…I finished something. This thing took f-o-r-e-v-e-r. It works well, although it takes more than a day to dry, which is kind of a bummer.

I recently acquired more yarn.

6 balls of Hempathy. Will probably be a Josephine top if I can get gauge… I’m a little worried about that because this yarn seems to be closer to fingering weight than sport weight. Also, I hear that it stretches a lot in the wash. I will knit up a swatch and let you know how it goes.

3 skeins of Euroflax. Not really sure what this will be. Yet.

2 skeins of Maizy. I’ll be making a pair of socks for my husband.

Another skein of sock yarn. I’ll be making more socks.

I’m vowing to NOT, under any circumstances, buy any more yarn for a long, long time. I now have 43 yarns in my Ravelry stash. The total yardage comes to just over TEN MILES of yarn. Holy crap! I think my yarn collection may have gotten a little out of hand. In fact, I’m starting to think this whole knitting thing has gotten out of hand. If you peruse the archives,  you’ll notice a definite lack of non-knitting-related posts in the recent past. I have pretty much forsaken all other hobbies and focused exclusively on knitting. I’m hoping to remedy both the out-of-control yarn stash, and the exclusive focus on knitting, in the coming months.

I picked up this handspun hemp yarn at Loopy Yarns while I was in Chicago last summer.

I thought about knitting it up into a bracelet or cuff, but I finally decided to turn it into a bath puffy from the One Skein book.

I made the right decision. The yarn is thick-and-thin, very stiff and it sheds a lot. I am knitting it on US7 needles (2 sizes smaller than what was called for in the pattern) and I cannot imagine knitting it on a smaller needle… so no bracelet will be made out of this yarn in the future. Because the yarn is so stiff it is taking f-o-r-e-v-e-r to knit, I am only about halfway done after working on it for probably 5 hours. I cast on this project because I thought it would be a quick knit and after a couple failures on other projects I just wanted to finish SOMETHING. I was WRONG. This project is going to take a long time. The good news, though, is that since it is made out of hemp it will last a super long time and I will not need to knit a replacement for a very, very long while.

I’ve been working on another pair of toe-up socks using the Knitty universal toe-up sock pattern, this time with 60 stitches on US2s from Knitpicks. The yarn is Crystal Palace Maizy, which is 82% corn fiber and 18% elastic. I am really liking the elasticity of the yarn, I think it’s going to make a very cushy pair of socks. I am not so fond of the fact that the variegation on the socks looks quite a bit different, even though the yarn is from the same dyelot and both socks have the exact same number of stitches. (I counted. Many times.) But I think the differences in variegation will grow on me, just like it did last time.

This is my first pair of socks on the Knitpicks needles, and I have to say they are working quite well. The cable is really flexible and doesn’t kink, and the joins of the cable with the needles are pretty smooth. Definitely a good value for the price!

I am failing pretty miserably at my “knit through my stash” goal. I’ve purchased a ton of new yarn (ahem, see below) and have knit hardly anything with yarn from my stash. Doh! Look at all this great new yarn, though:

Noro sock yarn.

Tofutsies sock yarn

Knitpicks Palette. This will be a pair of mittens.

Knitpicks Gloss, this will be a Chapeau Marnier hat.

More Knitpicks Gloss, this will be a pair of mittens.

Knitpicks Wool of the Andes. This will be a pair of Fiber Trends felted clogs for me.

After that last post about the leaf tshirt I tried on the sweater and the short rows did not look right. The short rows were too long (starting directly below the center of the arm holes) and they were too far below the arm holes. So I had added a bunch of fabric below my bust, and wider than my bust, which makes for a really awful looking sweater. Unfortunately this problem did not reveal itself until I had knit a significant amount PAST the short rows. When I tried the shirt on immediately after the short rows it looked great. I guess that to see how the short row shaping is going to look you need to knit an inch or so past the short rows, then try the garment on. Lesson learned.

When I began the short rows I was thinking about them as if they were exactly like darts in a dress shirt. There are some key differences between the pseudo-darts made by short rows and the darts in dress shirts:

1. Darts in dress shirts are there to SUBTRACT FABRIC to make the waist of a shirt smaller than the bust. Short rows are there to ADD FABRIC to make the bust larger.
2. The placement of darts and short rows are different. Darts in dress shirts start a few inches directly under the center of the arm hole (at the side seam) at the bottom of the bust, and they angle up to the center of the bust. The darts in dress shirts are much, much longer than the pseudo-darts made by short rows. The pseudo-darts made by short rows do not angle up, they go straight across the garment. The first stitch of your short rows should start an inch or more in from your armpits and about halfway down the bust.
3. Darts on a dress shirt lay flat and look nice when the shirt is hanging or folded. Short rows do not lay flat and your shirt will look a little wonky when hanging or folded. (See picture below)

I moved the short rows up and in an inch, and the shirt fits a million times better. Yay!

I just finished my first entrelac project, the Quant from Knitty Winter 2007. It was a really intriguing knit, it took a few repeats for the pattern to emerge. The end section on mine looked so wonky that I did it completely different than what was described in the pattern. It took a few tries to get it right, but the ends are much more symmetrical now. I do have about half a ball of yarn (Manos del Uruguay silk blend) leftover, so I might attempt another Quant later. For now, here are some pics of the finished product:

…to the 52 projects blog for mentioning this blog in yesterday’s “Sites to check out” post.

THANKS

…is the Quant from the Winter 2007 Knitty. I bought this super-soft Manos del Uruguay silk and merino yarn. I’m intending to make it as a Christmas present, but I’m a little worried the wool content will make it too itchy for the recipient. If it is I guess I will have to keep this one for myself (not the worst thing in the world since it matches the Evangeline fingerless mitts I just made) and find an alternative, non-wool yarn for the recipient.

I finished a pair of Evangeline mittens a few weeks ago, and I’m super happy with them. I made them with some of the leftover Cascade 220 from my Circle Square hat, and even after these two projects I still have a small ball of yarn left. I made them with 5 cable repeats instead of 3 or 9, and I think they are just the right length. I made the thumb hole a little tight, trying to compensate for the overly-loose thumbhole that my fetching mitts have. I also picked up many more stitches around the thumbhole than the pattern called for, which makes the fabric around the thumb less holey and more insulating, like a mitten should be.

Fingerless mittens work great for me on weekday mornings when I’m rushing to the bus stop, knowing that I won’t be spending much time outside and that I’ll have to dig thru my purse for my bus pass.

I reversed the cables on the mitts, so they are mirror images of each other.