twistedloops

I’ve been working on a variety of projects lately.

First up is the Spiraling Master Coriolis pattern from Cat Bordhi’s New Pathways for Sock Knitters: Book One.  I’m using Socks that Rock in the Chapman Springs colorway.  It’s great to finally find a pattern that this color works with.  I’ve tried it several times with other patterns, and it hasn’t matched up well.  The sock has been a bit of a challenge.  I’ve knit so many socks in the “traditional” fashion that it seems strange that the patterns will work as written.  So far, I’ve made only one major mistake.  I put the increase stitch marker at the wrong place, so I ended up with a straight line of knitting instead of a spiral.  I didn’t like the way it looked, so I ripped back and knit it correctly.  I’m at the end of the first sock, and just need to determine what cuff to put on this pair.  I’d been thinking about a picot edge, but I may just make a plain ribbed cuff.

Also on the needles is a shawl, the Icarus Shawl from Interweave Knits.  Right now, I’m nearing the end of the plain stockinette and eyelet rows that seem to go on forever.  I’m starting to worry a bit about my yardage.  Per the shawl calculator over at Rose-Kim Knits, I’ve completed 48% of the shawl.  When I way the yarn, I have about 2.1 of 4 ounces remaining, or 52.5% of my yarn left to knit 52% of the shawl.  This is going to cut it really close.  If I’m off by only the tiniest bit, I might run out of yarn in the final rows.  It would be so heartbreaking to have to rip back half of the shawl because I ran out of yarn.

I didn’t check Ravelry before I purchased the yarn. The pattern originally called for 875 yards, so I thought I’d be fine with 1000 yards.  However, the pattern on Ravelry calls for 875-1200 yards because a lot of people have run short when knitting the shawl.  The designer now calls for 1100 yards to be enough yarn for the majority of knitters.  Since I’m using a hand-dyed yarn, I don’t want to risk ordering more and having it be a drastically different shade.  For now, Icarus is sitting in the corner while I decide what to do.

The good news about these two projects is that they gave me a chance to use my new stitch markers.  I purchased the big beads while I was in Prague, with the intent of someday making myself some stitch markers.  I never got around to it.  But, recently, Allison started making and selling stitch markers, and she was nice enough to turn my beads into stitch markers for me.

It’s hard to capture their sparkly orange-ness, but I love them.

I did find another yarn in the stash that is appropriate for knitting the Little Child’s Sock.  It’s some Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Merino in Golden (a yellow-orange) that I picked up during a destashing this past summer.  As you can see in the photo, it does appear to have been knit and unraveled before the destashing.  My concern now is that there are dark spots in the yarn as I knit with it.  I can’t tell if this is just a side-effect of the dye process or if the yarn is dirty.  I’m really hoping that it’s just dye.  The whole experience with this destashed yarn is a little less than pleasant.

Since the yardage on the Supersock Yarn is significantly shorter than the pattern calls for, I’m eliminating some of the pattern rounds.  I’ve got about eight rounds left on the second sock and then they’ll be done.  Somehow, even with that few rounds left (and they’re toe rounds – so short!), I just can bring myself to finish them.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

Instead, on the first of February, I cast on for the William Street Socks [Ravelry Link] from Interweave Knits.  I decided that I needed a quick project, and since the socks are knit in a DK weight yarn, this should fit the bill.  I had the yarn called for by this pattern, but only two balls.  The pattern calls for three, but states if you make a smaller shoe size (I will) and do not do the larger ankle increases/size, that it should be ok with just the two.  Since it is a toe up sock pattern, I’ll just knit until I run out of yarn.  The project is going well so far.  While I’ve switched most of my cable knitting projects to cabling without a cable needle, I may dig one back out for this project.  The 10-stitch cable crossings are a bit awkward, and take a little longer than I’d expect.  I’m hoping they’ll be faster with the cable needle.

In other project news, I’ve put the yarn for the Orenburg lace shawl back into the stash.  I just didn’t have the patience for it right now.

I’m hoping to have some project photos soon.  My photo-shooting area has been a disaster because we painted the living and dining rooms.  We’ve been moving furniture, books, and other items all over the house.  It’s amazing how much stuff can be stored in one room, especially when said room has floor to ceiling bookshelves.

I know that posts of this sort are usually an update on what’s being knit, but this will be a bit more of an update on what’s been ripped out.

The listings over there to the left listing what’s on my needles.  It’s not accurate.  I’d cast on for the Little Child’s Sock [Ravelry Link] from Knitting Vintage socks.  I was using some Trekking XXL that I purchased a while back.  After knitting about 4 inches of the leg, I decided that I didn’t like the combination of yarn and pattern.  I ripped it out right then; I never even got a photo of it.  I determining now if I’ve got another yarn that will be appropriate for the pattern, because I’d become fairly excited about knitting it.

As for the Orenburg lace shawl in cobweb weight yarn, it too has been ripped.  I was working on it on size US0 (2.0mm) needle, but neither of the size 0s that I own seemed small enough or pointy enough to deal with the yarn.  It’s funny because one of the needles usually seems much too pointy to me for its usual duty of sock knitting.  With the fine lace, it just seemed as if I was trying to force huge, blunt ended needles through the knitting.  I was considering trying a smaller needle to see if my results were any more successful.  The idea of knitting with a 000 or 0000 is a bit daunting.

Even with the needle dilemma, I hadn’t planned to rip out the small piece of border I’d knit (about four inches).  However, fate intervened as I was knitting one evening. I’d been sitting in my chair, the one that I like to knit in.  I decided to get up and get a drink from the kitchen.  Somehow, in this process, the yarn got wrapped around my leg.  As I moved away from the chair, the fine yarn snapped under the tiniest bit of pressure.  Since I’ve got extra yardage on that yarn, I decided to put away the project and start the shawl over on the tinier needles.

That’s it.  There’s no photos or interesting knitting.  Hopefully the new yarn/pattern combination will work well for the Little Child’s Socks, and I’ll have knitting to talk about.

Today, I finally got around to blocking the Handsome Triangle Shawl from Victorian Lace Today. Once it dries, I’ll find a way to take some nicer photos of it.  In a previous post, I’d hoped to have this shawl blocked more than a week ago, but life threw me for a loop that I wasn’t prepared for.   

When I started the blog, I swore that I’d keep it to mostly knitting content, that the world didn’t need commentary on my daily life.  But, the last ten days have been tough, and I think it would be helpful to get it out. So…

Warning – no knitting content follows.

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