My Cuzco Experiment

Elann Luxury Merino Superwash DK yarn, Merlot color

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Check out Zandra's gorgeous cable afghan, which won 1st place in a contest!

And for those of you who are photographers, check out these Photographer Mitts that'll keep your hands warm AND still let you take photos on those cold days. Pretty nifty, eh?

AcornBud has some cute project bags in her Etsy shop, there was one with a dragonfly print that was very lovely but I don't see it there now so it must have been sold, however you can see what it looked like on her blog. She also has some nice needle rolls too.

Voting has begun on the current smoke ring projects for The Fashionably Late in '08 KAL.

Grace is having a blogiversary contest, go check it out and let her know I sent you. :-)

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Not a whole lot going on here. I'm working up to starting item #10 for the Elann HUGe Swap. Why is it so much more difficult to do the last one? The deadline is to have the arrive at T's house by October 12 or 13, so I still have some time.

I was trying to create a chart for the Petra Scarf, spent a couple hours on it in Excel, and then gave up. I am too inexperienced in charting to figure out how it works in lace knitting, especially when the stitch count varies from row to row. I will try to come back to it again later when I have regained some more patience and see if I can make more progress on it.

Miss M is in daycare today, so my goal today is to finish vacuuming the house. Funny how I threw some laundry in the washer, went to vacuum the bedrooms and hallway, and when I got to the computer room, I ended up hopping onto the computer instead of vacuuming the room! I'm so easily sidetracked. My reward for finishing up the vacuuming, folding the laundry, and doing bills (unfortunately, some of it is done online, so there is a high chance of being sidetracked again) is to finish watching A Room with a View (1985) which I had never seen before. I had to get my hands on this copy after having recently caught this TV version of A Room with a View (1997) on PBS. The PBS version wasn't very good and I think it has made me enjoy the 1985 version even more.

I am currently working on another cable scarf (in the Merlot colored Elann Luxury Merino Superwash yarn you see above), although I've got an itch to start another lace scarf. I have A LOT of Elann Baby Cashmere that I really must try to make a dent through. However despite this I seem to have thrown in some Pewter and Mulled Grape colored Baby Cashmere into my Elann shopping cart.

The Beast at Tanagra. It looks like all leaves on the trees on my block are starting to fall. This happened last year after we moved into our new house. That's when we discovered which way the wind blows here and how everyone else's leaves fall and blow towards our house. So we ended up sweeping up our leaves and those of our neighbors. It's a losing battle. I'm thinking of investing in a leaf blower now...

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Pattern: Seeded Rib Scarf
Yarn: Elann Cuzco, 3 balls
Needles: 9mm

I finished this one back in January, and just realized that I hadn't blogged about it. I think what happened here is that I uploaded the photo to Ravelry to show Diane (ravlink) my Cuzco project so that she could see how my Cuzco looked compared to the Cuzco in her Cuzco Poncho (ravlink). I think my blue ball of Cuzco was more "fluffy" than her purple ball. And after our discussion about Cuzco, I think in my mind I thought that I had already blogged about the scarf.

Anyhow, this was my experiment to see what would happen when I amalgamated the Seeded Rib Scarf pattern with Elann Cuzco yarn. I wanted to see if the results came out better than my first Cuzco scarf using the Double Broken Rib stitch pattern. I couldn't help but think "cozy bathrobe" while working on both of these scarves. Cuzco is such cozy SOFT yarn, very lightweight and warm too.

I cast on 15 stitches on 9mm needles and knit until I ran out of yarn. The scarf came out to around 6.5 inches wide x 60 inches long (17 cm x 152 cm). It's interesting to see how casting on 1 less stitch gave me a scarf 6 inches shorter than the Cozy Bathrobe Scarf.

When I attached the 3rd ball of Cuzco, I noticed that this 3rd ball was more "fluffy" than the 1st and 2nd balls I used. I was afraid it would be very noticeable however in the end I don't think anybody would look that closely to see this flaw. It seemed strange that there should be an odd ball because all three balls had the same lot number and I would assume that meant they came out of the same batch??? And I bought all three at the same time. So I'm not sure how that happened.

I love this yarn, but must say it would not be a good choice for a first time knitter or very first knitting project because it is very hard to see your stitches due to all that fluffiness. I say this because I am reminded of my first knitting project using Patons Twister yarn. I remember how hard it was to work with. Now don't think I'm trying to compare the quality of these two yarns, cuz that would be comparing apples to oranges. The Cuzco is a much better yarn.

So with 1 ball red and 1 ball blue Cuzco remaining, I had to add 2 balls red and 2 balls blue to my stash so that I would have enough to make two more scarves. It's easier to think of it in terms of 3 balls here, 3 balls here. But I hate to think that I actually bought a total of 12 balls of Cuzco. In retrospect, I don't think that was a very good idea, since there are so many other yarns I like better than Cuzco that would allow me to make better looking gift scarves.
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Elann Cuzco info:
Fibre Content: 100% Brushed Fine Grade Alpaca
Made In: Peru
Care: Hand Wash/ Dry Flat
Gauge: 8 st/4 inches on 9.0 mm (US 13)
Yardage: 40 m (43 yards)
Size: 50g (1.75 oz) ball
Price: $4.60 USD

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