A Frog

 

When I posted all my WIPs in September I didn’t mention that I wanted to frog three projects. One was a no brainer as it was a baby item that was too small. The other two were projects where I liked the yarn but not the finished items but I did not want to frog until I had made a decision about what I would make with the reclaimed yarn. And to that extent one project is going to remain as an unworn sweater.

One project I was unhappy with was the wrap I made from my Advent yarn in 2019/2020. In my effort to use all the yarn I had ended up with something that I would never wear but if I was going to make something else with the yarn, I still wanted something where I would use most of the yarn. At the end of November I came across a newly published crochet pattern that used a mini set to create a blanket. Bonus, the pattern was free until 1 December. Although I can’t really call it a bonus as it was pretty obvious that the pattern hadn’t been test crocheted. I came across an error very early on and decided to put a note on my project page about it. I was contacted by someone else about it and the maker went on to contact the designer who confirmed the error. The designer put an errata on the pattern page but did not contact any of the prior purchasers of the pattern, which is easy to do with a global email. I feel like the early makers were the test crocheters without knowing that’s what they were. And I’m glad I didn’t pay for the pattern. It is really easy to get test makers but I am guessing the designer wanted to get this pattern out before December and people started to receive their Advents/Countdown yarns.

One of the reasons I had put off frogging the original project was keeping track of the individual yarns and keeping them in order. When I decided to go ahead with this pattern, I literally just worked from the bind off, also as it is crochet I was able to work a colour per day. (OK, some days I was working catch up but I was never more than a day behind and did finish the main part on 24 December.

 

The pattern is made with 24 mini-skeins plus a yarn for a border. It wasn’t until I got to Day 24 that I realized that my set had 25 minis. So I decided to use the last one for the border. The border is two rows but I got just one row from a mini so I left it at that as I couldn’t find anything in my stash that worked well.

 

Yes, I am pleased with the end result. Although it is another blanket. It can be folded in half to make a triangular shawl if I want to wear it that way.

 

A Big Finish

This is another of my WIPs that I finally finished. Last year a group of us that meet regularly via Zoom decided to do a yarn swap. Actually, one person suggested it and organized it and a number of us jumped at the idea. The plan was to send 10 grams of yarn which represented you to each participant and we ended up with the equivalent of two skeins of fingering weight yarn each. I purchased two skeins of yarn at the Vista Fiber Festival so that I could send local yarn around the world.

The only problem that was encountered was that the US was not accepting any mail for Australia so our Australian participant had to wait until January for all her packages.

I opened a package a day from mid-December but did not start a project until I had opened them all as I wanted to see all the mini skeins to decide on the order I would work them – in the end that did not matter and you will see why in the completed project.

We all made different things. I knew that what I made had to use all the yarns and had to be something I would wear/use. A blanket seemed the best thing. I chose a crochet pattern and knew that I would have to add my own yarn to it. Well that was a disaster. Not in the execution as it came out nicely but in its size. Although I would be adding my own yarn to make a border, I would have had to add so much it would have taken away from the delight of the yarns sent. But I was still certain that a blanket was the best idea.

I chose a knitting pattern from a book I own and decided to hold the yarn quadrupled. You read that correctly, four strands of yarn. When I had frogged the original project I had wound the yarn into one big ball thinking I would use it that way but with this decision I had to wind each colour then wind again to get a double strand so that I could work from the inner and outer of the ball to get four strands. I used two greys I had in my stash for the outer circle and had to buy another skein of grey to be able to complete them all. The squares are joined with a yarn that I bought at the Fiber Fiesta at the same time as my swap yarn and the outer border is worked using the yarn I purchased at this year’s Fiber Fiesta with the thought that it would be used in this blanket. I am especially pleased with the cast off. For some squares I had more yarn than was needed so all these ends were used in a knotted bind off. I was even able to add in the Simpson’s yarn that had been sent as a bonus by one of the participants.

I am very happy with the finished item. It is soft and big enough as a lap blanket and each square is individual so you can really see each individual yarn. The blanket has been blocked a few times but due to the shape of each square and different yarns used, it is not going to lie absolutely flat and I am OK with that as I have a one-of-a-kind piece that brings so much joy.

 

October’s Socks

One of October’s challenges was a new-to-you-designer. And in my arbitrary sock knitting decision making I was able to find a pattern in my Favourites that fit that category. The designer is Imawale and I am pleased that I am knitting one of her patterns as she had been active in Sock Knitters Anonymous group and it is nice to see sock knitters turn designers.

