My WIPs

Here are just a couple of things I'm working on.

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This is a CatBookMom original, her Twisted Rope Scarf knit in Elann Highland Wool. It's coming out nicely, and is a great pattern for mindless knitting in front of the telly. I'm not making the seaman style scarf, so I'm just knitting from one end to the other. I wonder whether I will need more yarn because I'm doing cabling where the neck ribbing would be. Not that this would be a problem since I do have more than 4 balls of this color. :-)

The yarn is a light blue, photo doesn't show the color well at all. See that big FAT knit stitch in the cable? That's where I joined the next ball of yarn using spit splicing, you really notice the thickness of the yarn when it's in a cable. I was hoping that section would fall into the K2 P2 ribbing section so it wouldn't be as noticeable. Sigh, you just can't control these things. Of course nobody will really notice it when the scarf is worn.

This is my attempt to make Regina Fingerless Mitts to match my Regina Scarf. I'm using Elann Baby Cashmere.

I'm using four 2.75 mm (US3) size circular needles, two are 29" and two are 24". I just noticed something odd about the needles. Although they're the same brand and all the packages say "2.75 mm" and "US3" on them, they are definitely NOT identical. Two of the needles fit through the 2.75 mm/US2 slot on my needle gauge. The other two DON'T fit!! These two are small enough to fit through the 3.25 mm/US3, but they aren't really 3.25 mm/US3 needles (because they're a smidgen smaller than my actual 3.25 mm/US3 needles). I don't see any real difference in the knitting, despite the discrepancies in actual needle sizes.

When I'm done with the needles, I want to put them back in my circular needle storage place without putting them back in their packaging. Why? It's so that they don't curl up again while sitting in their packaging, after I've uncurled them from using them. This is what I usually do. So here's the problem. I can see myself, in the future, taking these needles and sticking them in my needle gauge to figure out what size they are and then wrongly assume they are 3.25 mm/US3 needles. It looks like I will have to keep these needles in their original packaging, and make a note on the packaging that these needles are "odd".

My needle gauge is one of those Susan Bates needle gauges. I wonder if there is some other needle gauge that is more accurate or has more finely tuned needle slots. Is there a needle size between 2.75 mm and 3.25 mm?

I have to wonder whether this is a daft design. I mean, who would really wear a mitt with so many bobbles on it? It's so... frivolous, for lack of a better word. It's not practical at all.

Oh, I was at Starbucks in Fremont today, finishing up this mitt. It took me 2 hours to do the last 8 rounds plus picking up the thumb stitches and working 7 more rounds there; I'm a slow knitter. This is my first attempt to make a wrap around thumb watchamacallit on my mitt, and I think it came out OK. Still don't really know if I'm doing things correctly, I mean, this is only my 3rd mitt ever. But it fits my hand and looks alright, so I'm guessing it's not half bad. Anyhow, a guy -- A GUY!!! -- came up to ask me what I was knitting. Well that was a first. I know guys knit, I just didn't think there'd be so many out there that one of them would actually come up to me to comment about knitting. I had to wonder whether he came up to ask because my knitting looked kinda odd. I'm not knitting this on DPNs as most people would. And for circs, they're certainly on the longer side than most people would choose for this project (I'm guessing here). So what he must have seen from 8 ft away was an odd pink thing with 6 long "tentacles" dangling from it. Must be a strange site. :-)

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