What it wants to be. Or, the fearless RIP.

I am knitting a sample baby blanked out of some Bernat Baby Boucle self-striping yarn. I tried to log cabin it (from Mason Dixon Knitting), but that just looked too messy to me:

Rip.

This morning I knit it into a mitered square. The usually supportive Mr. FlashBang says it still looks horrible. What do you think?

I will knit 9 of these if I go ahead with it, so please give me your opinions.

Next Monday I will turn 26, so last night at Stitch N Bitch, my knitting friend Laura gave me this gorgeous teal/green silk, and the Pattern-A-Day set of Knitting projects. (Thank you Laura!!). Also, she brought a big box of vintage sewing patterns she'd scored at a thrift store or yard sale. I was able to pull a few that were quite cute. Some of these patterns are so old that they had 65 cts printed on them. (!!)


Two Saturdays ago, I started swatching for my Sockapalooza sock. I had bought several sets of Brittany Birch DPN's, which I was very excited about. This was promising to be part of the answer to ending my hand pain. The needles felt wonderful. They weren't as sticky as bamboo, and agreed with the yarn. They were nearly impossible to get gauge on. They broke. It was too ugly a scene -- I dare not photograph it. I had decided to knit the socks from Men Knit 2 (I think they're called Maple Leaf Socks). This was my first attempt at a slipped stitch design, and it ended badly. Besides the tedium of knitting 7 stitches together every so often, it began to look disturbingly like puckered holes rather than leaves.

Rip.

Next in line was Child's French Sock from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks. As it turns out the only size 0 DPNs I had were ancient, "10 long, steel ones. They were so heavy and long that it was impossible to knit comfortably. Then I noticed two things: the pattern was lost in the multi colored yarn, and I had read the leg-design chart backwards. It didn't occur to me until after I compared it to the picture in the book that you read a chart right to left, since that's the direction you're knitting. Whoops.

Rip.

Finally, with the help of Laura (at our SnB group last night), I chose the Fancy Silk Sock pattern (Knitting Vintage Socks). I am pleased to announce that it works with this yarn! This is what the yarn wanted to be. I need to internalize this lesson, and remember not to force a pattern on a yarn.

The sample sock in the book has a 1 inch lace pattern on top, but I liked it so much that I did two instead.

Plus, this looks more like the original drawing, I think: