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Pattern: Turn a Square, by Jared Flood
Yarn: Berocco Ultra Alpaca and Noro Silk Garden
Needles: US sizes 5 and 6 (probably I should have used 4s and 5s)
I absolutely love how this turned out. I’m glad I made the decision to work from the outside of the ball of Noro and not the inside, which was very nearly black, and let the brighter stripes be lower and larger. My final verdict on alpaca is that I really, really like it–or, at least, I like that alpaca. Further research will need to be done before I form further opinions. To that end, the Lana d’Oro at Stitch DC has been taunting me.
I still need to steam the decrease seams, so that the lie more smoothly, and when (when, not if) I make another, I’ll be sure to switch to dpns sooner. The only set I had was a set of four and they were aluminum, and I didn’t want to use them, so it put it off a little too long. That resulted in some laddering where I tried to keep the decreases tight once the yarn was stretched too far across the circular needle.
Even on a big head, this hat is huge. It should be a lesson to me on why we must swatch. You can see how low it sits on me. I have an unusually small head. (No comments from the peanut gallery, please.) If it actually pull it down snug against my hair, it covers my eyes. On test subjects who have larger noggins, it fits more properly, but I still think I should have gone down a needle size. (I always have to go down two needle sizes. What possessed me to only drop down one AND not swatch is beyond my grasp.
I actually thought for awhile that I was going to remake it altogether, but I made my brother try it on and decided to trust his judgement. He is young, relatively picks about what he thinks “looks dumb,” frequently wears hats, and has a head of the approximate size and shape that I imagine the intended recipient’s to be. It was possible to fold the ribbing up for a more shallow hat, but it fit comfortably and looked good enough on him without any fussing that I called it done.
On Sunday, I found out that my brother and his wife are expecting!
When I picked my jaw up off the floor (I hadn’t realized that were even considering kids right now), my first thoughts were, naturally, about all of the cute patterns I now have someone to knit for. Maybe a Baby Surprise Jacket. Perhaps a Swallowtail Shawl to be used as a receiving blanket. A crazy monster hat? Oh! And LOOK at the baby cargos. I’m not even going to start on the things I’ve found on etsy. The cuteness just doesn’t end, and I’m getting a little carried away.
The problem is compounded by the fact that I’m feeling on top of my Christmas knitting. I’ve finished one project, and am halfway through all the others. It makes me want to knit other things, and what’s more, it makes me feel like I have time to knit other things, which you and I both know is probably seriously not the case.
In the end, it probably doesn’t matter. Instead of knitting what’s already on my needles or starting a neckwarmer with the skein of Malabrigo sitting next to me, I’m busy trying to tear myself away from Ravelry’s pattern search.
No good can come of this.
1. The new Twist Collective is up. I need to have this sweater immediately. I am on eBay right now, looking at lots of Cascade 220. This cannot end well.
2. I have started knitting Turn a Square. As always, it is weird to be working on needles that aren’t for socks. Once I break a 3, I feel like I’m holding tree trunks. The lady at the yarn shop talked me into replacing Cascade 220 with alpaca. I was totally dubious at first, and may have muttered some impolite things about her, but not that I’m several inches in, I’m in love. (In the interest of honesty, I’m a little worried that maybe my gauge is a little loose, and that I should have gone down more needle sizes. I did put the whole thing on scrap yarn yesterday, and it seemed to be okay, so we’ll see what happens.)
3. Alpaca is really freaking warm. Just having my hands in it while I knit makes them hot. This bodes wither really, really well for the FO, or really badly. It is also a little sheddy. I wonder if that will get annoying when someone tries to wear it.
4. I have no idea who this hat is even for. I have several recipients in mind, but can’t decide who wold be most likely to wear a hat at all, and who would most appreciate a handknit.
5. I really wish that the entire internet had Ravelry’s “ears burning” feature, so that all I had to do was type someone’s name with a little bit of code, and they would get an email and know to come running and answer me.
