Blatherskite

It’s the beginning of October (and we’re already almost a week in at that!). For me that means it’s time forSocktoberfest! I wasn’t really feeling like participating this year. I looked at several sock patterns and just wasn’t feelin’ it. Then I read about a “Mystery Sock Pattern” (brought to us by “Through the Loops“) on Lolly’s blog and I was intrigued! So I decided to jump in. Each Wednesday we are presented with clues. This week it was the cuff. It took me a few hours to knit the one you see in that picture up there. I was kind of debating whether I should just wait until I’ve knitted the first sock (after all of the clues were revealed) or just cast on for the second cuff. I went ahead and knitted the second cuff on dpns. THEN I started to think in really insane terms. What if I tried knitting them both at the same time on two circulars? I have tried this once before but have never tried it again, probably because I didn’t like it. Well, I decided to give it another go.

In other knitting news:

I am on the first sleeve of Jess! I’m looking forward to finishing this sweater. I seem to be on a knitting roll with it the past few days.

The Cardi Cozy is resting for a bit. I’ve been reading through “Knitting from top” for some ideas on what kind of double increases to do.

Happy Monday!

I received my held copy of Mason Dixon Knitting: Outside the lines from the library. Can I say? I love it. I think I need to buy it because I want to make lots of patterns from the book. I was immediately intrigued by a pattern they call the Cardi Cozy. It is a cardigan that is meant to be worn over a fine-gauge cardigan, the kind you actually buy (because the gauge is too fine to knit). The thing that really got me with this pattern is that it is knitted with a mere two balls of Kidsilk haze. TWO balls. How awesome is that? The result is a really pretty lacy little cardi that is worn tied in front. Cute!

Since I checked it out from the library and only had the book for 3 weeks I immediately cast on with some leftover Kidsilk Haze in my stash. I couldn’t figure it out at first because you only cast on something like 45 stitches. Then I realized at one point that it is knitted from the top down. Cool.

That was the first non-obvious thing about this pattern. The second is the raglan “seam.” It is made by making increases in a funky way that involves knitting twice in a stitch, in between which you yarn over. This is supposed to make it easy to see where you do your increases. I didn’t find this to be as easy as claimed. I actually had a hard time with this at first and ended up with way too many arm stitches. I got to the first sleeve and was a quarter of the way through it before I decided to count them (my bad. I should have done that earlier). I had an inordinate amount of stitches. I decided to just start over. The second time around has been a bit easier. I have been able to determine where I do my increases better, which is good.

However.

I was in my knitting program today and had the book with me. One of the ladies was looking at the book and made some comments about how she didn’t like the cable that ran up the back. (that’s another thing. It has a cable that runs up the back, arms and fronts). She kind of went on and on about it and it sort of bugged me. But I kind of realized, as she was talking, that I didn’t like the cable either. I really don’t like the way it looks at all. And, for that matter, I don’t think I like the way the raglan “seams” look either.

So I’m sort of thinking I’ll set it down for awhile and maybe rework it without the cables and with a different method of increasing at the raglan seam. I love the idea of it. I love the way it ties in front. I love the kidsilk haze (TWO BALLS). But I might as well make it the way I like it if I’m gonna make it.