Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Return of the String

Alas, despite the best of intentions I got nothing done last week. I am *almost* finished with my yellow quilt, though, so that’s something. As I suspected, it needed a heavily-quilted border and it took a bit of strategizing before I was able to find a quilt stencil design that would work. I’m hoping to wrap it up this weekend.

In the meantime, I started a new knitting project. I took a day trip to NYC last Thursday via Amtrak (my new favorite mode of transportation!). I knew that I would want/need a portable knitting project to pass the time, so I grabbed some Noro sock yarn from my stash, a set of dpn’s, and the book “Favorite Socks” from Interweave. I decided to try the “Waving Lace Socks” pattern featured on the cover, despite the fact that I had different yarn than what was recommended as well as different size needles. As it turned out, it was a happy accident – given the occasionally chunky nature of the Noro, a smaller needle would have resulted in a very tight sock. I’m still on the fence about the stripy nature of the yarn vs. the pattern – perhaps not the best combination, but I’m proceeding anyway. Also, I did sort of screw up the first pattern repeat, but I’m being lazy and not fixing it. I am not one to let perfection get in the way of a new pair of socks!


A word (well, several words) about this yarn: In the past, Noro has not been my friend. I suffered through knitting my striped Noro scarf and a set of mittens, grumpily picking out twigs and leaves from the yarn as I went along. I also discovered half-way through the skeins that the yarn had been joined and knotted, interrupting the color scheme flow and annoying me to no end. However, I am happy to report that I’m finding the sock yarn much better – thus far no vegetable matter and no weird color interruptions. It still feels a bit like knitting with hay, but I know that after a wash the yarn will bloom and be much softer. And I really do love the colors – it looked like just a skein of purple and green, but I’m finding lovely blues, grays, and a bit of black buried in the middle. I also love how the yarn is chunkier in spots, giving the fabric a bit of texture here and there. I'm very interested to see how the sock yarn wears over time; my Noro scarf has held up quite well, but the mittens I made just barely made it through the winter!

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