Kitties Love Yarn

Sometimes it just hits, and you find yourself making a project you never thought you'd want, out of a yarn you had no idea how to use.

Background point 1: "Smoke School" is coming up in about two weeks - which will involve me going out into the field for, at a minimum, two mornings to sit in the (usually) cold and dreary weather and estimate the opacity of a plume of smoke coming out of a stack, for a grade. (This happens twice a year, in April and October; any attempt to get good odds of better weather for one session would result in worse weather for the other, so we live with it.) Since this involves filling out a test form, I need enough dexterity in my right hand to manage a pen, which means no mitten or glove on that hand, which sucks.

Background point 2: During the Dizzy Sheep Memorial Day Spin-Off, I got some grab bags, one of which contained precisely one skein of Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed Ravelry link - why is Jo Sharp not in Yarndex?) in a lovely green color. It's a soft, soft yarn, a blend of wool, silk, and cashmere, and I was itching to do something next-to-skin with it - but there's not much to do with one skein of DK weight yarn; most of the patterns that came up were hats.

Background point 3: My niece HB has taken to wearing a pair of commercially-made elbow-length fingerless mitts, as a fashion accessory. I had never considered fingerless mitts a particularly useful thing, and never understood why Fetching was the most-knit pattern on Ravelry - but watching HB put them on, something struck me, and I suggested to her: "You might want a pair of those in your school colors to wear when your school's band marches in parades. They'll keep your hands warm, but leave your fingers free."

So. Over the weekend I was moaning to myself about how the crappy Smoke School weather was coming (and, seriously, it's almost like a curse - last spring it was beautiful the day before, beautiful the day after, and miserable the two days we were in the field), and how even if I stuck my hand in my pocket whenever I could my hand never really got warm...and it suddenly hit me that, just as fingerless mitts are a useful thing for a saxophone player, they are also useful for someone who needs to write outdoors on a blustery day.

To Ravelry I went, looking through the Mittens/Gloves section, applying my usual filters: first "Free", and then "In my library". And even before I filtered for the kinds of yarn I might want to use, it was staring me in the face: a lovely pair of cabled and ribbed fingerless mitts (Ravelry link) that called for one 50-gram ball of DK-weight luxury yarn...which I'd had marinating in the stash because I didn't want to make a hat out of it.

And now it's a race: can I get them done in two weeks? I think I can. Hubby's scarf will have to wait a little longer.

Monday as I was getting ready for Knit Night, I realized a few things.

1) Although the baggie of hankies was handy and already in my tote bag, I did not want to spin, and I was no longer under a deadline to do so.
2) I did not want to work on either my hat or Hubby's scarf, the two projects I set aside to go on a sock frenzy in April.
3) I am kind of socked out at the moment.
4) I was hot and sweaty and did not want to handle wool, or anything remotely like it.

What I was actually feeling the impulse to do was cross-stitch - but that would have been weird at Knit Night. (Although when I mentioned that, someone said "Ehh, it's all fiber.")

So, I wound up my Hunter Safety Orange silk laceweight, and cast on for Abby, a lovely cowl. I don't think I have the yardage to make mine as tall as the pictures at the link, but it will be a nice neckwarmer. Also, my yarn is made from the same fiber, dyed by the same dyer, as the yarn in the photos at the link, but it didn't come out nearly as well. Abby Franquemont is a way better spinner than I ever hope to be.)





Yes, that last picture is awfully flashalicious. Silk is, umm, shiny. And knitting it feels sooooooooo good. I'm going slowly, semi-intentionally - at least for the first few rows, it was hard for me to "read" the knitting. But it's on a 16" circ, so it's a good car project, and I've got a road trip coming up.

Last time I went to Knit Night I decided to stop knitting with the frustrating needle out of my interchangeable set - the transition from the cable to the needle is very abrupt, so you had to wiggle the stitches over a lump. Knit A Round sold me a Hiya Hiya needle, which is working out nicely - it's not as flexible as the Susan Bates cable, but it doesn't need to be. On the other hand I got a 20" and probably should have gone with 24"... I looked at some other Boye circs over the weekend, and even their fixed circular needles have the lump at the transition point - it's not a big deal on a larger needle, but I don't know if I'd buy one smaller than about size 5.

I've got both socks on the two needles right now. First time I've done two socks on two circs, and I've found myself wondering whether any advantage in doing them both at the same time is outweighed by yarn management problems; I lose a little time in untangling the yarn on every round. They're still basically twins, but I wonder if I made them too loose; when I tried one on the other night the heel felt a little baggy. Guess we'll see when they're done.

Queen of Cups, by Nathania Apple
Yarn: Steinbach Wolle Strappaz
Needles: #2 DPN
Learned: The layperson can't tell the difference between a stockinette heel and a "heel stitch" heel at first glance.
Also learned: I need to make my heel flaps a little taller than I think I do.

( See the Dumbledore socks inside. )

I'm willing to at least give the ol' college try to pretty much any technique, but I usually draw the line at scissors. Which is why I'm nervous about the thought that keeps flickering through my brain...

"You know, Cathy, that extra stripe you wanted to put in the fish hat? Instead of frogging that far, you could put lifelines in two rows, cut the yarn between them, and ravel that bit out, then just graft the whole thing back together..."

Am I on drugs? Or could that actually work?