After my Wool-Ease find last week, I set to work swatching to get gauge for my next sweater - the Starry Night sweater from Sweaters from the Maine Islands. Only had to make two swatches - the first was on the recommended size needles and was too big; the second was on 2 needle sizes down and was just right. This is what normally happens to me. I don't know why I don't just start out swatching with the smaller needles...
I got out my graph paper on Thursday and worked out the instruction changes I need to make to get the sweater to fit me properly. Then, Friday night I cast on using the tubular cast on...and somehow for both the front and the back I cast on the wrong number of stitches - too many for one, too few for the other. Ugh. I redid the cast on and then did bottom-of-the-sweater ribbing and now am on the boringness of stockinette for 10+ inches. Hey, at least I can read (Harry Potter) and knit when it's stockinette! I do like how the piece is feeling - soft and warm!
I joined my very first knit-a-longs! One is the Another Weasley KAL in honor of Harry Potter. At present I'm probably going to make a small scarf as a bookmark for that KAL, although I am becoming more and more encouraged to shoot for making a Weasley sweater for Christmas. It sure is convenient that my first name starts with R just like the one on Ron's sweater...
However, I seem to be committed to the scarf-mark because Monday I purchased a set of double pointed needles in teeny tiny sizes, which will be good not only for the scarf but also for socks, which I hope to try out sometime soon.
I tried to find yarn for the scarf at Knit One over the weekend, but when I went in there, to my surprise nobody came over to help me, and all I could find was yarn too bulky for the scarf, so I left. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and try again later - they're still in the process of getting things settled, and there seemed to be lots of people working on organizing, stocking, and even building shelves for yarn.
I also tried to find some scarf yarn while out to get the sock needles Monday, but I had no luck. I'm quite convinced that I should have been able to find something at Jo-Ann, but I didn't look hard enough. Too bad - the weekend and thus the sale is over, so I'll either have to suck it up and pay full price or...wait for another sale. If only I had given the Weasley KAL more thought a week ago, I could have purchased that on-sale Wool-Ease for the project. Boo.
The second KAL is the Black Sheep KAL. I read about it on the KnittyBoard and, having always wanted to do a KAL, signed up. I happen to have a semi-abandoned black bag in the works, so I resurrected that from a big pile in my bedroom. Alas, the curse of the changing gauge hit me as I re-began work on this seed-stitch piece. The few rows I did on the size 4's that the piece was hanging out on look so loose, I had to bump down to size 2's. I think it's better now. I can't figure out why that gauge changed, since I have been pretty consistent with gauge for many months now. I can't quite remember when I started the black bag, but it seems like it was after I had achieved a pretty steady gauge. Oh well. What is, is. The bag pattern is the Monk's Travel Satchel, which I ran across one day on the Interweave website. It's now published in a book.
And, finally, I worked on color-fasting the Cotton Ease for the Interweave Knits Spring 2005 Wave Skirt. Cotton tends to bleed a lot if the dye is not set into the yarn, so on Saturday morning I set to work first hanking (or at least my version of hanking...wrapping the yarn repeatedly around my outstretched feet...) and then soaking...and resoaking...and resoaking the yarn in hot water. Every single time I'd come back and hope the find clear water, but NO - some dye insisted on coming out after each and every soak.
This is the first time I've tried to colorfast cotton, so I'm not sure if this is normal or what, but I finally got sick of it and decided the color was better than it was before and the day was almost over (there were 5 different colors of yarn...each had to be soaked separately) so I was done. Now the yarn is drying (it's taking F.O.R.E.V.E.R. to dry!). And I'm sad that I might have to reswatch that whole thing, too, seeing the result I had with the Monk bag. Blech.
I certainly have enough knitting on my plate!!
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