sweetgeorgia

Ten-year old stash

I have a yarn stash from about 10 or 15 years ago when I used to knit in middle school and high school. This weekend, when we were at my parents’ house to pick them up for dinner, my mom had me take home some of my old stuff that I’ve been “storing” at their house… things like my barely used tap shoes, really old software that I borrowed from a professor at UBC, and my yarn stash.

Here’s a tour of some really old knitting:

There are at least five WIPs in the box. Neither my mother nor I can remember who started (and nearly finished) these projects. A few of them are entire sweaters knit on 2mm and 3mm needles…so sad to frog them, but what would I do with them???

Hope you have enjoyed the tour! I still have no idea what to do with all this… Torching it came to mind, but I doubt that the acrylic would burn much. My mom suggested, “maybe just keep it in the garage”.

Tweedy Goodness

The Ribby Cardi fronts are blocking and almost dry now. I cast on for the sleeves last night and have worked about 3 or 4 increases so far… it’s all coming along! It’s an easy knit, really, so if anybody is humming and hawing about making this, go get the pattern already! I even joined the new Ribby Cardi KAL generously hosted by Carole from Knitizen.

The Trouble with Tweed

Poor Silkroad Aran Tweed. I’ve frogged this scarf so many times that the yarn is starting to look a little ragged. But I can’t help that I haven’t liked any of the scarf patterns that I’ve started with this yarn. I’ve tried the Here and There Cables (Scarf Style), Irish Hiking Scarf (Hello Yarn), the Lopi Lace Scarf (Weekend Knitting) and the Men’s Cashmere Scarf (Last Minute Knitted Gifts)… oh, and I discovered an error (which others have already noted) in the Men’s Cashmere Scarf pattern.

I think the difficulty may be that the yarn is a little “tough” and needs to be knit in such a way that it remains springy. The cable patterns made this yarn too thick and heavy. The Lopi Lace Scarf is a little too girly for my dad. I will probably go home and frog these two starts tonight and use the “correct” Men’s Cashmere Scarf pattern.

In better news, my friend, Michelle, and I had brunch yesterday, visited Urban Yarns where she picked up her first pair of knitting needles — Crystal Palace Bamboo 8mm — and came over for tea and knitting. She learned to cast on, knit, purl (both English and Continental!) and cast off in one afternoon and is on her way to being completely obsessed with yarn! In fact, one yarn selection we agree on is the Phildar Neige… it feels like perfect snow! It’s heaven.

On Friday, while shopping for props and food at Granville Island Market for my food photography class, I watched yarn being spun for the very first time! I know this is old hat for so many knitters, but I’d never seen spinning before and it looked like fun! This lady with her little yarn booth keeps sheep and llamas in her backyard! Fantastic!

Crazy girl

I think I may have finally lost it.

My response to the lovely woman at Starbucks who asked me innocently, “What are you knitting?” this morning was “I’m just practicing”. Of course, I then proceeded to show her the silly 2 foot length of swatching I’m working on and explain the rowing out situation and my tension nightmares. Yes, it’s bad, poor lady.

But I think I am closer to working it all out. I’ve “solved” the problem by really tightening up the purl stitches using my regular English-style throwing style. Alternatively, I also solved the problem by knitting combined but loosening up the purl stitches. Also, when I knit combined, I continue to thread the yarn through the right hand. I just find that I can better control (ha!) the tension with my right hand.

I suspect that the loose purl stitches are happening because of the natural curl of the fabric — the top of the swatch curls away from me on the purl sides so it’s using even more yarn than the knit side. So to counteract, I really really choke up on the purl stitches. It seems pretty severe though, so I’m going to try another set of swatches with a larger needle size (US 8 or 9) and see where we go. The fabric on 4.25 mm needles is pretty stiff.

Ok, and on with my regular day now.

Cheating on Yarn Diet

I don’t know if this is considered cheating or a full blown end to the yarn embargo. With the DH’s blessing, I bought two packs of glorious Jaeger Luxury Tweed off e-bay yesterday. Luxury Tweed is 65% merino wool and 35% alpaca, double-knitting weight. I ordered 10 skeins each of the China Pink and Pebble colours.

The Knitting Garden doesn’t carry this yarn anymore and the few places I could find it, each skein was $8.50 US ($14.95 CDN). On E-bay I bought each pack for between $40 and $50 US! That’s practically half price! Between Christmas postal service and the 5-week backlog on delivery of International packages I don’t know when I’ll actually receive this order…

The China Pink is destined to be the “Highgate” Sweater from the Jaeger magazine “Classic Knits” JM08.