Knitting Friday

I’m ready to start my next knitting project, which is spooky since I have so many to finish still. Plus, there’s that sweater which sits almost completed as a vest at this point, but just sits because I have no desire to pick it up and complete the few rows needed. At which point, all that will be left are the sleeves. A bit of a problem since I don’t have US13 double pointed. (In fact, I can’t find large doubled-pointed anywhere. My largest being an ancient plastic set in US10.5.) So I will have to jerryrig (is that spelling right?) something to work.

Later today, I will probably pull out some new wool and work on a variation of a pattern I just finished. I think it’s this sense of new adventure and new learning which spurs a lot of people in crafts. That’s why it’s so satisfying. Perhaps, we, the two-legged animal, are wired for this adventure and change. Have you ever heard a lion say (outside of a Larson cartoon): How about vegetable sushi tonight, dear?

Some of us fulfill this need through travel; some with too, too many knitting projects.

But this has been a very productive week. The variegated yarn shawl is finished. It’s not a favorite shawl. I think I was right about the runs of color in variegated: they must be long to be attractive. This big-box store variegated while 100% wool has the “off-the-rack” look - not that there is anything wrong with that.

The pattern is:

http://mustaavillaa.blogspot.com/2005/12/helleborus.html

My version looks nothing like the original, which is a very pretty shawl, since I used 300 + yards DK weight and US15 to get a 23"x 54" shawl. The designer used US9 for a 12" wide scarf.

But I got what I wanted and also I wet blocked for the first time. This is total immersion of the finished project in water (and soap, if desired) and then blocking the wet, but not dripping, shawl to dimensions. It worked.

The designer said the project got boring. I didn’t find that. It was an easy lace which was obviously not easy enough for me. Even with markers and diligence, I noticed, at blocking, I had become a free spirit in the center of the shawl (of all places) where my pattern veered, for a few rows, in an opposite direction.

My second completed project was from a ball of yarn with a shady past. Shady in the sense I that I have vague recollections that it was unraveled from a 100% wool project. Yardage was a mystery so I knew that I had to make a triangle shawl and a bottom up one since I have not figured out how to top-down this pattern yet. Although, my trusty postal scale would have helped me along if I wanted to make a diagonal rectangle shawl, this was going to be a travel project and I was not going to travel with a postal scale in order to keep track of yardage left.

On US13, I worked the following pattern:

Row 1: K1 *P* K1
Row 2: K1 *K2tog* K1
Row 3: K1 *K1, M1* K1
with a Kfb in the first and last stitch, every other row.

I make this pattern a lot using only Row 2 & 3. However, the Row 1 purl row gave it a nice texture and I want to try one with a Row 1 as knit, not purl. Also, I know that the M1 (make 1 stitch) should be a horizontal bar pick-up between stitches but I used a yarn-over instead for a lacy effect and because I needed every bit of yarn I had for the length.

This is the pattern I want to begin again as the new project mentioned above. This time working the M1 as it should be.

So, I guess the advice I should be giving myself and all fellow knitters: Let’s get knitting.