Small step for girl, giant leap for knitting.

srijeda , 11.08.2021.

Finished the jury duty hat last night on the bus ride home from work:

Details: One pink hat, made from the easy roll-brim hat recipe.

Materials: Clover bamboo circular needles (size 11) and Crystal Palace "Iceland" wool in a variegated pink. It came out looking a little like pink camouflage, but what can you do?

I still have two skeins of the yarn left, and of course my normal next move would be to make a matching scarf. However, I have made a decision. A big decision. A bold decision! Sometime in the middle of the night, it came to me like a dream.

It is time.

Time to break out of the rectangle. Time to explore new horizons beyond the circular hat.

It is time to make a mitten. Or two.

I thought I might start with the pattern in Weekend Knitting for "super mittens" unless anyone present can give a reason why this woman and those mittens should not be joined at the hand ...

Also, if you have any Mitten Knowledge and Wisdom you want to share, please! Feel free! I am listening! See? Ears. Open!

Also, I would never end on a cute cat picture just because I am late for a meeting and have nothing witty to say. In fact, that's just a cheap shot and a copout.

Frankie isn't a supermodel, but she plays one on the Internets.

Oznake: knitting, Work, yarn

Knitting with telephone poles

četvrtak , 05.08.2021.

Working away on the Raven Scarf. Initially, I cast on ten stitches with size 15 needles. My swatch was WAY too tight, this combo is much thicker than I anticipated. After some trial and error, I decided on 7 stitches on a size 17 needle. This should go quickly.

Mistakenly, I assumed the big size 17 needles would be easier to handle but they make my hands cramp and I fear I may even be burning calories hoisting those giants. It's so awkward maneuvering the stitches I could almost break a sweat.

Aside from the prematurely arthritic cramping of my hands, the Raven scarf is turning out well. It's fuzzy and dense but the pink chenille yarn makes a faint stripe, almost like a candycane.

Close-up of the yarn:

In other breaking scarf news, my practice yarn scarf is coming along just swimmingly. It's an original all right. I'm using the Patons Up Country wool yarn in dark grey. By the way, it's much harder to see your stitches in a dark yarn. But my unique one-of-a-kind scarf has got ribbing in the middle of some stockinette, right next to some drop-stitch madness, where I apparently increased a stitch magically. Practice makes perfect.

I can't seem to figure out the proper way to do a drop-stitch row, since my end stitches are either way too tight or way too lose, hopefully I can make it to class on Saturday to ask the instructor what the hell I'm doing wrong. Teaching myself to knit from a book is a real adventure in patience and screwing up. Does anybody know if you're supposed to knit the first stitch, then start your yarnover on the second stitch? I was yarn-overing on the first stitch and getting a mess.

It should be very clear now why I needed a "practice yarn" and a "practice scarf."

Oznake: knitting