Knit Meter

Saturday, June 27, 2020

This Quarter’s Hats

This quarter was not a good one for hats, I did not even make one in April. In May I chose the crochet suggestion from the Hat of the Month group – Mock Cable Hat. This is a new pattern with a handful of projects and I used a skein of yarn that had been in my stash for a very long time. This was an interesting crochet using new-to-me stitches and short rows. The only mistake I found in the pattern was regarding the number of rows to work. I like the hat but it came out too small for an adult so I will donate it to children’s charity in the winter.

 

After the no-hat in April and the too small hat in May, I really had to make sure June was a success. I went with the knitted suggestion from Operation Gratitude’s group – Crossing the Tracks. I was worried that the light green was too light for Operation Gratitude but decided that it would be fine as an accent. And I have one successful hat for this quarter.

With regards to the other cast ons I showed in my last post, I have finished the project from the Snowdrop (sale) yarn and have started the next sale yarn project; I have nearly finished the first sock – this is fine as a two month project; and I am on target to finish the old project at the end of July.

Saturday, June 13, 2020

New Cast Ons

Having said that I started four new projects, I should show you the yarn and patterns.

With sale yarn, Snowdrop by Wonderland Yarns,


I started the Wane pattern by Lisa Mutch, which I obtained recently when she was having a sale. This is a quick and easy knit.

The hat is Crossing The Tracks. I am using Caron Wintuk for the main colour; yarn that I have had in my stash for many, many years that I was going to use for slippers. If anyone does want slippers then I can buy more yarn! The contrast is Plymouth Encore that has been partially used and also been in my stash for a very long time.



I used to knit socks all the time and looking back on Ravelry it seems like 2016 was the last year I seriously knit socks. There wasn’t a conscious decision to stop knitting socks, they just didn’t get cast on anymore. I knit one pair last year as a KAL that I did with three friends and that’s been it. But this year I have been looking at the Sock Knitters Anonymous group to see what the challenges and designers are in case I wanted to join in. I almost managed this in March when I started a mystery sock but the yarn and pattern didn’t work well together. This month the technique is mosaic and/or slipped-stitch colorwork. Well, I have lots of left over sock yarn, surely I can find two that will work together. (Let’s ignore the fact that I really want to use my stash of virgin skeins.) I used the beige leftover from this project and it is interesting to note that at the end of the blog post I wrote that I wanted to turn the left over yarn into socks. I had thought to use all three together but pairing this with a different left over works very well. The other yarn is left over from these socks I made in 2015 and the pattern I am using is Sun Valley Socks.



The fourth project started is the one by the same designer as Banrion. It is another two colour garter stitch asymmetrical shawl with stocking stitch bands. The yarn am using is Plush by Blarney Yarns, a gift, and what is likely La Jolla by Baah. (I was given quite a bit of yarn that did not have labels.)



The 2019 project I am working on is a shawl I started in September. This is not my oldest, or even my second oldest project but I do have reasons for setting those aside. I should take note to not have too many projects that require concentration on the needles at any one time. (Ha! I should just not have too many projects on the needles at any one time.) As this project was only just started – 12 rows – I have given myself two months in which to finish it.


Sunday, June 7, 2020

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.