Black Sheep

Mid-week post

July 14th, 2005

How’s your week going? Mine’s going pretty well. I’m getting really busy with my move to Spokane looming over me. I’m getting kind of stressed about finding a place to live out there and stuff. My Mom is helping me out, though, which is good. I don’t know what I would do without her.

So here is my Flower basket Shawl so far. Again, looking like a blog of nothing in the picture, but I can kind of see the flower baskets formed. I have just started the 7th repeat of the lower flower basket chart. I think I’m going to do 8 repeats. The directions say to do only 7, but I think I want mine slightly bigger. I’m ejoying this knit for the most part. There is something kind of zen about knitting lace, I’ve decided. This is all about process knitting. I am really enjoying the challenge.

So I bought some yarn. And a Rebecca Magazine. Hmmm..I wonder if I am thinking about knitting the Apricot Jacket…I don’t know. I’m thinking about it. I’m probably going to use some of the cotton ease I bought a few weeks ago if I do knit it. I also bought some sock yarn. The pink and blue is Lorna’s Laces shepard sock, as is the two blue hanks right next to it. The pink and blue will be for the cute little baby socks in Summer’s Interweave Knits. I also want to knit socks (thanks to Lolly and pixiestikz heather ) The two hanks at the bottom I got at Commuknity. The brand is “Claudia Hand Painted Yarn.” I had never seen this yarn before. Let me tell you, it is gorgeous. It is very similar to Koigu, in that it has that pearly, twisty, look. But the colors are better, I think. I bought this blue colorway that has shades of khaki and green in it. Simply beautiful. There were some luscious orange colorways, too. I should have gotten one of those, but I didn’t and am regretting it. I am going back next week so will pick some up then. I love it!

Regarding Audrey…I have prett much decided to knit this sweater at some point. Probably soon, like in the fall. So she has been on my mind a little bit. I happen to read the article on gauge in the (I think) Summer issue of IK. As I read it, I realized that I was doing something all wrong with Audrey. As I mentioned before, I was a having some issues making gauge on Audrey. My swatch had more stitches per inch than the required number. For some reason in my head, I thought that this meant that I needed to go down in size to reach the right gauge. That’s what i did and couldn’t figure out why I was not making gauge. The article stated that if you get too many stitches you need to go up in needle size. Duh! (I’m sure I’d read that somewhere before but for some reason I can’t wrap my mind around this concept. Even as I write this I can’t grasp the logic of it. It’s like I have a mental block or something). So I realized that I had knitted the back of Audrey, and I knitted it using a needle size that was two sizes smaller than what was called for. Why I started knitting this without getting the correct gauge, I don’t know. I probably just said, “the hell with it” and decided to start knitting. Sure enough, I measured it and looked at the diagram, and realized that my piece ended up waaaay too small. So I frogged it. I will be reswatching when I go to re-knit it in the fall.

Have a great weekend, everyone

Entry Filed under: Yarn Stash, Audrey, FBS