Small Things

Well, we hit another local yarn store sale over the weekend. Not a huge sale (and you had to really look to find anything on sale), but it's still a great store, and we hadn't stopped in there in a while. The place was packed. We did tandem shopping… one of us sat in the car with sleeping boys while the other shopped. So it worked out okay. I probably end up buying less that way!
(In other words, I talk myself out of a lot of things when alone; she talks me into a lot of things when we're together!)

I don't know when I turned into an "accessories" knitter, but it seems that's where I am right now. Probably it's a logical conclusion with two little boys in the house. Maybe the reality is that unlike when I was just a young childless knitter and could start a dozen sweaters at a time, the realities of life and motherhood have caught up with me, and having a few sweaters on the needles is fine - but beyond that, accessories seem like good, managable, and doable projects.

So, I (again) picked up a number of yarns (shown at right) that will end up being hats and scarves most likely. All in all, I just wasn't ready to commit to a full scale project purchase yet. It was more fun to buy one or two skeins of a bunch of things instead of 10-12 of a single yarn.

The red fuzzy yarn is MicroChic, and it feels great. I was contemplating buying Esprit in red because I like the feel of Esprit and thought it would make a wonderful holiday season scarf (thinking ahead!), but they had a sample scarf made from MicroChic, and it was adorable and felt luscious. Buying yarn to make two scarves in the same color didn't make sense at that moment, so I went with the MicroChic to try something new.

I did finally get to see Kersti in person, and it's wonderful. They didn't have a huge variety at the store though, so I didn't buy any. I like a few of the colors Rob blogged about recently better than anything I saw in person. But at least now I've gotten to see and feel the yarn. Of course, KPPM is still addictive to me. I picked up a skein of it in a medium-to-dark lime along with some Berroco Fizz that I'm hoping to use together. I couldn't resist a skein of the Fizz in a pink, too. (My obsession with pink has not disappeared post-pregnancy!)

So,we came home and got all our loot out. What did I start? Good question. Did I start anything with what I'd just bought. No. Instead, I got out the pink Touch Me yarn I bought a few weeks ago and cast on a few stitches and worked up some seed stitch to see how it looks. I love the yarn. (And the soft muted pink of it matches the pink suede Birks I recently picked up!) The Touch Me yarn has an amazingly beautiful hand to it. Not sure about the seed stitch in it. I think I want to try a few other things before I decide. I'm thinking it's so soft it would make a great pocket scarf because your hands would just feel wonderful in it. So, I want to pick something nice (read interesting) for the pocket stitch.

In the time I deliberated, my partner cast on and finished a great hat out of a super cool variegated skein of Tahki Baby. (We're designing a set of hats out of this and similar yarns. Her newest one turned out so cute. I tried to thank her for making it for me, but it didn't work.) Ah, well, I was also juggling the baby - who has decided that sleeping isn't really something he ever needs to do! (Having finally given in, he's now snoozing in my lap as I sit at my computer.)

I was still debating about what to work on the next day, and I spied the long pink and purple scarf that I've dubbed the Dr. Seuss scarf (not sure why, but every time I look at it, that's what I think) peeking out of a basket under the table. I started this pre-pregnancy (the baby is now four months), so it's been sitting around forever! It had gotten yanked off the needles recently (by a little boy), so I'd ripped it out to a stripe end and picked the stitches back up. Seeing it in danger of getting yanked off again, I decided maybe it is time to finish it.

It's pretty long already, but not long enough when you wrap it around your neck. So, it needs more length. I'm at a point where I need to start new balls of yarn in each color, so what I decided to do is first make a hat to coordinate using the two colors, and then I can just go ahead and use what's left to finish the scarf.

So, I cast on for the hat basing the sizing on a hat I made last year out of Plush (see the light purple hat at right). The Esprit hat ended up being a really quick project. Unfortunately, the Esprit has much less stretch in the cast on row than the Plush did, so it's really snug there. I realized this about half way through, but I went ahead and finished it. I think I learned an important lesson - maybe using the long-tail cast on for hats isn't the best approach since it has less give?

Today I'm hoping to do the finishing work on the little-boy project and get the pattern typed up - as well as work on plotting the additional sizes.

THEN, maybe I can get something new from the recent purchases cast on.

(Update: I decided I can't stand the fit of the Esprit hat. I'm going to have to rip it out and give it another try. Sigh! But, if I won't wear it as is, then it's silly to leave it as is. I'm a huge ripper. My mom and partner are always amazed that it doesn't really phase me at all to constantly rip things out and start over.)