I Have a Theory About Needles

They continue to grow after they've been produced. Not much; just a few sizes. A needle that starts out as a size 1 will eventually grow to be a size 4 or so. This explains why I don't have any 1s, 2s or 3s but I have multiple sets of 4s and 5s. That last batch of needles that I ordered wasn't full grown when they were shipped. I probably should have specified that I wanted mature needles when I placed my order.

Where Are All My Needles?

When I sorted out all my yarn, I sorted out my needles too. I pulled out all the crap needles, took stock of what was left, wrote a list of what I'd need so that I'd have 6 and 8 inch dpns and 24 and 40 inch circs in all sizes from 0 to 8. It was a relatively short list so I filled in the gaps with Hiya Hiya Sharps and Addi Lace, both of which are reasonably pointy and have reasonably good cables, and felt a profound sense of satisfaction knowing that I'd have whatever needles I'd need to start whatever project I chose. So I assumed when I sat down to swatch for Fulmar, I'd be able to start once I'd finished only to discover that all of my 24" circs from size 1 to size 3 have flown the coop. I can find 40" circs in most sizes but none are pointy and this project calls for pointy needles. I ordered 4 more pair of 24" circs on-line because my LYS was closed. Until they arrive, I have nothing to work on so I'm going to start a pair of socks, which I will then feel obligated to finish before starting Fulmar.

Just in Time for Spring...

My snowfling mittens are complete. The colors are kind of Easter-ish, I suppose.

I decided to skip the hassle of doing a second set of provisional cast-ons and then having to graft, and just picked up the stitches from the mittens and measured carefully. I did my own thing on the lining because I didn't have the pattern with me when I did the first one but it all came out fine.

They're a little lumpy because they haven't been blocked yet.

And on to the next project. There's a new KAL for Fulmar on Ravelry and I have three cones of Frangipani, which will be more than enough, so I may as well enjoy a little company while I'm knitting.

Snowfling Mittens

My snowfling mittens are half done. Both mittens are done and the ends have been woven in.

That was the easy part. Now I have to pick up the stitches and knit the lining, which I suspect sounds easier that it actually is. I did a provisional cast-on because it didn't make sense to do a regular cast-on and then pick up stitches but now I think I might try knitting the linings separately and grafting the two together. That's a lot of grafting but then I could easily tinker with the linings until they fit correctly. Food for thought.

Point Arena: Not as Bad as I Thought

I wore Point Arena today. I don't hate it anymore but it's never going to be my favorite sweater.

I wish I were more enthused about it but I suppose I can't expect to love everything I make. And now I get to start a new project and that's always fun. 

A Disappointing Week, Knitting-wise

I spent an evening with my old Aran sweater and had no luck splitting it into two pieces. So I decided that I'd frog it, wash the yarn and put it away for a future project. Old acrylic doesn't frog well. I got halfway through one sleeve and realized it wasn't worth it so I threw it in the trash. It felt really odd just throwing it out but there was nothing else to be done with it.

Next on the agenda was finishing Point Arena. I spent a relatively pleasant afternoon sewing it together and then started on the neckband. I had planned on making it a turtleneck but I ran out of yarn. I was sure I had another skein but couldn't find it. So I frogged and reworked it as a mock turtleneck. I finished it, tried it on and hated it. The neck opening was much too wide. I considered taking it apart and making the neck opening smaller and then making it a crewneck but I've spent so much time lately taking finished projects apart and reworking them that I just couldn't do it. So now it's got sort of a ballet neck. It's... strange. It's too  bulky to be so fitted and have a ballet neck. So I think I'll call it done for now, put it away and work on something else.

Ugh.

Random Thoughts and an Updated To-Do List

Point Arena is almost done. I'll finish the second sleeve this week and (maybe) put it together this weekend. If it can just stay cold a little longer, I won't have to wait until next winter to wear it.

I haven't worked on my Snowfling mittens for a few weeks because I was working on Irish Moss and Point Arena, although I have decided to line them with a different color. I used orange yarn for the provisional cast on and thought it looked nice with the bright pink so I ordered some Madelinetosh tosh merino light in citrus. I also got a skein for a pair of socks.

