Needles & Hooks

I came down with some sort of ear/throat cold this weekend and spent a good chunk of time on the couch trying to recover. Here’s some of what I did…

My 6-inch Weavette arrived on Saturday morning. The Spinning Wheel Yarn Shop was super speedy and included a very cute sheepy thank you card. Not to mention, they also had free shipping. If you want a Weavette, order from them.

Anyway, I first made a square with it:

And I learned that winding tension is extremely important. Emy had said in comments that it looked like making the squares was pretty time-consuming. It wasn’t with the small squares (except for the ones where I was experimenting with fancy things). This one was, because the tension of the cross strands made it very difficult to push the needle through. And the resulting square is very stiff. I’ll be trying again much more loosely.

Next, I started a mystery project. Here’s the first part, can you guess what it is? (If you’ve been in my office and have inside knowledge, you aren’t allowed to guess):

I also made some good progress on Mermaid. I’ve made it past the halfway point on the body. I also charted out the sleeves. So if you’ve been using the spreadsheet from me and didn’t get an update dated 2/26, send me an e-mail.

Finally, I finished the prototype for my new Whirligig Hat:

It’s blocking right now. I wrote up the pattern and will be test knitting it shortly before I unleash it on all of you.

I’m no stranger to dropped stitches, having completed 3 Clapotis and designing a matching hat. Further, I’d been thinking about other uses for dropped sittches and have a few ideas in mind to play with (that I might show you someday). So when I saw the list of classes at Stitches West, it was the Deliberate Drops class by Chris Byslma that caused me to book a flight.

We had a few homework swatches to prepare. The first was a simple stockinette swatch. It was to get us used to the idea of dropping. Because this is just a square Clapotis, I was flying right along. But hey, what’s that on the side? Fringe made from dropped stitches!

The second swatch was an exercise in seeing how dropped stitches can offset cables. The class sample that was posted when I signed up featured this and was what really encouraged me to join. The cables you see are just random ones I grabbed out of Vogue Knitting. But I like the way they get offset by the drops. With a little planning, you can do something quite stellar.

This third swatch we made in class. It uses limited-run drops. I like it very, very much. And I’ve already sketched out a few thigns to do with it.

Finally, we made a funny horizontal ribbed swatch that combined a few different techniques. And when we were done, we sewed it all together and made a cute little hat! Mine will only fit a small baby doll.

I found this class to be well worth it. It validated a few ideas I was already thinking about. And it gave me a few new ones. I’ve already got a larger project in mind for the Blue Moon Breast Cancer Challenge. But you probably won’t see that one for a while.

You can see more of Chris’ work on her website She was wearing a bright pink Chutes and Ladders cardigan in class that was stunning. My understanding is that she doesn’t sell patterns directly from her website, but there is a list of online vendors you can order from.