WIP Friday #34

I’m now back to working on my what does the fox say? shawl. I’m at the point where I need to decide how wide to make it. I had a few stitch counts in mind for what might be the right size. I just hit the first one. I pinned it out and see exactly how wide it is now.

 

It’s a meter wide and about half a meter deep. I can keep going. That is not long enough to wrap around your neck. I know the shawls I have that are about two meters wide can be a bit too large, so I think I need to aim for a meter and a half. Now I just need to work to the second stitch count and measure again.

I’m a bit worried about having enough yarn. I really wish I had a kitchen scale to measure exactly how much yarn I’ve used. That would make life much easier. I’m planning on a knit on border and I know those always use much more yarn than you expect. I always stress about having enough yarn. All I can do is keep knitting and not make the shawl too big!

A trip to Brighton

This weekend has been a bit of a holiday. I haven’t been spending as much time knitting, but I did get a chance to go on a wonderful trip to Brighton. There is a wonderful pier with a ton on arcade games. Including one that’s played with 2p coins. Since I collect my coins in jars I had plenty of them to play with.

Playing away all my pennies!

At the end of the day I had six new friends to take home with me, won with the help of my husband. We might have spent some time trying to figure out how best to play.

It was plenty cold out near the ocean and I’m glad I had my hand-knits to keep me warm. I also learned why arcades make so much money. It’s so hard to stop! We had planned on a long walk on the beach but there wasn’t enough time. The ocean was still stirred up from the big storm that came through last week but it was still beautiful. I hope I get a chance to visit again soon.

Kettle Yarn Co. -the shop is ALIVE!

I’m really excited to have a new yarn supplier!

From the Purl Side

Well, it has been a crazy couple of weeks getting everything ready to launch, but we are finally live!

You can find the official shop on Etsy:

I’d actually made the shop live last weekend, hoping to get all my current bases dyed and up before letting everyone know, but amazingly made a few sales over the week! What an enormous relief on the one hand and also a panic on the other as my cards aren’t back from the printer yet and I haven’t quite sorted out my packaging..and…and…

But SALES!! Yippeee!

It is time to let go and let my baby out into the world while I continue to add stock. The journey to my own personal yarn empire has begun! ;-P

I’ll be doing some posts on the amazing bases I have chosen as my ‘regulars’ over the next few weeks so you can get an in…

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Internet’s Down

My Internet has been down today. Hopefully it’ll be back to normal soon. I’m posting this from a borrowed phone. Normal posting should resume on Wednesday.

Why I hate single ply yarns

Periodically I buy single ply yarns. They always look beautiful in the skein. So soft and when you knit them they have wonderful stitch definition. But then this happens.

This is the left front at about the waist. I would say it’s a medium friction area not as bad as the sides. But look at all the pills!

This cardigan is less than a year old but it has sprouted so many pills. I ignored what I knew about this type of yarns and just went ahead and made something beautiful, soft, and snuggly. I still love the fit and warmth of this cardigan but I can’t bring myself to wear it outside the house. I should spend an evening picking off as many of the pills as possible but that’s so boring. Let this serve as a warning for other knitters. Don’t choose a super soft singly ply yarn for a sweater you want to wear regularly!