Wow! Didn’t mean to put the blog to bed in September but now it is spring so I will wake it from hibernation.
Since September, there have been woefully few FOs. Much of the time was consumed with the unending baby blanket.
Diagonal Love Baby Blanket in Cascade Yarns
Cotton Rich DK
I ran out of yarn. I bought more when back in US for Christmas, then decided the blanket just didn’t look good enough to be a gift. And I hope to never again knit such a large boring project. It will be finished some time. The cats would love it. However, that is not a priority.
I frogged the Monkey Socks. Lovely yarn. Lovely pattern. Just not a good together – we’ve all had friends like that. Both will be revisited, but not together.
Monkey Socks in the Camouflage colorway
of Pagewood Farms Yukon
Next there is the Ribbed Lace socks being knit in lovely Panda Silk. I’d been warned the yarn was not stretchy so I decided to make the Ribbed Lace socks from Wendy’s first book. They are my first pair of toe ups. Cast on went well. pattern went well until I realized I was knitting it all the way around, but that the pattern wouldn’t be very nice to walk upon. So, they are waiting for me to frog them back to the toe.
Ribbed Lace Socks in Crystal Palace Yarns
Silk Solids in colorway 3011
I am also a bit apprehensive about when to start the gusset. I know on top down socks where to start the heel. Don’t quite know on toe up ones. In any case, this pair is hibernating because the pattern took too much concentration to do while talking with others. Then I forgot about them.
Another WIP is my Starry Ribbed socks. I’m knitting them out of an experimental Dream in Color yarn. It has sparkles in it, but wasn’t sparkly enough to be a keeper for them. I’m knitting a simple k3, p1 rib. They were hibernating while I worked on the blanket. Now I am about an inch away from the heel. Eager to finish them because I need dark socks.
Ribbed Socks in Dream in Color Starry experimental
After a torturous six or seven (or more) start overs, I finished Yarn Harlot’s Pretty Thing in almost one sitting (the flight from US to Singapore). It is nice but the yarn wasn’t as soft on my neck as it felt on my hand. It has wool and silk in it, but feels only like wool around my neck. Scratchy wool. Will still be nice for spring travels. I started a second one but I noticed it has jumped off its needle in the bag and I don’t know if I can save it.
Pretty Thing in wool/silk mystery yarn
another Pretty Thing
The big item since Christmas is another baby blanket. I started in Noro Silk Garden but frogged it. With the regular Noro and bigger needles, I can see it working. With the sock weight yarn, the thick-think nature of the yarn made the blanket look warped. When I was home over Christmas I purchased a new yarn – Poem by Wisdom Yarns. The first skein was a royal pain. This wool and nylon sock yarn acted like sticky mohair, was most unforgiving when I needed to frog, and did not pull nicely. Learning from that, I rewound the second skein and it was perfectly behaved. First skein also had numerous knots in it.
The project has been fun. I learned to make a mitered corner. No row is longer than 10 stitches, and the colors keep changing so it is a high-interest project, unlike the other blanket I attempted. Early on I was worried by the long blue patches so I switched to a different color. Next time I would let it be because the way the yarn gradually shifts colors is so lovely.
The biggest challenge of this project came on my way home from Paris. I had knit most of the way to Paris, and I figured that if I knit all the way back to Singapore, I would be done. An airport security officer dashed that dream when he confiscated my needles. I sulked until we boarded the plane. Then in desperation, I riffled through our bags hauling out all the pens we had. I was able to take two of them apart and slowly knit on the pen cartridges. I had to knit slowly because the cartridges were not the exact same size as the needles and I wanted to keep gauge. I also had to ease each stitch over a rough spot on the pens.
It was painstaking and slow, but I made steady progress until about four hours into the flight I suddenly had ink all over one hand. Amazingly, it wasn’t on the blanket yet, only my hand. Kent came to the rescue, easing the knitting off of me, and me out of my chair. It took a great deal of scrubbing in the washroom to get the ink off and my nails stayed blue. Fortunately, I had one more pen cartridge so I was able to keep knitting.
Due to the slowdown, I wasn’t able to finish the blanket then, so it came to Nusa Lembongan, Indonesia with us the next weekend. I finished it on the flight home from there, and the next weekend Get It Knitted fixed a spot where I had split a stitch. I spent this week weaving in the ends. Today I hope to wash and block it today.
At that same knit out down at Orchard Central I started another pair of Pretty Comfy socks. They were zipping along until yesterday when I noticed that the front of the sock was on a different row than the back of the sock. I’ve been tinking back to a place where all was good. Haven’t reached that spot yet.
Pretty Comfy done in Cascade Fixation yarn
Batu is the photographic assistant