The sock pattern I chose used two colours. I could have used two leftovers but opted for one left over and one new skein. Although, technically, that new skein was a left over as it was a skein that was not needed for my Aureed cardigan. The left over skein was from this shawl. I always felt that this particular colour – Fuchsia – was meant to be socks, although the pattern it ended up being used in does not show the full beauty of the yarn and colour.

The pattern is Faux Cables Socks available for free on Ravelry. It is a slipped stitch and twisted stitch pattern; there is a slipped stitch pattern on the sole which you can just see in my photos but is obvious on the pattern page as the designer used white as her main colour. I like to make my two colour socks fraternal but keep the cuffs, heels and toes the same.

I was not interested in the choices for Novembers knit along which gave me longer to finish these socks. I am very pleased with the finished project.

 

Third Finish

It’s amazing how quickly you can finish something if you work on just one project at a time. Although I do have a pair of socks on the needles so I have something else to work on when I cannot always work on the WIP.

This finished item is a crochet project that I started at the beginning of the year. I didn’t get very far, just a few rows, before it was set aside. The yarn had been given to me for my birthday last year and I really wanted to get it on the needles. This is something I am good at – starting projects so that yarn is not forgotten even if I will not work on it very much.

The pattern is Waroo and I first made it in 2021 with yarn I bought in a sale specifically to make this pattern.

The yarn I used this time was a set of 6 minis, each weighing 25g. I followed the stitch pattern but not the directions for changing yarn colour. Each mini was changed at the end of a row when I ran out of yarn. I was surprised at how little yarn I had left as I was expecting to have great lengths of yarn that weren’t enough for a full row, but maybe 2/3rds. I ended up with 5g of yarn in total not used. This immediately went into my crochet scrap blanket.

 

 

Having finished project no. 3, I immediately picked up no. 4. This is a blanket I am making with the yarn from last year’s swap. I have made 20 squares from the yarn and joined them all. All that is needed now is some sort of border. On Saturday I picked up a load of stitches around the edge using the yarn I purchased at Vista Fiber Fiesta and am working around in garter stitch until I have used the whole skein of yarn. Then I will decide if I want a bigger border or just to bind off. This is easy, albeit heavy, knitting, so I can work on it at any time. It would be nice to finish this before the end of this month but that does depend on how much yarn I keep adding to it.

A Familiar Tale

I don’t know how many times I have written about projects where I have yarn, purchase more yarn to go with it and then make something with the later purchased yarn, leaving the original yarn in stash.

This happened with my latest finished project. In 2015 I received a beautiful skein of yarn in a subscription box. It was just over 500 metres of DK weight yarn in a lovely shade of red. I loved it, but didn’t know what I would make with just one skein so I ordered another from the same source. Imagine my surprise when what turned up was quite different from the original. The photo shows the difference. Now I had two skeins that I didn’t know what to do with. 

 

As skeins came up on destash, I purchased two more skeins. Here are the four skeins I ended up with, as you can see, two are very similar and the other two are quite different.

 

But what to make with them? I could use just the two similar colours in one project or use them all in one project but I felt the lusciousness of the original skein would be muted if I used it with the other skeins. In the end I went with a project that would use about three skeins. The pattern I made was Kerrera. This is a paid-for pattern, but I still made changes to it. The first being that I didn’t get gauge, so I had to make allowances for that. It is worked from the bottom up with decreases worked from the top of the hips to the waist. Although I agreed that this would give a nice shape to the garment, I wasn’t convinced of a good fit on the top part, so I added increases after the waist. The sleeves are picked up from the armhole edge and worked downwards. I wasn’t convinced that with this yarn the pick up would look good, so I worked from the cuff up and sewed in the sleeves. The original jacket is done up with three loop buttonholes at the top, as mine is made with 100% alpaca, I thought that buttons all the way down would be a better idea. I had decided to do that before I started the jacket but I wish I had thought it through before actually starting the bands as I would have put the buttonholes in the front band. Instead I had a finished garment that I somehow had to add button loops to and I wanted the bands to overlap. This was the biggest delay in finishing the jacket. The pattern has simple chain loops but I didn’t think they would be strong enough, so I had grand ideas of using rat’s tail – a satin string – that didn’t work out either. One of the problems was that the buttons I chose, although appropriate for the jacket were big and needed big loops, which weren’t sturdy or very neat. A friend bought me some buttons which I was worried were small but with a chained loop have worked fine. Yes, you read that correctly, chained loop; although I worked it as a single crochet foundation chain for some thickness. Also, I have quite a bit of yarn left over so if any of the loops wear through I can easily make more.

