Baby Silk scarf & Ariel Hat

Ok, I think I've found the needle size to use with Baby Silk. Using US5 needles was definitely not going to work. I tried US6 needles (photo on the right, dark background) and that was a slight improvement. Then I started another one using US7 needles (photo on the left, light background) and I think this is the one to stick with. I definitely like the look unblocked and think it will only get better after blocking. Sorry, it's hard to tell from the photos, and the pic with US7 needles didn't come out very well.

I think I must have been smoking the carpet when I noted "US6" needles for my Branching Out scarf. I don't remember what size needle I used, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't US6 ... maybe it was US7 on US8.

I do like working with this Baby Silk yarn this second time around. I made 2/3 of the progress you see in that photo while sitting at Starbucks and sipping on my grande Chai Tea Latte. Does anybody else knit at Starbucks? I was the only one. Most of the other patrons had their heads buried in their laptops. The lady sitting next to me admired my knitting and wanted to feel the yarn. She remarked at the softness; I told her it was alpaca & silk.

Sarah gave me an idea with her "biopsy blanket". I think I'll dub this scarf my "biopsy scarf". I understand she meant something that was mindless knitting, however that type of knitting would leave me with too many active brain cells to worry about stuff. So this lace scarf is perfect as it requires me to concentrate on the pattern (cuz tinking lace is a qute a pita to do) and do less of any other kind of thinking/worrying.

This looks a lot like a headband, lol, but it is really the beginning of a hat to match my Ariel Scarf. I just knitted a strip of the cable pattern just long enough to fit around my head and then grafted it. Now I just need to work on the rest of the top. I did have some trouble with the provisional cast-on... not the starting part, but rather the unzipping part. I know I started with the correct number of stitches, but for whatever reason I ended up one stitch short after I did the unzipping. Don't know what happened there.

Tracy suggested hanging my Georgiana Scarf on a hanger to block it, I had never thought of doing that. I wall have to remember that trick! I really liked Lisa W's idea of getting some sort of board that I could lean up against a wall while it dries. This would be great in the long run, especially since it looks like we will move into a smaller house. I have to think about how to implement this though. I'm not really a hands on kind of gal to figure out how to staple quilt batting & sheet to plywood. The sticky cork boards alternative sounds more like something I could pull off.

DH had the week off so I did a lot (relatively speaking) of knitting and blogging... but his time off has come to an end which means less knitting & blogging (after this post).

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