Option one
So, I hear from a lot of you that you're scared of blocking or that it's hard or that you just don't want to do it. And I sympathize...but I sort of need you to get over it. If you have the skill to knit the thing, you have the skill to block it. And your knitting will look so much better if you do. I promise. Remember, at its heart, blocking is just 'get the thing wet...let it dry in the shape you like.' That's it. That's the minimum necessary requirement. You can get all fancy and use pins [...]
Toldya they were quick…
First one's done (yay)! And the second one's on the needles. Now, please note that 'done' in this case means 'done being knit' not 'done being worked on.' It's still going to need some attention when I block it. Because wow will it look different after it's blocked. Promise. And yes, you can assume there's a 'block your knits' lecture coming up shortly (complete with props). [pextestim pex_attr_set="looking-for-this-pattern" pex_attr_autoplay="false"][/pextestim]
A little distraction
A pipe in my basement is doing something gurgly and distasteful. Qualified adults have been summoned, and I'm sure they will handle the problem. But I need a little distraction. And as is the tradition around here, the distraction of choice is teeny tiny cuffs. The yarn is Yummy 3-ply from Miss Babs in the color quicksilver. I found myself in posession of a little 100 yard skein of it and thought I'd see what I could do with it. This is the part in the proceedings where I mention how lace Always Looks Crumpled on the needles. Don't worry, [...]
A sickness I tell you
So when last we left the hat it had gotten pleasantly tall. But it whispered to me that we weren't quite done...it needed one more little thing... Yes, it's true, I've fallen prey to the dread pompom sickness. From what I can tell there's no cure. Luckily, with the right treatment, it's a fairly manageable condition. And the symptoms aren't even that bad when the yarn is this pretty! For anyone wondering, the purple one is Entrapment, the pink one just came out this week and is called is Misprision, and the blue one should be out later this summer, [...]
Misprision (plus giveaway)
If you've been around for a while you know I'm scared of proper colorwork. The sort where you use two (or more, eep) colors in one row. But I don't want to be left out of all that multicolored fun, so I've started playing with ways to use two different yarns, but keep it to one yarn per row. Misprision is one of the results of my experiments (and through Friday, it's 10% off with the code POMPOM)! It's also more fun than it has any right to be. The background is just lovely, mellow stockinette (can't ask for anything [...]
Tall enough
So we've talked about this before, but it's helpful enough it bears repeating. If you're doing a hat with fast decreases (and a lot of mine use those), my favorite way to know if it's tall enough is to get all the stitches on two needles and try it on. Fast decreases distort the fabric (and that distortion uses up some of the fabric you've made), and arranging it like this does a good job of mimicking that distortion. If it's tall enough on two needles, it will be tall enough when you've done the decreases. Here I needed a [...]
Shhhh
Are you on instagram? I am, and rather to my surprise, I totally love it. I seem to have found the right group of folks to follow so that I see a never-ending stream of yarn and sheep and cocktails and knitting (and very very little drama and strife...making it a much more mellow place than many other social media outlets). I'm going to start doing little flash sales there every now and then (I'm doing the first one today). I'll put something fun on sale, for one day only, and I'll only mention it there. If you want to [...]
Prepping caked yarn
You know those beautiful cakes of yarn? The ones that flirt their way right into your cart with their glorious slow color changes? Yeah, I love them too. But, sometimes they require a tiny bit of extra work before you start knitting. And, since I'm spending some serious time with yarns like this for Curls 3, I thought I'd show you how to do it. So, when you pull out the center of a lot of cakes, you'll probably see something like this. See how the yarn is a bit kinked? It's sort of twisty and just doesn't lay straight. [...]
It grew
So there's this nifty thing where, if you keep working on something, it will usually grow. That does seem to be happening here. The hat is getting markedly taller. It still needs another inch or two (I have a few things in mind for the decreases here, but any of them will need the hat to be pretty tall first), but the end is in sight (this is the inside, because some folks have asked...though honestly that feels a tiiiiiiny bit like asking to peek in my medicine cabinet...). Then? Then I think maybe it will need a pom pom...
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