WIP Report

The Moderne Baby Blanket is starting to look sort of blanketish, and as far as I can see I have put the blocks in all the right places. So far, anyway.



The yarn is the same old Red Heart Super Saver (I know; my apologies to anyone I may have offended) that I bought at the Coats & Clark outlet store in August. Looks like it will be around for a while.

And for times when I have good light and a few functioning brain cells, we have the Lotus sock by Robin Gallimore, current Sock of the Month club selection.



This yarn is so fantabulous I cannot gush about it enough. It is Meilenweit Seta/Cashmere (65% wool, 15% silk, 16% polyamid and 4% cashmere) and it is exceedingly yummy to work with. No idea how it will wear or wash, but it sure makes for some mighty fine knitting.

Oh jeez, is it Friday yet?

I had just started to announce that the Moderne Baby Blanket was ticking along nicely, as projects tend to do in the early stages, but two-thirds of the way through block #4 I have realized that I have managed to knit it on the wrong end. I proclaim this my Random Act of Stupidity for week ending 11/17/2007. The garter stitch curse continues.

I think I need to cast on a simple sock today because this blankie is getting too unwieldy to knit in the car while waiting for kids to get out of school. Couldn't they have found another place to put that darned steering wheel?

I would like at this juncture to announce the end of my brief career as a podcast reviewer. A while ago I dismissed Stitch Stud and His Bride as being a little too rambly for my taste (it reminded me of some university lectures I had dozed through many years ago) and this morning was horrified to see that the Stud himself had read it. Now I'm feeling like a big bad meanypants and am tempted to retract everything and send Charles some flowers.

The conclusion that I have reached is that my taste in podcasts tends to run toward the more scripted, structured shows like Knitpicks, Cast On and Yarncraft. I am not as fond of the more chatty formats like Stitch Stud and Lime & Violet, though I must say I lightened up on L&V after listening to a second episode. Of course there will be scads of knitters who feel differently, so my opinion ain't worth squat if yours differs.

Back to blanket frogging. Big sigh.

needles, needles

I have spent a few days with my Knitpicks Options needle set and have come to a conclusion. Though I am very happy with the product, my purchasing technique has to go down in the record books as yet another Random Act of Stupidity. I really should go back through the blog and create a tag for those buggers.

I bought the starter kit plus one 32" 2.00mm circ (imperial/metric hybrid confusion rears its ugly head once again) for magic loop socks. Now that I have the set in my hot little hands I recall online discussions that I should have remembered earlier. The set comes with a lovely little binder case with plastic sleeves. There is a full set of tips, plus two cables in each of the 24" and 32" lengths. Now, I knit a lot of blankets for charity. Given my budget constraints, I realize that I would have been well-advised to skip the starter set with its storage case, as others have done, and instead ordered some extra long cables along with the basic needles. As I have just started the Moderne Baby Blanket from Mason-Dixon Knitting and am anticipating the need for a long cable in the very near future, I have just placed an order for the longer cables and a couple of other odds and ends.

I already own the Denise and Boye Needlemaster sets, both of which come with cable connectors that allow you to customize lengths. I suppose this wouldn't have been possible with the Knitpicks cables because they are so wonderfully thin.

On the positive side, the tips are light and pointy, the cables are thin and flexible, the joins are ultrasmooth, just as a thousand other knitters have said. I am a tad peeved that as far as I have been able to tell there is no way to identify needle sizes without hauling out your needle sizer thingie every time. I see myself accidentally knitting a few items with different sized tips. Fortunately, the cute little binder has pockets to hold the sizer thingie and with some luck I'll remember to keep it there.

twiddling thumbs

Here I sit waiting for my Knitpicks Options needles to arrive. I don't want to start a new project now because I will want to try out the new needles as soon as they arrive, so casting on with other needles now is just asking for a quick slide into WIP hell.

(pause here for a spot of twiddling)

So I've been chipping away at some stuff already on the needles. I finished a plain preemie hat yesterday and will finish an adult hat today, both for charity. I am now halfway through the lace scarf and am having an awful time with my raggedy cuticles snagging on the yarn (Rovings Polwarth/silk fingering). I have two lace shawls hibernating, as Ravelry charmingly puts it, and will move on to them should I finish everything else before the Options get here.

(twiddle)

They were shipped a week ago today so they'll likely be here soon.