So there I am, cheerfully knitting away at the blue Shedir, and about half-way through the third set of cables, I realize that there's no way this is going to be a one skein project. I turned it upside down, and also realized that not only could I get my entire head into it without stretching it, I was probably going to be able to stuff one of the cats in there too if I kept going the way I was.
I ripped the entire thing. The Calmer is now sitting in a ball on my knitting table mocking me, and waiting its chance on the size 2 needles. I'd started with the recommended size 3s, but since it was coming out too big, I've decided to drop an entire size and see how much that helps before I start throwing the yarn ball at my computer and yelling at the designer for claiming that this project could be done in one skein on 3s. The yarn is really stretchy and I was making a point of not stretching it out too much when I was knitting it, so that might also be making a pretty big difference. I have a photo essay of the poor thing's death throes that I'll post as soon as I can find a camera cable.
My quest for a "quick" project continued. I'd always meant to make a Baby Surprise Jacket, and finishing off the Log Cabin O'Doom means that I had about three full balls of Cascade 220 (split among the 5 colors, of course, but that's still quite a bit of yarn). Ding! I cast it on yesterday afternoon sometime, and just now finished weaving in all the ends. It's not actually finished, because I want to throw it at TG and see if he can correctly origami it into its proper shape. I think it's actually fairly easy, because the way I set up the stripes was to change color any time I found an instruction. (So the first 8 rows are one color, and then you run out of actually written row-by-row directions, so I changed color. I changed again two rows later because she's got you doing special increases, etc.) I know what the various instructions were for, so I know where the pieces go.
The BSJ was pretty easy -- I did use the "notes" sheet that's floating around online, but I only needed it in one place, right at the beginning, and I flat out ignored it in several places afterwards because her interpretation of the directions didn't match mine. I'm mostly pleased with it, although in one place I wound up having to change colors on the wrong row, so there's one place where the stripes aren't seamless. I have some varigated Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted allocated for another BSJ, and I think that'll be lovely because every row will have the color-change dashes, so you won't be able to tell where things happen at all.
Photos of that either her or on Ravelry tomorrow, when I've got actual light to work on. Actually, maybe Tuesday -- I'm going to a law school forum thing tomorrow, and I may be too fried in the morning to take photos, depending on how neurotic I decide to get about the whole thing.
I don't think I actually did anything non-knitting related this weekend, really. TG has a loaner parachute for the next couple of weeks (he's looking at changing sizes, so he's borrowing possibilities from the manufacturers to see how he likes them), so he's been off at the drop zone skydiving all weekend. Yesterday my friend N. came up from school, and we walked to the knitting stores around here and then came home and wound up her yarn before I sent her off to do her homework. (No serious yarn porn from me, sadly -- all I got was three skeins of Misti Alpaca laceweight, which she bought for me as a late birthday present.) We also had our friends R. and L. over for dinner, when I discovered that as easy as the BSJ is, it's not great company knitting because of all the counting. Today, I did mostly nothing but knitting, although I must now go get my laundry out of the machine and pay attention to it.
Oh, and I bought a spinning wheel last week. It's not in very good shape, but I think with some TLC, it'll be very nice. I'll post all about that later, though, since the laundry is calling and this entry is already quite long. Hope you had a nice weekend too!
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That's a neat idea, to change colour when the instructions change. I've only made a BSJ from variegated yarn and haven't started another because I couldn't decide what yarn to use, let alone where to place the stripes.
And I didn't get on very well with Calmer either. I knitted a little shrug with it, for a friend, and I was very glad she hadn't wanted anything bigger. People rave about it, though, it's strange.
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