slowknitter

Holidays. Travel. Gah.

Also, today was the first day where I could knit without having to turn on my air-conditioner. It was a downright freezing 75 degrees.

I should be packing right now, but I’m writing a post and thinking about taking a nap. It’s been a long day of running errands, getting things waxed, pedicuring, getting dry cleaning and picking up some more yarn (more on that later)

I’m almost done with the fingerless gloves that I started to Match the BF hat I made out of the hot foot. I’m going to knit some mitten tops to add, but I kinda need the boy around so I can measure his hands. He’s got some long fingers and I would really hate to screw these things up by making them too short.

These are my first pair of gloves (we really don’t need them here when it’s 90 fucking degrees outside in November but whatever) and I have to say that while they are a pretty fast knit I don’t like the holes that you get in between the fingers. It’s a lot of duplicate stitch or grafting after you’re finished and it kind of sucks. So does the weaving in of all the ends. Or so I am told:

Think I can just leave them like that?

I realized that I didn’t show you the finished hat. Here it is in all it’s unwashed unblocked glory. Who knew I was knitting a hat for a gnome?

Pattern? It’s the Code 88 hat from Amanda knits (free pattern about halfway down the page). The decreases were supposed to look like a cross, but I was knittarded and managed to make a star/cross decrease pattern. I blame it on my decision to knit with my usual combined knitting rather than continental style.

Here it is washed and blocked:

One good thing about being a professional wig monkey? Canvas wig blocks make awesome hat blocks. Wrap that thing in plastic and you are no longer knitting for gnomes.

Here’s a detail of the top:

See? Star-ish. And? Not as even stitch definition as I usually get. Sloppy even. Also I should have knit this on 5’s rather than 6’s. This is not really a warm hat. No matter. I’ll go and get a fleece hat and sew it inside.

I used the Kookaburra wool wash again. Mmmm, tea tree-y. But I got smart this time…

I like it when the skin stays on my fingers.

Christmas knitting has begun here at Chez Slowknitter. I got a bunch more HotFoot. I was smart this time, and I had them wind it up for me.

I already wound off two 200yd balls for some mens socks with a 120yd ball left over.

I also bought some cashmere for some slipper socks for my Pop:

It’s this:

Mmmmm. Mongolian. 4ply 200 yards. Seems a little light though.

I started knitting this up and thought ” there’s NO WAY this is 200 yards!” So I frogged it. Well, I frogged it because I didn’t like the way the toe was knitting up (too round) and I think I had too many stitches. But then I did a little side by side comparison:

They’re pretty close. The cashmere is a little thicker.

Um. If the cashmere’s a little thicker then how come this “200 yard ball” is smaller than the 200 yards of HotFoot?

I decided to actually measure it on the yarn meter:

What. The. Fuck.

My yarn meter measures in meters. 114.3 meters = 125 YARDS. I measured the other ball. It was 111.8 meters which equals 120 YARDS. The sock pattern calls for 365 yards of worsted weight.

I am 2/3 of a sock short.

I took the yarn back to my LYS. We weighed it. 55 grams on the nose. But my LYS owner never ordered 4-ply. Nope. Only 6-ply. So the label was totally wrong.

However the 6-ply says that there is 150 yards to 55 grams. So even if i bought 2 of the 6-ply at 300 yards Jade Sapphire is still shorting the measurement by 55 yards!

Spending over $100 bucks for a pair of socks (even if they’re for my dad) is expensive enough when you’re getting shorted yarn, but what if I was doing a mens sweater that called for 1500 yards?

Anyway, my LYS gave me a discount on the third ball.

He’d better like these.

Okay kids, I am off to the airport now. Have a good Thanksgiving!

Trackback URI | Comments RSS