Since the Sublime baby cashmere merino silk DK is working out for the mittens, the ONline Linie 33 Cosmo fingering weight will be used for a pair of Snowfling socks. The two skeins of the ONline in teal that were originally intended to line both pairs of mittens will be used either for socks or gloves.

I have many pairs of socks that are ready for retirement so I need to make myself some new socks. I've never knit a pair of toe-up socks. Now seems like a good time. This decision may have been influenced by the unexpected growth of my sock yarn stash.

The overhaul of my old aran sweater isn't going well. Every right side row has cable crosses, which makes the  length reassignment surgery difficult. I didn't expect to be able to make a few snips, pull out the snipped yarn and have a neatly divided piece of knitting but I figured if I was careful, I'd be able to pick up the stitches correctly at the bottom the cable. I've only done half of the front and about half of the cables are messed up. I'll devote one more evening to this and if I can't figure out how to do this, I'll either toss the sweater or frog it and knit another one.

I sold the yarn for Autumn Rose and Strathspey but I bought yarn (Cascade 220 in ivory) for Little Rivers by Alice Starmore.


Updated To-Do list:

1. Finish Point Arena.

2. Finish Snowfling mittens.

3. Fish or cut bait on the old aran.

4. Make a half-hearted effort to work on Fife.

5. Learn how to do toe-up socks.

6. Make a couple of other pairs of socks as well.

7. Figure out what the next big project will be; time to start swatching.

Let's Do the Whole Garde-Tricot Thing

Irish Moss is done again. It looks exactly the same except it's longer.

In fact, it's probably a bit too long but that's not going to change. I do have another sweater that's about to get shorter.

I knit this back in the eighties. It's the only surviving project I have from before I got married and had kids.  It's huge, in the way that so many things from the eighties were and it's brightly colored in the way that so many things from the eighties were.  The mock turtleneck was knit separately and sewn on; God knows why. Back then, it would not have occurred to me to modify a pattern but it's hard to imagine that this is what the pattern called for. I've hung onto it for all these years because I really like it but I never wear it because it's so big. I was inspired by TECHknitting's post on reworking an old sweater, and have decided to rework the neck and make this shorter. I should have enough yarn to knit a proper turtleneck after I make it shorter but if that doesn't work out, I'll just give it a crewneck.

A New, More Exciting Pair of Mittens

I finished reworking Irish Moss. I added two pattern repeats, which will make it about 4 inches longer and tightened up the neck a little bit. I'm blocking it now. While it's taking it's own sweet time to dry I started a pair of snowfling mitts.  I just bought the pattern although the wool looks gorgeous and I may have to buy a kit for the mittens or maybe for the Four Seasons hat.

The pattern calls for DK weight for the mittens and fingering weight for the lining. This is what I found at my LYS.

The pink and the white are Sublime baby cashmere merino silk DK. The teal is ONline Linie 33 Cosmo, which is a cashmere/merino blend fingering weight. I dropped a needle size so they'd be smaller but I think I'm going to rip them and use a larger needle. They fit now but they'll be too small when they're lined.

 I have very small hands and was concerned that they'd be too big even if I used a smaller needle so I also bought 3 skeins of the ONline Linie 33 Cosmo for a second pair.

Still Avoiding Point Arena

I used my random skein 0f Sheep Shop Yarn Company Sheep 3 yarn (what an incredibly awkward name. It doesn't really abbreviate to anything; Sheep Shop, I guess) to knit a pair of socks.

This is a wool/silk blend and therefore isn't very durable, so these are sleeping socks. Or sit-around-and-watch-tv-while-knitting socks. Lounging socks. Let's go with that. I also made a pair of really uninspired mittens to go with my Kittiwake hat. I considered putting the Kittiwake cables on them, but there are two sets of decrease 4 in there with no matching increase and I couldn't figure out an easy way  to maintain the stitch count and I wanted to finish them up so I could start a new, more exciting pair of mittens. But before I do that, I have to finish reworking Irish Moss. I took it apart and am about 1/3 done with knitting the additional length. With any luck, I'll be able to put it back together this weekend and then I can get back to not working on Point Arena.

Avoiding Point Arena

I decided to take a little break from Point Arena and do a couple of small projects that would use up some of my stash.

