This is mostly a knitting blog. Sometimes pictures of things I've made, sometimes not. I'm a guy who knits, I usually attend a men's stitch 'n' bitch on Monday nights, and I prefer natural fibres to artificial ones. I have a love-hate relationship with bamboo yarns: I love what they can do and how they look, I hate how they are made. I've been knitting since about 2003, though I really didn't get into it until 2005, while convelescing with a broken leg. I must have discovered something good, 'cause I'm still knitting years later.

Thursday, March 6, 2014

A Little Weird

I am making a shawl for my friend Adrienne, an ashes-of-roses shawl in bulky baby alpaca. Fat yarn means fat needles, and fat needles mean visible progress at a fast rate. This particular shawl is based on the Irish Hiking Scarf, but I added two more cable rows, and I've changed it from all front cables to front, back, front, back, front. I like it, and it gives the shawl a bit more depth. And like I said, it has cables. So far, I've cabled 11 times. And I love cabling.

But on of the weird things about me is that when I put my knitting away, I cannot stop on a cabled row. I have to knit at least two more rows after it, or, if I don't have the time, I stop on the row before the cabled row. And why is this, you might ask? Because it feels like cabling the yarn is torturing it, and leaving it on the needles at the cabled row is hurting it.

Yeah, I know. Weird. Yarn doesn't have any feelings. But it is stretching so, and let's face it, when one knits the following row after a cabled row, everything is a bit tight, especially around where the cable occurred. So removing it from the needle, and then adding another row after that, helps to let the yarn, well, relax. It isn't straining as much. It isn't quite as tortured. It lets the yarn feel a little more groovy.

Well, I never said I was rational.


Here is the shawl I've got on the needles right now. I have just added the third skein (of six), so it's just about 1/3 done. It's just under two feet, and when it's blocked, the cables will pop, and it will be a bit wider, enough to be a proper shawl.  


Just look at those cables. They're gonna >POP!< when it's blocked!

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