Well Then

I dug out an old unfinished project to accompany me on my travels this summer. I wound up starting it over -- there were only about 4 inches so far -- because I couldn't figure out what was going on. But it goes pretty fast. It's pretty mindless, in that I don't have to refer to the written pattern to keep it going at this point. I just have to pay attention at the beginning of every right-side row to make sure I'm alternating the pattern.

It's unblocked lace, so it can be pretty hard to see what's going on. Markers every 20 stitches keep me on the straight and narrow - if I don't have 20 stitches between markers, something has gone wrong on the previous row (usually forgetting to pass the slipped stitch over, which is pretty easy to fix in the moment. I'd hold it up to the light occasionally to check that the pattern had no obvious large-scale mistakes. But there's only so much room to do that while seated in the front of a pickup, and inevitably, I missed something.

I was pleased when I got home to see how much progress I'd made. Until I held it up to the light while standing, and realized that halfway back, I didn't alternate the pattern.

I've already ripped out (carefully, this is fuzzy yarn) half my work and started off again. But now that I'm home, I'm looking for more interesting projects, and I sense that this will soon be tucked away until my next trip.

It doesn't help that I have no idea what I'll do with it. It's mystery yarn, but definitely alpaca, which I do not wear.

Scrub-a-dub-dub

At the urging of an adventurous KD, I impulse-bought a skein of Red Heart Scrubby (in white!). I am perfectly happy with my nylon crocheted dish scrubbers with matching cotton dishcloths. But I was curious about the yarn, a 100% polyester fun-fur sort of thing.

I got two dishcloths and a smaller piece out of one skein. It was okay to knit with -- not hard on my hands at all. I just had to watch what I was doing a bit, since a mistake was hard to see until later.

Despite being white, tomato sauce and whatnot seem to wash right off. They don't retain water worth a darn -- if I wipe down a counter, the counter will be quite wet. But there is no denying they clean up well. It's kind of astounding. I might even buy some more.

A River Runs Thru It

The wonderful Yankee Dyer has retired, and I am resolved to use up every bit of her wonderful yarn remaining in my possession, letting none of it go to waste. I knew I had enough green and blue left over to make some summery socks with contrasting heels and toes, but my favorite sock pattern would result in a one-off row of blue across the top of the foot opposite the heel. I got interested in whether or not I could carry a line of blue vertically to meet it.

I tried several different methods, but most of them looked a tad odd once the sock was stretched out on my foot. I finally settled on just duplicate stitching the line with a crochet hook.

Needles: US 1.5 (2.5mm)
Yarn: Yankee Dyer Yankee Breeze merino/cotton in Wasabi and Lagoon (discontinued)
Pattern: mine own

I have one more Yankee Breeze colorway left for next summer's socks, Sangria.

I have a set of Yankee Doodler mini-skeins, and a shawl pattern all picked out. Actually, now that I check, two patterns. A decision must be made...

And finally, a skein of wool fingering in a delicious colorway, Dragonfly, that I will have to find a pattern worthy of.