WIP: What I've started

[sev]

The pink yarn, doubled, in a "YO, k2tog" openwork pattern, on size 9s.

Again doubled, in a mitered square garter stitch, on size 7s.

Not shown, as I've just started it, is a drop-stitch, not-doubled, on size 2s. I haven't yet tried snippy's suggestion of holding it together with ribbon and/or black wool, as I don't have any ribbon on-hand and the black wool is still in my "I already have a plan for this" bag in hopes I'll make socks out of it. Which makes me fear I'll like the size-2 solution best. I say 'fear' because...

I've finally started to *enjoy* working on big needles. So aside from obsessive swatching of different treatments of the pink yarn (and perhaps starting my second pair of socks ever), I have at least two projects that have me eyeing my size-thirteens.


I blame The Yarn Stash Workbook, which is all about mixing together different yarns. In my swatch, pictured, I've used a collection of my leftovers and impulse buys:

1. Lion Brand Homespun, color Regency. A painterly blues-mix, from denim blue to turquoise to grey. very soft, textured, bulky. (hand-me-down leftover from perkyevil)
   
2. Sirdar Country Style DK color Magenta. As previously discussed, purple flecked generously with bright pink and hints of grey. (leftover from the baby sweater I just finished.)
   
3. S. Charles Ritratto in Dark Purple. Fuzzy mohair, metallic silver-and-black, and twilight-multicolored shiny (probably the viscose rayon) blue-purple-pink-peach. Purchased two balls a few weeks ago because Hilltop Yarn was having a 50%-off novelty-yarn sale. This stuff is really breathtaking! But thin, very thin. (impulse buy.)
   
4. Cascade 128 chunky, in a rich grapey-purple. (one skein impulse buy. Why do I have all these single-skeins of cascade 128?)
   
5. Cascade Indulgence, in a smoky purple (#521), frogged from a proof-of-concept I did when I was very first starting to learn to knit. (it was, if you're curious, a one-ninth-size version of the baby blanket from the stitch-and-bitch book. I wanted to make sure I understood the pattern.) I didn't wash it, so it's still wrinkly. Don't think I care, at the moment. (I think that counts as a leftover impulse buy...)
   

Given how much I have of each, this swatch was done in the pattern: [one row A, one row B+C held together, one row D] x2, [one row A, one row B+C held together, one row E] x2. In garter stitch, on size 13 needles. So, kind of like three colors in one-row stripes, except that I only have half as much of D and E, so they have to trade off. I really like the effect of the dark purple stripes, and of the shiny metallic that peeks through regularly. Doesn't do the mohair content justice, but that's what I get for buying so much damn thin yarn. (Actually, the project which showcased the Ritratto best was the grey wool kippah I crocheted for Z.)

For the first time in my life I have some vague understanding of how to turn my work such that I don't tangle the heck out of the incoming yarn. (yay!) I think I'll make me the "Showcase Ruana" from the Yarn Stash Workbook. It's more like a vest than a serape -- see the "Ribbons Ruana" from one of the author's earlier publications, though I'll be skipping the fringe (and likely also skipping the feather boa, which is omitted from the newer book); I'll decide how to edge it when I see what, if anything, I have left. There's nothing difficult at all about it, beyond keeping my five yarns from tangling -- it's all garter stitch, and there's no real shaping. It's a big rectangle with a slit in it, that has a bit of seaming at the finish. I'm hoping it'll get me past my "garter stitch is ugly" and "big needles are boring" problems, since neither of those things is actually true! But I still have this itch that insists that using big needles to make open fabric (instead of using a purposeful lace stitch pattern) is cheating, or something. But before I can start it, I need to get size 13 and 15 circulars, because this thing is worked in all one piece, and I don't think I can work a hundred-ish stitches of bulky-weight yarn on my twelve-inch-long bamboo needles.

And the other project that has me eyeing my bigger needles: I have been collecting odds and ends of bulky-weight wools for a bit -- Lamb's Pride leftovers from perkyevil (in purple and fuchsia), and several impulse-buys of Cascade 128 (in particular, there's a turquoise I'm eyeing, leftover from the gnome hat back in February; I don't think the tweedy green will coordinate as nicely with the others) and I've been threatening for some time to make something felted. Many -- maybe all, come to think of it -- of my local knitting friends have top-loading washing-machines and they're all quite adventurous, so I can stop putting that off due to my front-loader (which the internet has varied opinions on, with regards to utility in felting projects).

I have little enough yarn that it will be a small project, so I can do it on the needles I already own. Maybe a bag. (Not that I need any more little bags, but, that's not the point.) Which means I could start it today! After lunch. All this typing has made me hungry...