Jitterbugging

A couple of friends have been waiting to hear the story of a particular skein of yarn. Last summer, when I was still living in Ottawa. Leanne and Nancy introduced me to Wool 'N Things, a very posh little yarn boutique in the far east end of the city. At the time, my yarn budget as a grad student was pretty tight, so it was a rather dangerous excursion and my wallet did take quite a dent that day.

Aside from a few wonderful bits of silk (which I still haven't gotten up the courage or inspiration to touch), we each bought a different colourway of Colinette Jitterbug. I believe that they have both already made socks out of theirs. That was my plan too - a plain pair of ribbed socks to show off the gorgeous colour. Knowing that people tend to have yardage issues with this yarn, I got out my kitchen scale, and dutifully wound the skein into two equal balls. I even swatched, which I rarely bother with for socks. Even though the yarn is plump, I liked my swatch on 2.25 mm needles best, and decided to knit a pair of nice, dense, warm socks.

I got about this far (yes, that's a heel flap on a rather short sock):


When it became quite evident that, A) I was not going to have enough yarn left for a foot, and B) I wasn't really fond of the way the beautiful water-coloury variegation was pooling in diagonal stripes.

Hmm, what to do....

Rip it out and knit gloves!


Somehow, I have ended up with several pairs of mittens in my collection lately, but not a single pair of gloves to my name - a situation soon to be rectified. I'm completely winging it on 2.5 mm needles (2.25 mm for the ribbed cuff), and it looks like I'll even have a little bit of yarn left over. Phew.

The yarn is so pretty that I'm going to miss it when I'm done knitting!

What I've been doing while I haven't been blogging

Time is seriously flying this winter and I've been enjoying the feeling of being very busy but not stressed about it. It's been a fun kind of busy, mostly involving family events - baking birthday cakes (three in two weeks!), going to family dinners, attending several concerts (all involving different family members on stage - we're a rather musical bunch), and taking in a little of the great outdoors, with a smattering of volunteer work thrown in. Life is good. Nick and I took a little jaunt around Pippy Park (a campground right in the city) last weekend on snowshoes. It was a beautiful day. I've been wanting to get him on cross-country skis, but it rained a lot this week so the snow is not so great. Maybe next weekend. My knitting on Gatsby Girl was interrupted again for another birthday present. Nick actually picked up a copy of a KnitPicks catalogue that I had left lying around, and requested this scarf. He so rarely asks me to knit anything for him that of course I had to oblige. After a couple of minutes of squinting at the pattern, I had it figured out. Now why didn't I think of that - reversible cables!
I cast on 66 stitches, knit a couple of rows of 6X6 rib, and then proceeded to cable on the first (right side), and 6th ("wrong" side) rows in a 10-row repeat. Continued for about 7 feet, and cast off. It took three balls of Patons Classic Merino (the shade is called "new jeans", a little bluer than it looks in the photo above) for a pretty hefty scarf. If I were to do another of these for myself, I would make it a little narrower and a little shorter, but Nick thinks his is perfect - a nice warm scarf for chilly days.


So now I'm back to Gatsby Girl. I finished the first back/front piece, and am now plodding through the first sleeve. It's endless 1X1 ribbing on 3 mm needles. To be honest, it's starting to try my patience a little, but I have another cabled, lacy, beautiful front/back piece to look forward to. The second sleeve is going to be a killer on this one - I can see myself getting easily sidetracked.