Monday, October 13, 2008

It came, it came!!!

This morning, I was dreaming about a yarn blend of cashmere and angora.  Wouldn’t that be something to work with?  And to wear?  Ahhhh.....

When my Knitpicks order didn’t arrive on Friday, I - shamefully, I admit - pouted like a three year old denied a lollipop just before dinner time.  I know better than to be planning something that depends on the arrival of materials.  In the past, orders have been placed to try yarns out, or needles, or even with a project in mind - but a project that was still out there a ways.  This time it was something I wanted to start right away and I can’t say my attitude about waiting for delivery was especially adult :)

However, when I got home Saturday afternoon, there was the box, sitting on the back porch, waiting for me!  Yay, yippee and hoo-rah!  I practically danced up the stairs :) Contained within were the following items:

There are 4 skeins of this - Gloss lace weight in the color Port.  I wanted to see what it was like and figured as long as I was ordering it, I might as well order enough to actually do something with.  It comes to something over 1700 yards, so there’s plenty of yarn.  I’ll have my usual arguments with lace weight, but it does have a slighter thicker feel than, say the baby alpaca, so I’m hopeful.  The hand is luscious and the color is rich - it practically gleams in the sunlight.  I won’t be using this right away, but I am looking forward to trying it out.  I am not looking forward to winding 440 yard balls, but hey - that goes with the territory :)





There are also 4 balls of the Merino Style in Cornflower as requested by Myria for a Here, Kitty, Kitty...scarf.  I love this color myself and since the scarf is a simple and fairly quick knit, this should be done before too long - certainly before the seriously cold weather gets here!

I had also ordered some of the wooden Harmony interchangeable needles to try.  I’d had serious concerns about the colors on the needles impairing my ability to see the stitches clearly but these needles are so clearly beloved by so many lace knitters that I felt I had to give them a shot.

The verdict?  They are all the good things other knitters have said about them and knitting with them sails along nicely with less danger of stitches slipping off - as with a shiny, metal needle.  The sharpish points are wonderful!  On the whole, they were quite a bit better than I expected.  Two things though - on one of the size 6 needles, the tightening hole has a little lip where it was not quite properly machined.  The lip catches the yarn.  Not good.  I can take care of this myself so it’s not a serious issue except that I don’t expect to have to “fix” things that are brand new.  The other thing?  The colors of the needles are indeed a problem.  I can see that they won’t be with lighter or brighter colors of yarn, but for what I’m using, it doesn’t work very well.

As this picture was taken in bright, direct sunlight, you can see the stitches clearly on the wooden needle (the one on the left).  I don’t generally get to work in bright sunlight though and under standard room lighting, things are a lot less clear because the yarn is in the same tonal family as the needles.  Here, I am knitting the project onto metal needles (the one on the right) so that I can see clearly what I’m doing - always an advantage with lace :)

I will save the wooden needles for a project with lighter colored yarn.  The lace weight mohair blend I got a few weeks ago is a light grey/beige and should work beautifully.  I probably won’t buy more of these however because I don’t want to have to worry about the color of my needles when considering the color of the yarn.  It seems basic to me that needles should work with any yarn - not just a certain range of shades.

Finally there was this - Palette fingering weight in the Wood color.  This color had been discounted making the yarn an exceptional buy and I got 10 balls of it - somewhere around 2300 yards.  I’m not fond of browns and had ordered this with the intention of overdying it with a deep, burgundy red.  Only when I opened the package, the color was so warm and almost coppery, that I had second thoughts about the dyeing.  It’s still a possibility, I suppose, but as I get further and further along on this…





...the less likely it becomes.  I tell you, I think I had this cast on less than a half-hour after I opened the box and I’ve been working on it ever since.  This is the circular, music/composer based shawl that finally crystallized in my brain a few weeks ago and for which I had been most anxiously awaiting the yarn.





I’m ready to do the next set of increases which will jump the stitch count to 288 around and to begin the next stitch pattern.  I’ve never worked a circular shawl before and it’s interesting to think about.  It’s starts easily and simply with a few stitches in the middle and grows from there.  But every bite is bigger (by a long shot!) than the one before it and I find myself taking a deep breath before starting those increase rounds.  I’m not generally a big stitch marker user either, but I have to say they’ve been a lifesaver here, not to mention making keeping track of all those stitches much less of a headache!

Oh, and as EZ observes in The Knitter’s Almanac, the whole thing draws up nicely and neatly into its own pouch with the yarn ball inside when you’re not working on it.  A very tidy project indeed!

So far, so good!  Onwards :)

Addendum - 10/15: I was incorrect about the lip on the tightening holes being on the needle.  They are, of course, on the ends of the attachable cable of which I had ordered a pair.  My apologies for such a silly error :)

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1. How exciting. It always feels like xmas when I get a box of yarn delivered. The warmth of that Port yarn is wonderful.

   Posted by Wilde Thyme Knits  on  10/14  at  09:59 AM
   Location : Seattle



2. Wild Thyme - Yes, it does feel like Christmas!  The color of that Gloss yarn is utterly splendid.  I’m dying to figure out what to turn it into :)

   Posted by Robbyn  on  10/14  at  11:21 AM
   Location : Dyeing in the kitchen with Dinah...



3. I wanted to comment on previous posts but your blog told me that commenting wasn’t available! Even when others had clearly done so :-(

   So, first - I wanted to wish you all the best for the chemo - which has begun now but my wishes remain the same!

   I wanted to share that I too am reknown for singing snippets of songs apropos to the conversation or circumstances around me!

   Knitpicks Harmony needles are much beloved by DD - I still knit everything on metal needles [usually Knitpicks Options]. But since I foresee lace in my future, I may have to ‘share’ the Harmonys!!

   All your recent yarn accumulation looks great. I love the colours in the four balls you bought even though you don’t know what they’ll become.

   And finally, are you going to put the red Manos on either end of the shawl to balance the red in the centre?

   Posted by Lynne  on  10/20  at  05:09 AM
   Location : Sydney, Australia



4. Hi Lynne :)

   So sorry you’ve had trouble commenting - my server is very strange at times :(

   I love the song thing!  I always thought I was just weird until I heard my uncle doing it too - and then I just thought it was a family tendency; on that side of the family, we all tend to be musical one way or another:) Now I’m seeing that lots of folks do this - isn’t it fun?

   I do still do (and prefer to do) most of my knitting on metal needles - Options, usually.  But I have to give credit where it’s due, the Harony woods are pretty darned nice.  And the more I use them, the more in love I fall with those marvelous points!

   I am looking forward to trying the Gloss lace weight - partly because the color is so scrumptious but right now, I’m knee-deep in the circular shawl :) So I think about stitch patterns and shawl styles (triangular, square, circular, etc...) and just let my mind drift over the possibilities.  It will come up with something intersting in due course :)

   About the red Manos, I’m not sure yet - but that’s certainly an excellent thought.  The end bands couldn’t be as wide as the center section - I don’t have enough yarn left! - but there’s certainly enough for one or two tiers.

   Finally, thank you for your good wishes regarding the chemo - I very much appreciate them!

   

   Posted by Robbyn  on  10/20  at  05:53 AM
   Location : Dyeing in the kitchen with Dinah...

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