Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings
Knitting Friday
A quick post since probably any Americans reading me today are spending most of the day at shopping malls and readers from other shores are probably laughing themselves silly to watch the Black Friday Lemming Shopping March of the Americans.
But I have been thinking about spending money lately. Especially after I had to find another inferior circular size 11 needle from my collection after the one I was using for the beginnings of a CO 1 st shawl was kinking and curling up so annoyingly. I thought: I'm still using these crappy needles I bought when knitting was just a passing fancy. Could it possibly be time to indulge in better knitting equipment? I may be clicking on KnitPicks as soon as I finish here.
Here's the link to a Summit shawl which existed in about 37 inches just one day ago.
http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEss10/PATTsummit.php
I first saw this shawl pattern on Knitty and said: Wow! And started knitting. Mine was in the same color even and it was the easiest interesting pattern I've ever knitted. (Interesting in the key word; I've knitted easy patterns before.) You just have to remember to put a tag on the shawl with Left on one side of it and Right on the other. Just flip the tag depending on the direction you're knitting. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that if you don't do this you'll have no easy way to remember which way you're knitting without picking out stitches.
I re-learned how to knit backwards for this pattern (very easy) and I knew I was going to be rewarded with a dramatic shawl. But then I realized that after an initial knitting spurt this project had languished. And then as the cold weather arrived, I realized that I don't wear dramatic shawls; I wear shawls for warmth and this one was no thermal blanket especially with holes the size of craters.
So I frogged. And was left with very kinky wool fingering yarn (I had used US 6.) What to do? If I had used any brain cells I would not have started a diagonally knit shawl with one K row and one twisted K row. But I did. Once again to about 37 inches when clarity dawned and I said: This looks like crap. So I frogged.
Right now, I'm on US 11 needles and making a trinity stitch shawl. It's light and lovely and I really do know that the trinity stitch is the only stitch which works well on kinky yarn. (And we all have kinky yarn; the stuff we frogged and were too tired [lazy?] to skein-up and wash.)
Some suggestions for a future Summit project: 1. Make it scarf size, about 5 repeats. As a scarf I think it would be a knock-out. 2. Purl the 1st st and K the last in all rows for a smooth edge. 3. Get on Ravelry and read all the suggestions for modifying this pattern. I didn't since I started right in before projects appeared for it.
Next week: The pattern and pictures of the trinity stitch shawl.
Happy Knitting.
A quick post since probably any Americans reading me today are spending most of the day at shopping malls and readers from other shores are probably laughing themselves silly to watch the Black Friday Lemming Shopping March of the Americans.
But I have been thinking about spending money lately. Especially after I had to find another inferior circular size 11 needle from my collection after the one I was using for the beginnings of a CO 1 st shawl was kinking and curling up so annoyingly. I thought: I'm still using these crappy needles I bought when knitting was just a passing fancy. Could it possibly be time to indulge in better knitting equipment? I may be clicking on KnitPicks as soon as I finish here.
Here's the link to a Summit shawl which existed in about 37 inches just one day ago.
http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEss10/PATTsummit.php
I first saw this shawl pattern on Knitty and said: Wow! And started knitting. Mine was in the same color even and it was the easiest interesting pattern I've ever knitted. (Interesting in the key word; I've knitted easy patterns before.) You just have to remember to put a tag on the shawl with Left on one side of it and Right on the other. Just flip the tag depending on the direction you're knitting. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that if you don't do this you'll have no easy way to remember which way you're knitting without picking out stitches.
I re-learned how to knit backwards for this pattern (very easy) and I knew I was going to be rewarded with a dramatic shawl. But then I realized that after an initial knitting spurt this project had languished. And then as the cold weather arrived, I realized that I don't wear dramatic shawls; I wear shawls for warmth and this one was no thermal blanket especially with holes the size of craters.
So I frogged. And was left with very kinky wool fingering yarn (I had used US 6.) What to do? If I had used any brain cells I would not have started a diagonally knit shawl with one K row and one twisted K row. But I did. Once again to about 37 inches when clarity dawned and I said: This looks like crap. So I frogged.
Right now, I'm on US 11 needles and making a trinity stitch shawl. It's light and lovely and I really do know that the trinity stitch is the only stitch which works well on kinky yarn. (And we all have kinky yarn; the stuff we frogged and were too tired [lazy?] to skein-up and wash.)
Some suggestions for a future Summit project: 1. Make it scarf size, about 5 repeats. As a scarf I think it would be a knock-out. 2. Purl the 1st st and K the last in all rows for a smooth edge. 3. Get on Ravelry and read all the suggestions for modifying this pattern. I didn't since I started right in before projects appeared for it.
Next week: The pattern and pictures of the trinity stitch shawl.
Happy Knitting.
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