Well crap. Crap, Crap, Crap. Had a nice long road trip last weekend to Lake Webster campground in western Kansas. Five hours each way. FIVE HOURS! of NOT having to drive. So, I cast on the sweater that WILL be mine. Though I'm sure she didn't realize it at the time, Marnie actually designed Astoria just for me. It will be mine. It's even knit out of my very favorite yarn, Cascade 220! Can you believe it? So, off to knit my first official piece of colorwork. Yes, I had some mosaic on Jeff's boyfriend sweater, but that was actually just slipping stitches and only knitting one color at a time. This one should be interesting.
Being a fan of the top-down knitted raglan, you'd think I could handle the basic fundamentals. Yes, the increasing and all that went perfectly. But after I got to the campground, looked down and after FOUR HOURS of knitting (I took a nap at one point) I saw a little thing. A little blip. Kind of a hole-ish thing. I thought, oh, surely I just twisted a stitch, nope. Maybe I purled at some point instead of knitted. nope. I had set it down, picked it up later and proceeded to KNIT IT THE WRONG DAMN WAY! And then knit on for the next three hours. I'd short-rowed myself a nice little blip/hole/eyesore. I'm sure another knitter wouldn't even bother, but being super Anal knitter, it has to come out. I was so disgusted with myself I put it away and haven't had the heart to frog it or even start over yet. It's pretty much a frog the whole damn thing option. It happened in about the 8th row or so. Seriously? The first thing I learned after the basic knit stitch was to ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS make sure the yarn from the ball is attached to the needle in my right hand. always. fuxxing knitiot.
Ah well, the sweater is packed for another trip to MN. I've been consumed by another project lately. Wanna see?
The Itty Bitty Sock Yarn Bits Blankie!
The details:
Needles: 2 sizes larger than you usually use for knitting sock yarn. I knit most socks on 1.5 hiya-hiya's, so am working this on a size 3 addi turbo circ.
Yarn: Leftover bits of sock yarn. Save a little bit from each to use for darning.
Cast on 64 stitches (or how ever many you want to!) I normally use 64 stitches to start a sock from the top down. Knit until you almost run out of yarn, change colors and stripe away. When you feel like it, bind off. Pick up another yarn and pick up and knit stitches along the sides, then knit away. I'm planning to do this in a log cabin type style. Knit one side for a while, bind off, pick up stitches on the next side and knit away. I'll post an actual pattern once it'd done, but you get the picture.
***Make sure to slip the first stitch of each row purl-wise with the yarn in back. This makes for a lovely border and also much easier to pick up stitches later! OH, except when you are knitting the first stitch of a row with a new color, knit the first stitch with both strands, then continue along with the new color. Otherwise, first stitch is always slipped.***
I'm off to accomplish nothing other than a few inches of my itty bitty sock bits blankie! I'm not sure if I have the heart to frog what I've started for the Astoria sweater or not. I'll probably just pack new balls of yarn and leave the first part to frog for the bottom after the hard part is past. Cripes almighty, you'd think the color work would be the hard part, wouldn't you?
Off to Minneapolis for another week for the job. Got a LOT of neat yarn shops all mapquested and printed out. Hope to make it to a couple if I have time. Gotta love yarn shops open until 7pm! WOO HOO!
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