10x is the charm

....after a little kick in the pants by LQM i'm finally going to post again☺Ta LQM♥
...i know it's been almost a month and i have been working on things....but i haven't had the mojo to post really....sometimes it's like that....
....after finishing my Minty i posted a photo of it on FB and my niece said she wanted one...so of course i knitted one for her....
....then i spent a couple of weeks surfing patterns and trying to decide what to cast-on....i wound up casting on Wright's Aran Poncho....i have had this pattern for a long time...i really like the look of it....it's over-sized and has ties at the sides....after knitting my Big Honkin' Bag i really liked the squares in the pattern and found a cardigan that reminded me of those squares....i wasn't sure if i wanted to figure out the modifications for that cardigan or not when i remembered this poncho having the same sort of squares as part of its pattern....i already had some Cascade 220 Heathers....#4011....in sweater quantity that i thought would look good....making the poncho a bit bigger wasn't a real stretch....so off i went casting on....it's really a project i thought i could finish in the not too distant future....you sense the 'but' coming though right?....
....i know it's sort of time consuming and possibly crazy☺ to rewrite a pattern, but that's what i do for a lot of patterns....sometimes i find patterns have waaaaayyyyyy too much information for me to work them.....and other times the pattern doesn't have enough information....it assumes things....and you know what ass-u&me means, yes? i need the information to be condensed....i did that a lot when i home-schooled my son, so perhaps it comes from years of researching and condensing information for him....
....a while back i bought some of those print-your-own business card sheets....actually it's been a long while back....when i first started knitting i was a smart-ass-know-it-all who could knit anything because it was "only knits and purls, right?"....hahahahahahaha....boy did knitting teach me better....my first really difficult piece was a square from a blanket that DH may get in his lifetime☺....i haven't worked on it in FOR.EV.ER at least 4 years....☺....the piece looks really great though....it is a Moss Diamond Cabled Square....(didn't realize i don't have a picture of this)....the pattern has 23 or 24 rows....reading it written out on paper made less sense to me than making a flip chart....i got some of the business cards and wrote each line of pattern out on the cards....

....it works great to just flip as you work....this is my go-to way of working a pattern since then....i have one for Romance Reversible Shawl, Big Honkin' Bag, and now Wright's Aran Poncho as well....
....for the Aran Poncho i made 3 sets of cards....1 for each pattern....i cast-on 36 extra stitches to make the width i wanted and get the pattern repeats to work out correctly....then i worked the piece for 11" before i found that the cables weren't crossing:

Wright's Aran Poncho - Boxcars

....i didn't figure it out until i took this photo....this is the second time i have seen a mistake i've made in a really textured pattern only after i've taken a photo of the piece....i had the 3 sets of flip cards laying flat on my desk which made me miss seeing a K4 on the cable rows....at first i didn't hate it....told myself i could live with it....but then i cast-on Catkin....sort of....
....i have had the yarn for Catkin for awhile....this pattern was posted as the KAL for September for a couple of months before we actually got to September....by the time we got here i didn't really want to work the pattern just then....i told myself to go ahead and work it though since i knew if i had questions other people would be working it too and i could just post in the KAL thread....so i cast-on....and ripped....and cast-on....and ripped....and cast-on....and ripped....can you see where this is going?....i've only had this experience with knitting one other time and that was with the socks i made last year....my brain was on hold....it didn't want to process the information in front of me....but i didn't want to give up either....so i cast-on and ripped 10x....yes, 10x....not a typo....before i finally got the tab worked at the beginning of the pattern....the persistence payed off....i'm working Section 2 now:

Willow by the Lower Pond - Catkin

....i'm not using high contrast yarns for this project like some of the other projects i've seen....i plan on gifting this shawl to my aunt who is in her 80's....the pattern allows you to put in contrasting garter ridges in Section 1 if you want to....i thought this yarn is gorgeous enough on its own....i really, really love the Madeline Tosh yarn....it's so soft and squidgy....i learned that word from LQM☺....squidgy is very descriptive of it's quality....i also really like tonal yarns....i'm not as attracted to stripey yarns really....although Noro yarns seem to have long sections of color before a change to another color....
....that being said about stripey yarns i found this Random Stripe Generator that is awesome!....it's so much fun to plug in and try different colors together and different stripe widths....when it shows you the stripe pattern from the colors you've selected you can refresh the page and get another selection as many times as you want....i used the RSG to get the color sequence to make Minty hats for my grand children for Christmas this year....

....i love how you can see how the stripes will work together and that it tells you how many stripes to knit in which colors in what order....♥
....kid colors are fun colors to work with too:

Stripey Minty for Ava

....it's a start anyway....
....after reworking Catkin 10x i decided i couldn't live with the cables being wrong on Wright's Aran Poncho...it was bugging me....i thought if i had the persistence to rework Catkin 10x then what was the big deal starting over with the poncho?....i found that my mistake in the cabling was in laying the flip cards flat on my desk....i stopped reading the pattern and just checked for the word Front or Back when i was knitting the cable patterns....that'll teach me....i made some cardboard stands to raise the flip-charts up so i can see them better....and of course now that i made the mistake and ripped the project all the way out i'm much more observant of the cable rows....

Flip-card stand

....this works much better....
....i'm also working a Linen Stitch Scarf with some Kauni Effektgarn and 2 colorways of Dream in Color Smooshy that i've had for awhile

Linen Stitch Scarf

....i wanted this scarf to be really long so i cast on 1100 stitches for it....the other night i was thinking about that....i'm working each row front and back with one yarn then changing to another yarn....i'm up to somewhere past 44,000 sts....i really like it though....am thinking about stopping with the linen stitch and increasing to have a ruffle using the Kauni Effektgarn....it's all pinks/lavenders/browns....
....and if this isn't enough i found some cute gauntlets on Purl Bee....that i cast on for someone's Christmas gift....i know she'll love them....i already have the yarn for them....Purl Bee has some really cute projects....IMO
....this seems to be a theme here....knitting from stash....in fact on October 1 a KUSO KAL....that's Knit Using Stash Only....is starting on Friends of the 28-row Scarf group on Ravelry....and a Beading KAL starts that same day on Friends of the 28-row Scarf group and on Appalachian Yarns group on Ravelry....
....i have 1 ball of Rowan Kidsilk Haze:

 ....and i've wanted to knit Ice Queen for a long time....it only takes 1 ball of Kidsilk Haze if you get gauge and about 300 beads....beading is a technique i'll need to know when i'm ready to cast on Shipwreck Shawl....
....i ordered some Size 6/0 beads yesterday in Transparent Lt. Pink AB from WhimBeads.....and some extra 11/0 beads from their bead mixes for embellishments for some other projects....which reminds me....
....i've also knitted 2 Vivian hats....they are waiting to be felted and embellished....the felting isn't as much of a problem as finding which forms in my kitchen will work for the blocking....very many possibilities with these hats....
....i've got several projects i've already knitted that could benefit from embellishments like embroidery, beads, ribbons, etc....i have specific ideas for each project it's just i actually love knitting more than blocking, sewing, or any other craft related thing....i'll get the mojo one of these days and crack on with them....

....in the mean time....

Happy Knitting,
Sally