Category Archives: yarn

A new pair

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6

Last May 15th my sister-in-law slipped on her basement stairs and clunked down the three remaining steps on her left heel.  Her heel was shattered.  The surgery went well and the bone, with the help of plenty of titanium, healed.  Unfortunately, a sore and subsequent hole/wound from wearing a special boot did not close up.

I lost count of the various surgeries she’s undergone and had to wear a wound vac for several weeks. During this time, she was still teaching and wore the pair of slippers I knit for her to school as she needed to keep her foot covered and warm.

She was finally able to wear “regular” shoes sometime in January.

I received the following text from her Saturday evening: 

And this is my progress.

I’m using a wool and hemp blend yarn that I picked up somewhere (no idea where)…

…and an acrylic yarn held together for the seamless slippers.

I should have them finished later today then I can sew on some soles, make pom poms and have them ready to mail by the weekend.

New foot covers

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I thought these green slippers were the same ones I repaired a couple of years ago.  But they are not. These are obviously a more muted green and the variegated colors of the yarn aren’t in the same places.

It doesn’t really matter though I would like to know how long these last for me.  I must be hard on my slippers as I seem to wear them out fairly often.  I can tell that these have been re

Whatever.  They are in the trash.  Gone for good.

My new red multicolored seamless slippers…

…with new soles.

I hope they last a long time.

Kindness

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10

I haven’t abandoned the socks but I took your advice and decided to step back (haha) from that project for now.  And I’m still debating about what to do with the Which Way Now shawl.

The Bacardi Cardi is ripped back part way and on my radar.  That sweater will be finished this spring (or summer), however, I need something different on my needles. Right.  Now.

Enter Kindness.

The garter tab start is new for me and I really liked how the beginning few rows look.  No bump.  Trust me, there is no bump.  All the stitches just blend right in.  

The yarn is Knit Picks Chroma Fingering in the beautiful Galápagos colorway (which is not available anymore). Soft blues morph into greens and cream and back out again.

I would be farther along with this but I decided to convert the directions into a table with row-by-row stitch counts included in the far right column.  It was a bit tedious and I don’t have all the stitch counts at the end of the rows as I am new to reading and deciphering lace charts to see how the count changes.  This concept is used by Helen Stewart and the Spindrift Shawl pattern and it really helped me especially when the stitch counts changes every row.

I think this lovely little shawlette will be just the thing to get my confidence back.

 

 

 

Stuck

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How many times will/can I begin knitting the same sock before I find the right pattern for the yarn?

The yarn is a nylon and acrylic blend because the recipient can’t wear wool.  I figured that I could just substitute this for the usual wool yarns and end up with a similar item.  It is the same but it’s not and I’m having a hard time figuring out what to do.

One color is so different from the Berroco website.  Hari Hari 1811 looks a lot brighter and bluer than the Hari Hari 1811 I received.

Plus I’ve found two knots in the first several yards which might be the reason why it’s coming out more as a self-striping yarn than a patterned yarn.  The other color called Beach House is bright and I thought the two would play well with each other.

Source

My original plan was to knit the slipped-stitch sock pattern I’ve used seven other times only instead of using both colors in the ribbing, I was just going to knit with one and start the second color once I got to the leg of the sock.

I didn’t like it so I ripped it out and started again just with the dull grey yarn and tried another sock pattern with some textural stitches.

Too subtle and the slipped stitches melt into the surrounding stitches and are not noticeable enough to add any texture.

Perhaps I should go back to the beginning of my original plan and use both colors so the grey tones down the brighter one.

Maybe it’s the color.

Maybe it’s the yarn.

Maybe it’s the wrong pattern.

Maybe it’s me.