Juggling

I've been playing around with 2-color knitting, as you can see from the two Oblique Hats I recently made. I think I got the hang of weaving in the unused color on the backside so that you don't get long stretches of loose horizontal yarn bits dangling in the back just waiting for you to snag it on something. I suppose it's not such a problem with hats as it might be with sweaters. However I do have to admit that I like the "tidy" appearance of the way everything gets weaved in and it becomes a smoother surface. I think most people call it the "crazy stitch", but I love how Bets calls it the "Vogue" stitch. [V: I'll have to show you how to do this after we do cables with a cable needle, and cables without a cable needle]

My current project involves 3 colors, and boy does that one extra ball make me feel like a juggler! It's hard enough with trying not to get 2 balls of yarn tangled up, despite keeping one on my left and the other on my right. It's a whole new ballgame when you add ball #3.

I shouldn't even complain though cuz I'm only working with 2 of the 3 colors on each round. But you can already see the boo-boo I made when I dropped the Green to work in the Burgundy for 4 rounds. I meant to weave in the green going upwards but forgot to do that each time I started my next round. So now I'm left with one little vertical strand of Green yarn that spans 4 rounds. :-( So sloppy... (Ignore the Burgundy that is dangling below the Green, that's a loose end that will get weaved in later)

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Has anybody knitted with Berroco Air?

So I've decided to play around with my ball of Air which meant digging out my US11 (8 mm) straight needles. I haven't used these needles since Nov 2004. It took me a while to figure out where they were, of course they were buried at the bottom of one of those big plastic 12(?) gallon storage bins. They're 14 inches (35.5 cm) long. Omigosh, I couldn't believe how cumbersome it was to work with such large and long needles!!! I think I spent more energy trying to hold the needles up than in actual knitting. Plus I think I have been "handicapped" by knitting with circular needles. Yes, I use circular needles for all my knitting, both straight/flat stuff like scarves and round stuff like hats. Do you know what happens when you're handicapped? You end up dropping the left needle each time you finish a row!!! It's actually quite funny when I think about it now, but not so funny when I actually do it.

Anyhowz... I don't know what it is about Air, but I had to frog what I was working on several times already, and the yarn is just "sticky". It sticks together and gets tangled up. I can't just leave the loose (frogged) yarn lying next to me; I have to wind it back up into a ball, otherwise it gets tangled up.

Still playing around with it. I'm surprised at how light this yarn is, which I suppose is why it is called "Air". I'm thinking my US11 needles might be too small, and I should really try US13 (9 mm) which I have none. I do have one pair of never-used US15 (10 mm) circular needles which I had intended to use with Reynolds Blizzard, but never got around to it. I think Air should be warm with 78% wool in it.

Well here's what I've got so far, it's not much to look at right now. Haven't decided whether I like it. I really do NOT like using straight needles. And I find it harder to use large US11 needles. I think I've just gotten used to medium size needles. And I'm slightly annoyed that my regular sized row counters don't fit on the needle. I never bothered to get the larger sized row counters because I didn't think I'd ever use such large needles ever again.

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