This is Kittiwake from the reprint of Aran Knitting. I have 4 skeins of Scottish Fleet in Sea Green. I need a hat and this goes nicely with my plaid scarf and brown coat so I'm using up some of my stash and looking coordinated.  The pattern calls for two skeins but I used very little of the second skein. There was enough left over to make a pair of mittens so I am very coordinated.

I made some minor modifications to the pattern, which called for p2tog on the first two stitches and also on the last two stitches on 4 rows of the second chart but doing two p2tog next to each other was creating dimples so I did a p2tog at the beginning of the chart for rows 3, 9, 15 and 21 and a p2tog  on the last two stitches of the chart for rows 6, 12, 18 and 24 instead.  I also did a series of 3 needle bindoffs for the last 24 stitches. The pattern calls for drawing the yarn through the remaining 24 stitches and fastening off but I couldn't close the hole without pulling the yarn so tight I was afraid it would snap so I did a series of 3 needle bindoffs, pulled the braid through the hole that remained and then tightened everything up and secured the tassle.

I've got two skeins left, which I'll use eventually for a pair of socks.

Scarf and Mittens

I ordered a kit for the Birdsfoot scarf in Lapwing from Virtual Yarns but couldn't make the gauge work. The scarf would have been too wide or too tightly knit. Either way, the scarf would have been about 18" shorter than I wanted so I used the yarn to make a scarf using a simple lace stitch.

Nothing fancy; I was fed up with the whole project and just wanted it done. I have no idea what this stitch is called. I copied it from a sweater I bought.

I also made a pair of Komi mittens using the Hebridean 2-ply in Kelpie (navy), Lapwing (teal), Shearwater (blue) and Bog Bean (green).

I have more of all four colors and will eventually make a pair of fingerless gloves with Kelpie. I have some ideas on how to make working the fingers easier but for now I'm supposed to be working on Point Arena. As for the Birdsfoot pattern, I think it's better suited to a dk weight yarn.

Gloves

I figured it was about time I learn how to make a decent pair of gloves. So I started with a very basic pair.

These are Hebridean 2-ply in Lapwing on 2.25s. They have a wide gusset on the side so both gloves are exactly the same. Then I made these:

These are Hebridean 2-ply in Lapwing, Shearwater and Bogbean in a slip stitch pattern with a 4 stitch repeat:

row 1: k1, p1, s1, p1
row 2: k1, s1, p1, s1

with a color sequence of Lapwing, Bogbean, Lapwing, Shearwater. These have a wide gusset on the palm, so there's a left and a right glove.

 
Both are 64 stitches cast on. Fitwise, I prefer the thumb on the palm but both thumb placements have their advantages when it comes to design. I have two skeins of Kelpie, which will eventually be made into a pair of fingerless gloves but I lost steam after the second pair so they'll have to wait .

Irish Moss

I finished this a couple of months ago.

I don't love it. It's too short. I did 2 fewer pattern repeats than the instructions called for because it seemed so long. I have enough yarn to make it longer but that means taking it completely apart, making it longer and then putting it all back together. The "making it longer" is the easiest step. Putting it back together is tedious (it took me two weekends the first time) but I can deal with that. Getting it apart will be a nightmare. I've worn it a few times and it's shetland wool so it will have started to felt.  I am not looking forward to this but it really is too short. The sleeves are the right length, so there's that I guess.

Taking Stock, Part 3

What's still on the needles? Not much, actually. I finished a couple of small projects and frogged a couple of large ones, which leaves me with:

Fife. I AM SO EXCITED I AM ALMOST TO THE GUSSETS DEAR GOD WILL THIS NEVER END?

It's farther along than that now, but not by much. I started this in January of 2010 and am about 30% done. If I continue at this rate, it should be done in January 2020. I do plan on picking up the pace and hope to have it done by 2016. I like it enough to not frog it and tell myself that it's the perfect project for the next Knitting Olympics.

More recently (December of 2012), I cast on another Point Arena. The first Point Arena is large enough to wear over a sweatshirt, which is useful when you're working in a virtually unheated home office but it's not exactly flattering. This is much smaller so I can wear it in a virtually unheated company office. This is Berocco Vintage in Denim worked on US 4s.

