Off The Needles And More On The Needles

At the end of May, I finished three projects. This post could have been titled Sale Yarn, or Second Oldest Project, or Charity Knit, as I finished an item from each of those categories. That had been my goal and I was happy to achieve it. Two of those categories also mean new cast ons but, somehow, I ended up with four!

When I purchased yarn in the sale I was careful to only buy yarn that I had an idea of what I would make. I held true to that premise, apart from the yarn I have (amazingly) just knit. The yarn is Home a bulky weight merino yarn from Madeline Tosh in a variegated pink colour. There were only two skins left and I kept on being drawn back to it although I wondered what I would make with it. The store had a cowl/kerchief pattern that could be made in different weights of yarn and that is what finally made me buy the yarn. I wanted to get this yarn on the needles as soon as possible because I knew without any clear idea of what it should be there was a danger it would sit in stash until I gave it away. The MadMay event was what promoted me to finally get it on the needles. I decided against the pattern I had seen in the store and started a shoulder covering using a mash up of a couple of patterns. And as soon as it was finished I declared that I didn’t like it and cast on a new project from the bind off. I made the Gaptastic cowl which suits the yarn much better. The funny thing is that with all my indecision and restart I didn’t take part in MadMay and forgot to enter my finished item to be eligible for a prize.



The next item finished was my second oldest project, an asymmetrical shawl I started at the end of July last year. The pattern is Banrion, published in Knitty in June last year. I used two yarns that would not seem likely to go together but I wanted to tone one down. One yarn is helping hippos by Lolo Didit, that I purchased as a fund raiser for Houston after the flooding in 2017. It is a grey yarn with flecks of colour. The other yarn is by Three Irish Girls that I purchased on the LA Yarn Crawl in 2019. It is white with lengths of bright colours. Even after my friend showed me projects knitted with it showing the awful pooling and flashing I went ahead with the purchase. Of course, I didn’t want to make anything with it and it be awful, so it was relief? delight? when I saw the Banrion pattern and knew it would work for my yarns. A couple of people expressed surprise that I was not using the white as the main colour so that the cables would stand out but I really wanted that yarn to retreat and I think I achieved that. I wasn't sure about blocking the finished project as sometimes the squidgyness of garter stitch can be lost when it was soaked plus both the yarns had bright dyes. In the end I did soak it and there were no problems with colour running and I laid it out flat to dry - no stretching or pinning. I'm glad that I did this as it really improved the cables which are based on slip stitches.



The third item finished was a hat I crocheted for charity and I shall show that when I show my charity makes.

Having finished those three things, what should have happened next was to choose a 2019 pattern to work on (check), start a new project with the sale yarn (check), start a hat for charity (check), and not also cast on socks using left over yarn and start another shawl by the same designer as Banrion. Obviously my ideal number of WIPs and actual number of WIPs bear no relation to each other.