thing in one month I would be shocked/impressed/jealous because she was obviously able to knit in her sleep). Sometimes our simplest decisions turn out to be real doozies, and mine was to decide that I didn't like the neckline of EZ's patterns, so I decided to give mine more of a scooped neck. A smarter person might have rethought that decision when she realized that, the center not being at the beginning of a round but a full stitch pattern in, one of the "fishtrap" pattern rows would henceforth need to be knitted from the PURL side once the center stitches were cast off and the knitting switched to back & forth from circular knitting. Of course NOW I also realize what EZ was t...

Today I gave a friend 2 balls of yarn. It wasn't even the cheap "What-was-I-thinking?" sort of acrylic yarn that lurks at the bottom of every stash! Nope, this was nice alpaca yarn, and I just thought she might like it for a scarf. I SHARED YARN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm having a VERY big week on knitter maturity.....though I'm not so certain I could share laceweight just yet..........

....sock yarn in hand and was just about to cast on for a new pair of socks, when my small, rational self--who never usually speaks up in regards to knitting--said, "Hold on a minute....isn't this sort of behavior how we became the WIP Legend in the online knitting community???" She's not a talkative part of my personality, but she has a really annoying habit of usually having a point & being right and all of that, so..... To show I really have grown as a knitter, I dug out the Kimono Shawl which had been busily tangling itself up with all the other projects in the WIP bin (cobweb yarn always being a bit of a troublemaker). So far it's only gotten about 6 rows, but those are 6 rows I didn't have, so that was something. Then, because I still really wanted to make those socks but was desperately trying to prove that I have SOME willpower, I finished another block for the Warm Up America afghan which actually brings me to 4, but one has already been turned ...

I love this yarn. I love how the finished sweaters on Ravelry look. I love how my colors are working this time but now, inventive little project that it is, we have a new problem. It turns out that a K1, P1 ribbing is only nonrolling when it's in a solid color. Using one color for the knit stitches and one for the purls has given me a dense fabric that rolls almost as badly as plain old stockinette. I thought longingly of just pretending it wasn't happening and relying on blocking to force it into ribbingness, but years ago I tried to block stockinette into flatness, and without the aid of starch or glue, I don't think it's possible. So......I will be starting over AGAIN. But just not right now.....I'm off to visit my sock yarn bin.......

So, it has taken some discussion and perhaps a little begging, but my right hand and I have come to an understanding and it has agreed to participate in knitting. So, I was able to get here: before admitting that I think maroon & lime green aren't my favorite color combination. I think it looks like high school mascot colors that were picked with little to no thought. So....the hardest knitting I've done in a long time was sent to the frog pond. Browsing through the 200+ Kauni cardigans on Ravelry, I noticed that I liked some sweaters better than others, and the only real difference in most of the sweaters is how the different colors line up. I spent at least an hour deciding which ones I liked best, and decided to go with the more gradual changes, so I'm lining the changes up (if the knitting gods are willing) just offset by one color, and am hoping for the best. So far, it's looking very "When I Am An Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple," which is a bit d...

So last night I decided there's self restraint and then there's torture, so I dug out the new yarn and gleefully cast on the new Kauni yarn for the Kauni cardigan. 24 hours later, I have One and a half rows. I wouldn't even have that if I hadn't altered the pattern. To get a nice "framing" effect, I decided to do one round of the ribbing in a solid color before adding the second color for every-other stitch for the striped ribbing. Thank heavens--I can't even imagine trying to keep the cast on stitches from twisting while I'm trying to change yarn with every stitch. I have done colorwork in the past, but as none of it has ever surfaced on the blog, it obviously isn't my favorite. I'm a bit of a lazy knitter, and the best way I know of to not have 3 trillion ends to weave in on a sweater is to stay away from colorwork. But every now and then the sheer beauty of it wins out. So, here I am. Halfway through the second row. I thought it wou...