The back is done and the front is about 1/2 done so the whole thing is 55% or 60% done. It's deadly dull to knit though so I'm rewarding myself with a break to do a small project. I think I'll do Kittiwake and a pair of mittens with the teal Scottish Fleet.

Taking Stock, Part 2

This is what I have for large projects:

10 skeins of Berocco Vintage in purple. This is for Alice Starmore's Inishmore and is next in the queue.

 20 skeins of Rowan Silk Wool DK in scallop. I think I'll use this for a modified version of Jade Starmore's Sand Dollar.

 

14 skeins of Rowan Wool Cotton in deepest olive. I love this color and wish I had more of it. I've being playing around with swatches and ideas for a lace pullover and should have enough for that.

7 skeins of Sheep Shop Yarn Company Sheep 3 yarn in teal. I bought this for Alice Starmore's St Brigid. I've already knit it but I used crap yarn and didn't have quite enough so I had to make the sleeves a little shorter than I wanted. I hope this isn't too heavy for an Aran as I have no "plan B" for this yarn.

13.5 skeins of Rowan Extra Fine Merino DK in myrtle, which is a reddish purple. I think I'll use this for Alice  Starmore's Norfolk.

20 skeins of Garnstudio DROPS Camilia Superwash in ivory and 8 skeins in aqua. That's enough for two sweaters, one stranded and one textured. Maybe something by Alice or Jade Starmore. I hardly ever knit their patterns.

3 cones of Frangipani 5-ply guernsey in cedar. I bought this for Alice Starmore's Stornoway. Apparently I really liked this color at some point but now I wish I'd gotten it in navy blue. I'm going to try to sell or trade it but I'll use it for Stornoway if I can't.

22 skeins of Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift in assorted colors. I bought this for Autumn Rose by Eunny Jang but then I remembered that I'm only allowed to knit patterns by Alice or Jade Starmore. Or maybe I realized that I don't really like Jamieson's and there's no way I can wear it next to the skin so I'm going to try and sell it as a kit.

9 skeins of Jamieson & Smith 1-ply cobweb in white. One of these days, I'm going to knit some Shetland Lace. Evidently I planned on knitting a lot of Shetland lace because 9 skeins is 3420 yards.

12 skeins of Alice Starmore Hebridean 3-ply in Selkie. I bought this for the pattern Strathspey, which  I don't have any interest in knitting but there isn't enough to knit any other patterns that do interest me so I'm going to try to sell it.

Taking Stock, Part 1

I reviewed all my projects and frogged a few of them. Then I went through all my yarn and ruthlessly sorted it. I donated over half and kept only what I was really excited about using, which left me with:

1.  21 skeins (or pairs of skeins) for socks. That's more sock yarn than I thought I had. 
2. A skein of Schaefer Anne and 3 skeins of Heirloom Argyle; about 625 yards or each. That's too much for a pair of socks but probably not enough for two pair of socks. What else do you do with 625 yards of fingering weight yarn?
3. 1 skein of Lorna's Lace Helen's Lace in Forest (1250 yards), 3 skeins of Misti Alpaca lace in black (1311 yards), 1 1/2 skeins of Alpaca with a twist Fino in Ruby Slippers(about 1300 yards), 1 skein of Misti Alpaca handpaint lace in Blues in the Night (875 yards) and 2 skeins of Wooly West Nordic Lite in Lilac (950 yards). That's less lace weight than I thought I had. 
4. 4 skeins of Alice Starmore Scottish Fleet in Sea Green. This was for Jade Starmore's Scapa. I like the pattern but I don't like the color. It's too washed out for me.
5. 2 skeins each of Art Yarns Royal Silk (fingering weight) and DK Merino in the same colorway. This was for scarf. I'm not enthused about the pattern but I don't know what else to do with it. Probably should've put this in the donate pile but I really like the color.
6. 2 skeins of Lang Jawoll sock magic. Technically it's sock yarn but I bought it for a scarf. 
7. 1 skein of Sheep Shop Yarn Company Sheep 3 yarn in olive green. I have no idea what I bought it for  but I've got 325 yard, which sounds like socks to me.