What I made, by Sharon

On her Patreon Stephanie Purl-McPhee  released a "how to" for a planned pooling cowl. I thought it would be fun to dye some left over yarn, and make it - maybe for Elise, maybe to donate. The first thing I did wrong was not tie the skein before dying it. I have no idea why I suddenly, after all the dyeing I have done, decided that step was optional. It came out OK, and I untangled it. The problem is, I can't say for sure that I dyed it in an entirely regular pattern. I f not this won't work at all. I swatched and checked, but it's a bit tricky, because I can't really see where the start of the colour repeat is. I knit on with hope, but got this: Nope. Since no-one really wants the finished cowl, I'm going to rip it and make a nice baby jumper. I mean, no-one is having a baby right now either, but sooner or later someone will, right?  

Since I knit my new Warriston to replace my old tired, worn out Warriston I decided to rip the old one, figuring the yarn will be good for a bathmat some time in the future (Long time followers of this blog will know that bathmats happen on a regular basis!) I was surprised when ripping it how broken up the yarn was. Despite throwing out a lot of smaller bits, I have ended up with 509 grams, over an alarming number of skeins. While I was ripping things, I decided to rip out my montebretia shawl . it was unwearable and ungiftable, and there was sparkle yarn trapped in there. I love sparkle yarn. I feel better having finalised that shawl, rather than having it kicking around the house, reminding me of a failed project. The yarn all came out very kinked and sproingy, but, after a wash, it was as good as new and returned to the stashbox. After which I indulged in counting my stash, which is currently steady at 18026 meters. It's not surprising it hasn't budged, si...

Last night I cast off Vitamin D , and it's current blocking, I'll try to get some photos later in the week. This morning, on the train, I cast on the next "What would Granny Weatherwax Knit" sock. I guess I should have learn my lesson about c asting on on the train , because I cast on an apparently random number of stitches. Ripped it after one round. I then knit to my work meeting, and back from my work meeting (it was in the suburbs, not one of my country trips) and realised I had placed the second lot of double decreases in the wrong spot. Rip again. I reknit those rows, but at I was doing it I realised that on the first repeat I did the double decreases one way, while the pattern calls for a centred double decrease. I looked at it, decided it was fine and left it. Hopefully I can actually follow the fairly straightforward instructions for the rest of these socks, rather than continuing this 8 rows forward, four rows back dance.

I've been happily knitting along on my Rams and Ewes Blankie. "The pattern is so intuitive"  I said "I can knit this anywhere, the airport, the train, the pub" I said. "The hardest part is choosing the right colours correctly" I said. And on Friday night, after finishing the first of the second half rams, I smoothed out the blanket to admire it, and realised that the pattern is not as it is meant to be mirrored. I'd picked the wrong shade of black for the second half of the pattern, and knit with it for two days. And then this morning, when I went to rip it out I realised that the middle rows were also done in the wrong colour, so they came out too. And this is how it looks now: Ah well, I guess it's just a way of prolonging the joy of knitting with this yarn, right? Right???

Before I kept knitting away on my cowl, going with my pla n to "fix" the fact I read the pattern wrongly to begin with. Then, as planned, I got to the mid point and moved the cable crossing to where it was meant to be - every 20 rows, rather than every ten. I immediately noticed two things: 1- the texture of the newer knitting was much floppier and softer  2 - it looked stupid having the two together. I ripped it back to the short cables and decided it was better just to continue with the pattern I had begun with.   It got long enough that I could wrap it around my neck, at which point I discovered that the short cables are rather weaponised. You could beat someone to a pulp with them. They sat in a sea of squishy garter stitch, all bunched up and uptight and heavy. So I ripped it all out:     After

On Monday I cast on for Cookie A's Rhombus socks . Its a stunning design, where every stitch is charted and there are make one purl left and make one purl right and all sorts of fancy things going on. The yarn is from a glitter sock yarn from Stranded in Oz, and I thought I would wear them to Bendigo this year. My first mistake was casting on at Springvale Railway station while waiting for the train. I misread "cast on 60 stitches, put multiples of twelve onto each needle" as "cast on 12 stitches on each needle". I did that, merrily knitting along, although until I got home and looked at the book I was really struggling with the increases, and in two places there are holes. I thought about ripping, but decided it would be fine. I knew something wasn't right, since the pattern diagram says that there are five pattern repeats, and I only had four. Somehow, in my head, 12 x 4 made 60. At the end of the night I looked at it and it was tiny. Really, really sm...

I was knitting away on my Cat Bordhi socks, and I got to the heel. I was very excited and a little bit puzzled because it didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, but I knit on, thrilled to be having an exploration in heels, rather than following my usual tried and trusted heel flap and gusset route.  Unfortunately, I missed the "set up" rows for the heel, so on first try it didn't work. I ripped it on Thursday evening, and put it right on Friday at lunch time. And then I knit on, finishing the heel, the bit after the heel, the gusset decreases. All the time I was looking at it, thinking that it was a little longer than my usual socks. I tried it on and thought that it was a little loose, but it's a 64 stitch sock, so I figured  everything would sort itself out after the gusset decreases. After all, this is a brand new way of knitting socks, how do I know what it is meant to look like at the mid way point? Then I finished the gusset decreases, tried it on and found...