6. eBay was a bust. Webs has it. $78. Knit Picks, it is. And I need to get ready for work. Walking away from the computer is probably a good thing.
I finished my handspun over the weekend, and now somehow it is already Wednesday and I’m just getting around to blogging about it.
Christine and a couple folks on Ravelry pointed out that I was making the plying process way more complicated than it needed to be (if you can imagine me doing something like that), and navajo plying wasn’t necessary at all. I wound up diving the singles between two bobbins instead of just winding them into a center pull ball because that was how I tried to ply the yarn I spun on my drop spindle, and that did not end well. I was surprised how quickly the plying went, and decided while I was sitting on the balcony spinning and watching the cat watch the squirrels that when I buy my own wheel, it needs to be at least somewhat portable. I like spinning outside too much to have one that is totally stationary.
Once the yarn was plied, I was at a loss as to how it should be skeined, since I don’t have any fancy-schmancy tools for that. After some internet research, I decided to be super classy, and wind it around the legs of a dining room chair. It actually worked out really well, except that I did absolutely nothing in the way of figuring out how many yards of yarn I had.
The skein twisted a little once it was wound together, which I’ve been led to believe means something, but I’m not entirely sure what.
In any event, the yarn had a bath.
I checked on it pretty compulsively while it was soaking, but I have no idea what I thought was going to happen. Maybe I was worried that it would melt? Grow to ten times its size like those giant dinosaur toys? (Actually, I think I was just worried that the sink wouldn’t properly hold water.)
It hung in the shower overnight to dry, and in the morning, it didn’t twist around itself at all, which my totally halfassed research tells me means its balanced. At least, I think that’s what it means. I’m hazy on just about all the details, here.
I could not be happier with my finished product.
Its bouncy and lofty and not nearly as scratchy as I expected, and while I don’t think I would want it next to my skin, it seems to be totally useable. That’s huge, because (as Christine was quick to point out), not long ago I was sure that I couldn’t do this at all.
It is even kind of sort of mostly the same weight, which really blows me away.
I don’t think I’ve been this excited since I figured out how to make socks.
1. There is probably something wrong with me that I think this and this are brilliant, and I sort of want to make one. (Its Knitting Biology. Consider yourself warned.)
2. I finished spinning all of the roving that Christine gave me back in September. I didn’t think the project through very well, and all of my singles are on one bobbin. As far as I can figure, that means I have to navajo ply them, and that scares me whole lots. A spinning lesson may be in order. Its pretty cool, though, to look over and see a whole bobbin full of handspun that I think might even be functional. (The picture is from a few days ago. There is even more yarn now.)
3. One of my fingerless mitts knit from my October yarn club shipment is finished. I’m a good bit through the second one, but its in time out because I was too busy watching election results to bother with following the chart, and I need to tink back several rows and fix my cable pattern, and I don’t feel like bothering right now. Nice how I punish the knitting for my own dumbassery. I’m really, really happy with the way they’re turning out.
Anyone remember that sock I ripped out a month ago? The one that I reknit in plain stockinette because the patterning made it just too ugly for words?
Turns out it was the yarn, and not the pattern.
I was knitting along yesterday, all the way down to the decreases for the toe, and all of a sudden, I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I hated it. I hated the colors. I hated the way they were pooling. I hated the way the toe decreases looked and how long the heel flap was and the very idea that I still had to knit another whole sock made me want to cry.
It seemed wrong somehow to give a gift of knitting that I didn’t enjoy creating even a little bit, and given that knitting is something that is meant to make me happy, it seemed silly to keep knitting something that so clearly did not.
And so, the lesson here is: No matter how much a person might like a garment knitted in a particular yarn or color or whatever, if you are going to hate working with it, its probably not the best thing to make. And also? Come to terms with the fact that you hate the sock before you get to the toe.
(Luckily, this little revelation happened on the way to the yarn shop, where new and improved yarn was procured. Things are back on track. There will be pictures later.)
