FO: Reversible Cable Scarf

Cross posted at Sally Comes Unraveled and Year Long Gift-A-Long.


This is another FO that's been a long time coming.

It's the Reversible Cable Scarf from Lion Brand. I started it in fall of 2007. (Yes, you read that correctly, 2007.)


This was the scarf that made me fall in love with Berroco Ultra Alpaca Yarn. It feels so good on the wooden needles, and it has very crisp stitch definition.

I used US Size 5 Brittany Needles. (BTW - I broke one of these needles, and they did send me a new one, as promised by the company.)


It's been so long since I started that I'm unsure of what went wrong on the wonky end. I think I bound off with US Size 3 needles, but cast on with the US Size 5. That still left the beginning of the scarf all ruffly.

I didn't count this as an FO until Christmas Eve, when I tucked in the loose ends. I meant to try to block the ruffly end, but I ran out of time.

I think (but I'm not positive) that this color is discontinued. It's 6276 Woodland Mix. I was trying to go outside my "comfort zone" and try some earth tones.

I highly recommend Berroco Ultra Alpaca. It's great stuff. Especially the heathered "Mix" colors like this one.

WIP Wednesday and Falling off the Wagon

So I fell off the wagon. Just a little. I went over my yarn budget, but there won't be any bounced checks, overdrafts or charges to my credit card.

There is a sale going on at Bluebonnet Yarn Shoppe from now through Saturday. All the yarn is 25% off.

I have good reasons for all of them. The SWTC A-MAIZing yarn in the bottom left is for swatching. (Number 77 on my list.) The Berroco Ultra Alpaca and Noro Silk Garden are for Christmas gifts. (The Fake Isle Hat and one of the Three Tams.) And the skein of Cascade Venezia in the upper left corner matches my eyes. (You can take a closer look at them here.)

Here's a better look at the Noro and the Ultra Alpaca. I think this color of Ultra Alpaca works well with both shades of Silk Garden. Picking out a single shade of Noro is hard enough. Picking a single shade and a coordinating solid is even harder.

After I got home I looked at the FOs for Three Tams on Ravelry. How do you wear a tam anyway? I saw some pictures that made it look like a regular cap. One person blocked theirs on a pie pan. What am I going for, really?

WIP Wednesday

It's Wednesday and lots of other bloggers do WIP Wednesday. Why shouldn't I?

Let's start with spinning. I borrowed my Mom's ginormous Navajo Spindle, but plying the merino singles I spun isn't getting easier. The spinning on my leg technique was hard and my own attempt to spin it like a top didn't work very well either. (And all this yarn won't fit on my drop spindle.)

Meanwhile, I'm actually making negative progress on my Wickerware Socks. I've made a lot of progress since the last time you saw them, but look where I was during my break at work today.

I screwed up the stitch pattern bad enough to bother me, and frogging everything above the red needles was the easiest way to fix it.

Finally, here's my precious Malabrigo Silky Merino, all wound up making it obvious that one skein is much lighter than the other. I'm debating my next move. I can either alternate skeins, hold two strands together and use bigger needles or just hope for the best.

I think some swatching is in order first.

FO: Jules' Valentine Scarf

Cross posted at Sally Comes Unraveled and Year Long Gift-A-Long.

It was hard waiting to post pictures of this, but it was Jules' Valentine's gift and I wanted to make sure it was a surprised.

This us the Besotted Scarf from Hello Yarn. I used two skeins of Berroco Ultra Alpaca in "Oceanic Mix" (6285) and my US size 5 Brittany straights. (Always a winning combo.)

I bought the yarn several months ago to save for myself, but it was perfect for Jules (and I have plenty of yarn for me.) Originally I had planned to make it red so it would be more "Valentiney," but after badgering talking to Jules, I decided he would get more use out of it if I used a different color. (And the XOXO cables were "Valentiney" enough.)

I started out using Classic Elite Inca Alpaca, but I didn't like the way it was knitting up. Then I decided I liked it. Then I wasn't sure. Then I decided to swatch it alongside the Ultra Alpaca and we (this includes the other knitters at The Knitting Nest) decided the Ultra Alpaca looked best.

I wasn't thrilled with the ruffled edges. The pattern goes straight into the cables, so I decided it needed seed stitch border. I think it made it worse. (For some reason, the cast on edge was worse than the bind off edge.)

It wasn't a hard pattern, but it was easy to forget what I was doing. I had to correct mistakes like this one several times. (Look closely at the cables.)

I sent the scarf with a mix cd, some chocolate and a homemade Valentine. He enjoyed the whole package.

Playing Catch Up

Here is my current WIP, Knitty's Back to Basics socks in South West Trading Company's TOFUtsies, color 725, "Foot in the Door."

And yes, these socks are my sister's Christmas gift. And yes, I gave her a partially knitted toe to unwrap. The good news is that she likes the yarn (as I suspected she would.)

I'm still catching up from the holidays and Jules' trip. I had didn't knit or crochet much. I missed having something to work on, and it put me "off my game" for a while. These socks had frustrated me at first. I started with US size 000 dpns (the size I had used for previous socks in a similar weight.) It was actually too tight. So I started again with US size 0. Then I thought it was too loose. Then I couldn't find my US size 00. Then I ran out of time and just wrapped what I had.

(My previous journalism professors would be so proud of those last three sentences.)

But then I realized that US size 00 would probably be too small. However, given the low elasticity of TOFUtsies, I was worried about them being too baggy if I knitted them on size 0. I finally settled for US size 0 and made some real progress.

The basic concept of this pattern is inspired by Cat Bordhi's new New Pathways for Sock Knitters, which I got for Christmas from my parents (as well as a gift certificate for The Knitting Nest.) I'm looking forward to exploring her architectures.

In other news, I have a sweater planned.

The day Jules went back to California, Hill Country Weavers was having their biggest sale of the year. I went to console myself, and I was pretty proud of my selections. Instead of buying a little of this and a little of that like I normally do, I bought a sweater's worth of yarn.

I found the Araucania Atacama (left) over in the "blue house" next door to the shop. They sometimes open the house up for sales and special events. During this sale, the house was where they set up all the clearance yarns, which were marked down more than the the rest of the shop. It was a good deal for 100% alpaca. This is color 503

Berroco Ultra Alpaca (right) is one of my all time favorite yarns now (I need to post a recent FO that I made out of it.) I could only find one skein of this particular colorway, 6259 Beet Root, with no label. Fortunately, the staff was able to match the color with their sample book and get more skeins out of storage for me. It was a good thing, because the other shades of purple didn't quite match the Atacama.

I've decided to knit Candy from Knitty. I fell in love with the pattern after discovering this version while listening to the Stash and Burn "Sweater Love" episode. (There is a better picture of the sweater here.

I think the Austin Meetup is planning a "sweater-along" starting Thursday. (I saw something about it on Ravelry.) I think it's the daytime group that I can't attend, but I'll probably cast on with them anyway.

Speaking of meetup, I'll have more coming up on their recent yarn swap, as well as pictures of the fiber festival, more FOs, my buys for the handmade pledge and my new year's resolutions.

In the meantime, I'm slowly uploading pictures from Jules' trip to Flickr. You can see what I have so far here.