The Knitting Pirate

Just what I needed, eh? Here are colorways 178 (left) and 215 (right), which will keep the Stripey Striped Scarf from being too short. Woolwinders didn’t have more of either of my first two colorways; not too surprising with Kureyon. So I picked two others that I thought went together well, and would match with what I had. Another woman in the store commented about Kureyon’s colorways; I forget what she said exactly, but it was like, “that’s nice.. that’s nice.. what the hell is this color doing here? ahh, that’s nice again.”

At first I thought of putting the two new colorways together in the middle of the scarf and having the ends match. Then I realized there is no matching. Each ball starts in a different place in the colorway, and who knows how things would line up? I was also a little concerned that there would be a really obvious break where I changed colors. So here’s what I’m going to do: The new 215 will be paired with the old 148 for the middle of the scarf, and then the new 178 will be paired with the old 185. This way each duller color is paired with a brighter, and no two colorways go together twice. Maybe I’m overthinking this just a little! I’m sure it will look perfectly fine – and perfectly hideous – no matter which way the yarn goes. And by hideous, I mean fantastic. This thing is just too cool!

The Stripey Striped Scarf has gotten to the end of the first two balls (or very close to it, anyway) and is ten inches short of what it would need in order to end up as long as I want it to be, which is more than six feet. So it’s on hold until I can go buy two more balls of Kureyon. I never thought purple and orange would look this good next to each other, but there it is, looking good.

Now, I do have two balls left, one each of 147 and 158. But if my LYS doesn’t have those two colorways, then I want the odd two to be in the middle of the scarf, and the ends will match. Maybe. My thought is 147/158 – x/y – 147/158 again might look kinda neat. The only thing that worries me is the sudden color change instead of the nice gradual one, but that would happen anyway if the skeins don’t begin at the same point in the colorway, right? I’m not going to waste perfectly good yarn to make the colors line up, not in this case. It’s supposed to be garish, after all.

So the scarf is waiting, just in case I find different colorways of Kureyon that I like. Too bad; it’s a great sit-in-front-of-the-computer-and-knit project. I guess I’ll just have to work on some lace.

Oh, and although I wasn’t going to, there were several requests at the SnB for a picture of my niece. Here she is at about four hours old – it will be a while before she fits into those pants, I can tell you, and even longer before I can start to teach her to knit. All in good time, little girl, all in good time. Muahahaha!

The Stripey Striped Scarf is coming right along. I’m almost at the end of the first two balls of yarn, and I’m noticing that the 1×1 ribbing takes up a lot more yarn that I thought it would, and uh… I may need to pick up another two balls of yarn. I’m going to wait until the first two balls are really finished, and measure, and imagine another few inches for blocking. But I really like long scarves, 6′ at least, and this just isn’t going to make it. No way.

On the other hand, I like how the colors look a lot better now. So what if there’s a bit of green and red and bright yellow next to each other? So what, purple and orange vibrate together? There’s a good bit of pleasant purple on purple and green on purple and light green on dark green. And and and. I love color; it’s one of my main reasons for knitting. Not to mention the textures. And, oh yeah, the functional useful product. And, oh yeah, it’s fun, too.

Anyway, I think I might stop at the yarn store this coming weekend and just check what colors of Kureyon they have in stock. You know, just to check. Can’t have a short scarf, now can I?

The Stripey Striped Scarf is about a foot long already, and I’m much more pleased now with the way the colors are playing out against each other. Teal and mustard yellow don’t go together so well, but dark and light purple ain’t so bad next to each other, and the colors change frequently enough that if there’s one stripe I don’t like in a six-foot scarf, oh well! I would take pictures, but my camera is already packed for my trip to Ottawa. (Pirate-Husband is holding down the fort; I’ll be back Tuesday night.)

Saturday is Knit in Public Day, and I will definitely be in public, knitting. The Ninja and Iare talking about going to WestFest and knitting there, probably near the Spins and Needles booth.

Famous last words: “This ball of Kureyon has a lot less straw in it than usual!”

I ordered these shoes last week from a store in the mall, and I am so thrilled that they fit! They are just perfect for showing off handknit socks (shown – last year’s toe-up Plain Old Socks, Regia Canadian Colour 4743). They are also suitable for wearing to an office, when I find a job. Too cool.

This Stripy Striped Scarf alternates two colors of Noro Kureyon (147 and 158) in a 1×1 rib over 49 stitches on size 8 needles. I like to have a project going that doesn’t require a lot of concentration. I can take it to the Stitch ‘n Bitch, or watch TV, or have a conversation while I’m working. From this blog entry at BrooklynTweed I got the idea of slipping the first and last stitches on every second row to make a nice neat edge. It’s working quite well! One thing that had really frustrated me when I was working on the So-Called Scarf is that when I was alternating between balls of yarn (in that case, to keep from wild color changes between skeins), the yarn that was carried up the side didn’t look right. Slipping the first and last stitches on the second rows keeps everything tightly together, which looks a lot better to me.

The traveling sock traveled up to Pennsylvania this weekend to visit family, and began looking stripy too. I like the reactions that I get from different people when they see me working on a sock. It’s everything from “How long does it take you to knit a pair of socks?” to “Wow, I’d never have the patience to do something like that – but I do like counted cross-stitch,” to “How hard is that to learn? I need a new hobby.” Since I’m back home, the traveling sock has been returned to its resting place, awaiting Thursday’s airplane ride.

I got my Ravelry invite today, and as a result had to set up a Flickr account. There probably won’t be much there that isn’t here anyway, but feel free to check it out! Ravelry looks like it’s going to be a very cool community. When the site goes live, I hope there’s a personal page for me to link to.