Thing is, I got sucked in, chewed up, and spat out by The Christmas Projects and I haven't had much enthusiasm for the stuff. I worked up potholders (no pictures because I was too busy), scarves (see above: busy excuse; also didn't finish some, so no pictures due to shame), ... other stuff... I swear there was more, but maybe it just felt like it. Whatever the final count turned out to be, I was on the losing end and I had to bail on the yarnish crafts for a while.
And then it was Sit-n-Stitch time and I felt compelled to bring a project (being the organizer of the group and all). I thought I would bring the yarn for the wedding shawl and see if I could figure out how to make a pattern written for worsted weight yarn work for sport weight yarn. In a Borders cafe. With 6 chatty ladies working around me. (I am nothing if not blindly optimistic.)
Here I am, slipping the 4x4 rib scarf off the size 8's and
onto a holder. Size 8's, I tell you! With double-stranded yarn!
How little I know of knitting! (If you look very closely,
you can see the other size-8 running through my head.
Haha, just kidding. It's running through my ponytail.)
After realizing my naive and hopefully endearing error after a cast-on and two rows (too awful for pictures), I ripped out and switched up to size-9's. Unfortunately, this didn't work on two counts: (1) Too small (could have stopped there, no? No! On to #2!) and (2) The aluminum (aluminium to my British friends) needles are all scratched or otherwise bollocksed up and kept snagging the yarn. Now, you may not be friendly with Patons Brilliant so let me set you wise: its strands are knit (or woven... may the yarn gods strike me down, but I'm not sure) and are very loose and prone to snags at the best of times. Frogged went the work, out went the nines, in came the tens.
A little photo-essay about my time with the size-10's:
(L) Pretty good so far (just imagine that you can see it--the yarn is
pretty glare-tastic) (R) A mess of crap, that's what it is! This was just
after missing a k2tog and I couldn't swear because Sandi's offspring
was just across the table from me.
(L) Three rows in and it was a little tight, but I was feeling pretty good
about finding success in knitting again--yes, it was only 3 rows of a 16-
row repeat, but come on! First lace project here! (R) The fourth row.
It kicked my ass. This is just prior to ripping and blindness.
After a suitable length of time passed, I decided that I need to use 10.5's on the double-thickness of yarn and cast on fewer stitches to compensate for the width of the doubled yarn. Or use just one strand and work it up on size 5's and never be done until the children are taking the SATs. Or I suppose I could just by the yarn that the pattern calls for... but where's the challenge in that?
2 comments:
I've been sort of nonplussed about crochet so far this year as well. I guess I did get sort of burned out on all the holiday gifts I worked up from November to Xmas. I better get motivated since I've been commissioned to make two hats, a shawl, and a scarf! Yipe!
In my opinion, the shawl won't be done until the children are taking the SATs. :)
Post a Comment