I think I'm going to have to make more of those ice cream hats. This girl at school told me she'd pay me $20 for one! Wow! Oh, also, I was given a link to a pattern for a knitted cherry, so that will be perfect for the next one I make. How cute!
Let's see, now... what else have I been doing? Well, I'm working on a scarf:
It's worked on size 3 needles; that's tiny, for a scarf at least! But it's a comforting kind of slow, you know what I mean? I know that it won't get finished too quickly as I sit with it in class or in front of a book. It keeps my hands occupied for long stretches of time while my mind takes in all different ideas.
Actually, this scarf was going to be a project to get me more accustomed to Continental knitting. I read a couple different places that Continental knitting goes a lot faster than English knitting, so I figured it'd be a good idea to at least try it, despite the fact that I've been knitting quickly and comfortably with the yarn between my right thumb and forefinger ever since I learned.
Well... Continental knitting does not go faster. Nor does it make it any easier to regulate tension. In fact, all that wrapping around fingers and winding needles around each other with handicapped ambidexterity is a downright annoyance. All the rows in which I held the yarn with my left hand are considerably looser and more uneven than the rest, so I decided right then and there to give up my attempt at becoming a Continental knitting master and go back to the style that has served me well since childhood. So there!
Ooh, I bought yarn on eBay! Isn't that exciting? 4 skeins of pretty blue %100 wool. Now--promise not to laugh--this is my first purchase of wool yarn. Ever. Yes, that's right... I've been knitting obsessively for nine months and, alas, my stash remains nearly full of synthetic fibers. I suppose the major reason is that I am cheap, but honestly, I find nothing wrong with acrylic yarn. Most knitters out there seem to cringe at the very idea of buying a brand of yarn that is sold at your everyday monstrous retail store, but I truly find nothing wrong with Bernat Super Value, Caron Simply Soft, hell, even Lion Brand is a bit of a luxury to me. I mean, what is so bad about acrylic yarn? It's machine washable, affordable, and it's even softer than a lot of wools out there. So, yeah.. now you know. I love acrylic yarn and I'm not ashamed to admit it.
However, thinking that I must be missing out on something since I haven't ventured past the cheapest yarns stocked at Michael's, I was delighted to find that on eBay I can, in fact, get nice yarn of natural origin for around the same price. This is a revolution. This is a major turnaround in my yarn stashing standards.
Energized from my eBay escapade, I asked my father if he had any yarn lying around from the days when he was really into crocheting. Oh boy, when I was a kid my dad used to make the coolest hand-crocheted ties and billed hats with a teeny tiny hook (all, coincidentally, crocheted in the English style). I knew he didn't really do it anymore since his fascination with making pipes has escalated, so he gave me all of his old yarn. They're mostly pretty boring colors, and I only found a multitude of different scraps each rolled tightly into a ball and piled into a grocery bag (I suppose that mainly crocheters accumulate these bags full of various tiny yarn balls, because I've also seen them at my grandma's house and tucked into my Spanish teacher's purse).
See?
But, yeah, they're all wool. At least my dad wasn't one of those Red Heart Granny Square Afghan crocheters. Oh, not that there's anything wrong with that, of course, but... well... you know.
Luckily, there was one large skein that my dad never broke into, which was exciting to find. It's a dull purpley/blue that would make a nice lace shawl or something, if only I wore shawls. I don't know. I'll decide what to do with it later, but here it is.
posted by Sally Sue @ 12:00 PM
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