Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Done and Done!


Yeay! I finally finished the Jaywalkers!

This was my first attempt at doing toe-up socks. The Claudia's Handpainted yarn I used was 172 yds per skein, so I wanted to make sure I had enough yarn. They have upped the yardage to 185, so I think I will knit with less trepidation next time. Although both skeins I used were from the same dye lot, there were some differences in color; one had more saturated colors and longer color lengths (on the left), and the other had lighter colors and shorter color lengths (on the right). The longer lengths of color made for more consistent stripe patterning, and the shorter color lengths caused some migrating spots of striped pooling. I actually think the results were fun. The Jaywalker pattern did a good job of breaking up the stripes. Had I used this yarn in a stockinette stitch pattern, I probably would have pulled my hair out in frustration trying unsuccessfully to make the stripes match (I am a tad obsessive, perhaps...) I have used Claudia's Hainpainted yarn before, and it was the same deal with the color discrepancies. However, I so love how the yarn feels, smells and knits up, I will definitely use it again.

I tried using the free Jaywalker toe-up pattern, but had some difficulty with the toe and heel sections, so I just replaced those with ones found in Queen Kahuna's sock book. Her instructions go pretty in-depth, so it was easy for me to figure out how to modify things the way I wanted.

In the next couple of days, I'm going to unwind my STR Fairgrounds using my swift and my trusty Nostepinde. Hopefully I'll ge able to get some good pics of this to post.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Just Gettin' Started

So...this is my very first blog entry! Please be patient with me as I navigate through this new experience...




I am one of the newer members of the STR Club! I'm really excited about knitting with this gorgeous yarn, but I'll probably use a different pattern that what it came with...it's not really my kind of sock.








Currently OTN I have Grumperina's Jaywalkers. I'm doing the toe-up magic loop method, and I'm using Claudia's Handpainted Yarns in Terracotta. Needles are Addi Turbos size 1.