It Came From The Bag

Let me first preface this post with this; I am not a yarn snob, though I play one for my friends.  I truly believe in a knit and let knit philosophy, regardless of the teasing "Friends don't let friends knit acrylic," I give my wife.  

As far as yarn goes, I only have two rules.  

First, never knit acrylic for a baby.  Acrylic is highly flammable, continues to burn after a flame is taken away, and melts for perfect adhesion to flesh.  The chemicals used to treat acrylic to remove these properties are rather nasty, and anything you give a baby goes straight into it's mouth.  There are plenty of other materials that are machine washable, so there are far better choices for baby clothing out there.

Second, knit what will make you happy.  If your going to spend hours knitting a piece of clothing, than you should be happy with the material for your chosen project.  You may need to save up longer for more expensive yarn, but if you'll be happier with the end product, I say buy the pricey stuff.  If wool is too scratchy, or your allergic to it, then find something that feels right for you.

So, a few weeks ago my wife was offered a chance to buy a bag of fiber, she didn't really want it, but there wasn't much chance to think about it, and she bought it anyway.  In the bag was a ball of yellow chenille yarn, it looks like it could have been around since the 70's, and it probably has been.  Because she bought, she is instilled with a determination to use this yarn, and has tried to cast on at least twice.  This is despite the fact that she doesn't like the color, and the yarn is so old and brittle that it continuously breaks while trying to knit with it.

Last night, she finally admitted that it just wasn't working.  It's just too frustrating to try to knit.  It's time to put old yeller down, and this dog won't be missed.

I, Blog.

Or more appropriately I don't Blog.   Now the reason for this is not complete laziness on my part, (although I suppose I must admit to a least a little of that,) nor is it completely procrastination, although in way that's closer to the mark.  I am working on the blog, just not in a fashion that anyone but me can see.  I'm trying to find the program I'd prefer to blog on, as well as make a template for my blog that's unique to me and not just a standard theme from blog software.  However, this is all taking me a while to fiddle with different programs, and I've been telling myself why bother updating the blog when I'm just going to change it soon.  Of course using soon as a marker of time is relative to what one is doing, and it may be another month before I come to a decision on what blog, template, etc to use.  So instead, I'll just update the blog and import when the time comes.

So, here is what I'm currently doing. 

This is my wife's second spinning wheel, which we picked up in Portland for a great price.  She is kindly letting me use it until the wheel that I ordered comes in October.  Now I'm not particularly a spinner, I was quite happy to be just a knitter, and that's what I told everyone at the spinning group that my wife goes to.  I'd happily knit in a corner while everyone else spun, and while it looked fun, I have more than enough on my plate just knitting.  Then I learned about the Journey wheel, as well as some of the cool things that you can spin up that you just can't buy at the store, and I was hooked.  It will never be quite the passion that it is to my wife, but it is a nice diversion from knitting every now and then.

This is just a simple sock I'm working on, one of those projects that is straight and mindless stockinette, when I want to knit but don't want anything too complicated.  Done with Fly designs Nymph Hand painted Yarn.

Here we have a fingerless glove, in a checker board pattern, done with Shibui Knits Ink and Seaweed.

Look, Intarsia Spaghetti.

That's it for now, I've got several other projects I'm working on, but nothing that I can post at the moment.  With any luck, I'll have a newer and better blog up and running in a month or so, but I'll go ahead and try to update at least once a week until then.