I started this project at the beginning of August last year. All the knitting was finished by the end of November and everything was sewn together by the end of January, when the great button delay started. Although to be fair to me, I couldn’t see any rush to finish it as it would not be worn until it got cold again and I really wanted the buttons and loops to be right. And here we are with winter just around the corner and the WIP KAL as an incentive and I have a finished garment that I look forward to wearing.

 

 

Gift Knitting

I have written that I have finished a few things but not shown them here as they were for gifts. When knitting for an expected baby, there are quite a few months for making, especially if you work gradually and don’t put it off until the last minute. I was surprised by how many items I had made. I knitted seven things and sewed three garments. Except for one sewn item, all the makes were from stash, mostly leftovers. I only made one pair of booties, even though the mother loves my hand knit booties. I just didn’t have it in me to make more but I know I should. I did make three hats though. Plus a dress and two jackets. I am really pleased with everything I made and the mother loves them, but she is very knitworthy. 

 

 

In August, I showed a baby jacket that I had sewn. Here are the first two I made. For the first one I purchased fabric and binding and made it exactly as the pattern. I used my serger to finish all the seams but decided it would definitely be better lined; which I did with the next one. (The third one I made reversible.)

I then made a dress with left over fabric, and I had buttons in stash.

 

On a yarn crawl I was given a skein of yarn that I loved the yarn but couldn’t think what to do with as I had just the one skein but a baby jacket was just right with enough yarn left over for a hat.

 

I had just one skein of tweed yarn used in the blue and tweed jacket. In the pattern only the yoke is striped but when I knew I was not going to have enough of the tweed for the sleeves, I used it all up on the body and then worked the rest of the sleeves in blue. Came out pretty well I think. 

 

The pink hat is a pattern I have made before as it is a good hat for babies as it stretches. The yarn was left over from a charity hat and there was still enough left over to use in the multi-coloured hat. The pattern for that is Golden Pear and is a good way to use up small amounts of yarn.

 

I had purchased the white and lilac yarns used in the dress specifically so I had baby yarn in my stash. I had used them both in other baby knits but still had a full skein of the white left. Perfect for this dress pattern.

 

What Is Going On in the Yarn World

There has been an interesting development involving a yarn dyer that I want to write about, but won’t name, because this post is about the dynamics, gas-lighting, lies and assumptions that are being made on all sides, and how this actually affects future purchasing decisions.

Currently, this person is being talked about on Ravelry, Reddit, and Twitter as well as individual accounts on Instagram.

Basically this dyer has been taking money for orders and then not fulfilling the orders. Apparently, she has always been a slow/delayed shipper but now it has come to the point of nothing being shipped while still taking money for subscription boxes. These have been an especial problem because the next quarter’s payment has been taken before the original delivery date of the current quarter’s box so subscribers have paid for two boxes without being aware there is a problem and that they are not going to get anything.

Of course, customers started to ask when they could expect to receive their order and were told that it would be coming, they were inundated, packing will happen this weekend, most of them went out, etc. etc. -  basically string customers along. And this is when it caught the attention of the wider internet because customers were not getting what they ordered and wondered if they were the only one – turns out they weren’t by a long way.

But this is where it gets interesting, plenty of evidence that orders are not being fulfilled but people are defending her. The head of a large company posted about not casting aspersions on businesses that were trying to do the right thing while dealing with supply chain issues, a supporter denied the truth of the spreadsheet of unfulfilled orders as there were no receipts, another supporter called a person a knitler because they weren’t content to wait for their order.

In the be aware threads, there is occasional speculation, “I wonder if”, a poster then repeats it as a definite, this gets picked up by a different medium and suddenly it is fact.

Also I have noticed people who like to make fun of what is going on screenshot individual posts from various mediums that are taken out of context and get their rabid fan base riled up over the content. This is rather funny, seeing people getting their knickers in a twist over a post that is taken completely out of context or involves an inside joke.

But how does this affect future purchasing? Obviously, people are not going to buy from the person who is currently in trouble, but they are also put off purchasing from the rabid supporters. The ones who come into discussions with all guns blazing because they want to stop anything bad being said about their friend/acquaintance. Regardless of how loudly or quietly you have been supportive, if you don’t come back and say sorry I was wrong or sorry I did not know, you have alienated many future purchasers. Other dyers are affected as it makes people very wary of purchasing online directly from dyers. Especially as in many of the cases of problematic dyers, purchasers are told they are ordering yarn that is in stock, which later turns out to be untrue. So how can you trust any dyer that says yarn is in stock?

The repercussions of a problematic dyer ripples out to many in the crafting industry.