Wednesday 10 March 2010

Some Knitting Progress

The craziness surrounding a corporate move has yet to calm down. Today I have a crew replacing tiles that got gouged during construction in the reception area. The moment I walked in the door this AM, I got a rather overwhelming view of plumber's crack. That vertical smile is greeting everyone coming into the office. Classy, eh? I also have some people here from the furniture installation company to replace pieces that were delivered damaged, but they are spending a lot of time being confused and they seem to be missing the new furniture. This should be interesting.

On to the knitting. I'm ignoring reality today.

I finished the body and sleeves of the Lion Neck Cardigan, and now I'm working on the ruffle collar (the Lion Neck part). I failed to get a picture, but it's all bunched up on the needles anyway, so I'll wait until that's finished. It was a fairly quick knit, but it was too big and heavy for me to get into my day bag (and far too awkward to take out on the subway or bus) so it didn't get a whole lot of attention. Just a few rows here and there when I could find the time.

I'm almost done the body of the Baby Cables and Big Ones Too (which I just refer to as my Biggy Smalls, since the sweater title is infuriatingly complex to try to blurt out when asked).



So far, I love it. And I love the yarn- Valley Yarns Northfield. It's soft and lofty from the merino, drapey from the Alpaca content, a little bit of sheen from the silk, and the whole thing is plied into a tight, springy cabled yarn. It's a steal- it's comparable to luxury yarns twice that price.

My other knitting project is, of course, my A-Z Aarlan Arwetta double-thick mittens.



I ran into some needle issues with these. I loathe double-points, so I went out and bought 2 size 0 circs for these. I decided to try something new (and on sale!) and went for the "Square Circulars" that Kollage makes with horrible results. To be fair, I only tried this one tiny 0 size, so maybe the rest of their needles are great. I gave up after only 3 rounds. I liked the square shape, but the cords were useless- they were too floppy and they kinked and bent too easily to push my stitches around. It became a small war. I switched to DPNS, but they kept sliding out at inopportune moments and made me a bit crazy. I put the mitts down for a few days and ordered a couple of addi turbo circs (addi has yet to fail me with any of their products) with a gift certificate that a co-worker gave me to Yarnmarket.com (which I undoubtedly feel that I've earned) and I'm now once again happily plugging away at them.

Well, the furniture installers did not get about half of what was ordered here, so I will be dealing with them again next week. Hopefully the vertical smiles will be done in a while- I've been putting off a bathroom break to avoid that sight.

2 comments:

  1. Some days make you wonder how it all ended up this way, you know what I mean?

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  2. I had a pair of the kollage square ones too and i had the cable pop right out. the company's solution.... just glue it back in! I agree that the cable is too floppy. I was doing socks.. and it was a pain to switch from one sock to the other. The join is just not smooth enough for the floppy cable. Does anyone know if the needles were field tested before going to production? I have heard nothing but complaints about the ciculars. The DPNs they make are great.. and no floppy cord!

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