Monday 24 November 2014

Sick Day Knitting





Its been about a month of so since my last post. It's been a transitional time for me. I just changed to a new job two weeks ago, and for the past few days I've been fighting off a horrendous bug that's taking a slow and agonizing tour through my tonsils, larynx and sinuses.

But although these things have affected my blogging, they have not affected the actual amount of knitting! 

Normally I like to post about finished projects but this time it's more of a progress report. Originally I was going to blog about these awful fingerless gloves that resemble something a Neanderthal may have fashioned around the same time as the first bone chisel, but it's almost too embarrassing to share. Besides, they have since been banished to the topmost shelf of the coat closet which is my house's version of the Bermuda triangle. Mainly because I have trouble reaching it. 

Let's save that one for a rainy day.

Right now I'm working on a variation of this seed stitch infinity scarf. I had lots of time to work on it this past weekend while restrained to the couch with nothing else to do but pop pain killers and drink tea. It's a super simple and forgiving pattern since it's basically knit one, purl one x 2-3 balls of yarn. So far I've used up the yarn I had so it's only partially done:

  


Yep, pretty much a big grey rectangle. Tne pattern calls for size 17 knitting needles but the biggest I had on hand were 13s. I like how it's turning out but I might make another one using size 17s or maybe even bigger. I'm really into the ultra-chunky knits!

For yarn, nothing too fancy this time. I'm using Bernat Roving which is is mostly acrylic and can be found cheaply at Walmart. One thing I find about the cheaper yarns- you don't have to roll them into a ball. Wnich we know from experience can be a huge time saver. Also it knits up pretty soft and cushy, so I think it was a good choice.

Story time:  I was reluctantly getting my sick carcass ready for work this morning and decided to take a tea to go instead of my usual Nespresso, having found the tea more bearable to swallow Since getting sick. So I fire up the kettle and pour myself a tea in the ceramic travel mug I isually use for coffee. The mug has a rubber heat guard on it but the boiling water made even the rubber part too hot to hold. 

And I thought to myself, "if only I had something else to wrap around this so I could pick it up without giving myself a second degree burn. What am I going to do?"

And then, I remembered my first craftacular accomplishment:

I felt very smug indeed. It was the highlight of my day. Honestly.

Monday 3 November 2014

Baby Alpaca Wool Hat!

A couple weeks ago when I was just discovering the kind of yarn junkie I am in danger of becoming , I bought this baby alpaca yarn just because it was so soft I had to have it. I didn't know what I could knit with it but it was enough just to have in my stash and snuggle with it from time to time .

That's right. Snuggling with yarn.

My next project was actually going to be these beautiful fingerless gloves with a merino/silk blend,  but I hit a snag. I didn't even get as far as to cast on the double pointed needles, which I was thoroughly intimidated by.  This was as far as I got on that project:

That's right. I can't even roll the skein into a workable ball of yarn. I'm ashamed to say that I spent the better part of a week trying to save this train-wreck but after all my efforts, the thin, fingering yarn finally snapped and I was left with an unsatisfactory sized ball and a giant tangled nightmare. I don't want to give up on it but let's just say I'm taking a hiatus from this project.

So, turning to my next piece in the Ravelry queue, I turned to the alpaca wool and attempted a hat.  It was my first completed project on circular needles. I chose Crazy Aunt Purls Brangelina hat. Way easier than I thought it would be, although I did the entire thing on circular needles instead of switching to the dpns as the pattern suggests , simply because I couldn't find size 11 dpns at my local walmart this morning. There was a lot of twisting and contorting the circular needles near the end but I got 'er dun!

I knitted this very casually over the course of three or four evenings.

Here's the finished product:


There's one part where I seriously messed up and dropped a stitch while knitting the ribbing. After I finished, I noticed there was a loop sticking out and in the process of unravelling. So I just tied a knot in that sucker and keep that part of the hat at the back- again, I ask: who is going to be staring at the back of my head? 

I am loving this wool though, it's like  having a baby alpaca snuggling my head. Great pattern too! I can see myself making more of these in the near future.

What should I knit next??