Cuckoo Bananas for Yarn

I finished the Ombre Cowl last week with mixed feelings. Overall, I like it, but there is an odd color transition from the very dark to very light that I’m not super crazy about. Once it’s all squished down on my neck, I think that the transition will barely be noticeable. I purchased three more skeins of the Rowan Kidsilk to attempt another cowl in a slightly different colorway, and that's in the queue for a little later this winter. Word to the wise about Rowan Kidsilk ... it's very fuzzy and sometimes those fuzzy bits work their way onto your clothes, into your mouth and (if you wear mascara) onto your eyelashes. May the force be with you if you get it onto your mascara covered eyelashes. Yeesh.



I have to say, I went a little cuckoo bananas at Stitches Midwest this year. Between that and the Chicago Yarn Crawl, I filled one 71-quart storage bin full of new yarn. I didn’t make random yarn purchases this year though. Instead, I printed out my list of Fall and Winter projects with the amounts and types of yarn I would need. Still, that list had 11 projects and as you can see, that’s a lot of yarn.

Learning Stuff is Good, Remembering Stuff is Even Better

4 Styles in One Swatch

I took three fantastic classes at Stitches—Sneaky Short Row Shaping, Suitable Seams and a class on knitting in both directions. The short-row shaping class was lead by Gwen Bortner (knitwear designer and author of Entrée to Entrelac), and she is just full of energy and great ideas. Over the course of three hours she took us through four different methods of creating short rows (simple short row, wrap & turn, yarn over short row and the Japanese short row). It was so interesting to see how one method differs from another, particularly when it comes to trying to hide the wrap. I personally liked the look of the yarn over short row best, though the Japanese short row comes in a close second.

The Suitable Seams class was also incredibly helpful. We were a small bunch of about 10, which was perfect because we were all able to gather around Judy Pascale as she demonstrated the different seam techniques. After each demonstration, we headed back to our seats to try it out for ourselves while she walked around answering questions and checking on our progress. More than just seaming though she taught us two cast on methods to avoid having a slip knot at the start of the work and a very cool, decorative bind off method in garter. Having someone demonstrate seaming techniques in person is so much more valuable than trying to learn it yourself from a book or even a video (though videos sure are helpful). If you have the opportunity to take the seaming class at Stitches or even your LYS, do it. You and your soon-to-be-seamed pieces will be glad you did.

My final class was a quick one hour marketplace session taught by Kellie Nuss on how to knit in both directions. This is particularly handy for those who don’t like to purl. It takes a few tries to get it right, but once you get your fingers to do what you want them to do, it’s a breeze. I don’t think I’ll substitute it for purling any time soon, but I will definitely give it a try on my next short row project.

Now if only my brain could hold onto all of this good information. Glad I took notes!

Garter ... When Will It End?

After finishing the Ombre Cowl last week, I decided to start the CEY Zest ruffle scarf from the Panache booklet. First, you knit the scarf on a diagonal in garter stitch, which means that on every other row you’re increasing a stitch on one end and decreasing a stitch on the other—it’s not completely mindless knitting unfortunately. After the scarf is complete, you go back and pick up stitches on those diagonal rows and create the ruffles. I’m still knitting the main scarf piece. 64” is just a lot to knit and I get bored with it. I’m at about 57” right now. My “you’re almost there” pep talks are getting less and less effective, but I will keep moving forward.