A Tale of Two Yarns

I had a bit of an inner debate on what I should do for this. I actually don’t think that inner debate is complete yet. Actually, I know it isn’t since I just spent about ten minutes trying to find a picture of certain yarn that I have (however, it’s not down here at school with me) and I just now decided, “No, I’m not going to use that one… I’m going to use a different one.” Well crud.

Anyways, now I know for sure what I am going to do for this one. (Yay, last minute decisions!) What I have come up with is to take two of my WIPS and look closely about what I like/dislike about the yarn for them. The two WIPS I have decided to look at are my Cachoeira Socks and the blanket I am making for my boyfriend. I will start with the one I cast-on first, which is my boyfriend’s blanket.

Yes, I know there’s pink of all colors in my boyfriend’s blanket, but let me make it clear right now that he picked out the colors himself. Not me. (He also paid for the yarn himself, I’m pretty sure.)

Anyways, the yarn I’m using on this project is Bernat Handicrafter Cotton Baby Ombre and that is a long name for yarn, so if I call it something I will call it Bernat Baby Cotton yarn because that seems a lot easier to say and it’s a lot less words. So there were some criteria that needed filling when this yarn was picked out.

First off, he’s going to college in Arizona so it’s hot there all year around and he’s not going to want a heavy wool blanket. So I ended up doing a little research (AKA posting on Ravelry and getting some opinions) about what type of fiber to use for a blanket that won’t be too hot, but will still keep you warm. The consensus was cotton yarn, so that is what I looked for.

The next part of the criteria was enough to make this blanket, but not use a lot of money. So we went to JoAnn Fabrics, because I was pretty sure that out of the many times I had been there looking at yarn, I’d seen some huge skeins of cotton yarn at a decent price. Even better, when we went the yarn was on sale, so it cost even less that it normally would have been. I mean, going with the yarn that they use on the pattern (Vanna’s Choice), the yarn costs would have been double what we paid for this yarn. So all was good.

The final reason that this was a good yarn for this pattern is that, I cannot for the life of me knit with cotton yarn. I don’t know what it is, but it just does not work. It does not matter what kind of needles I will use or not knitting tight enough, I just cannot use cotton yarn to knit. However, I absolutely love to crochet with cotton yarn and many people will probably agree with this, crocheting a blanket is much easier faster thank knitting a blanket.

However, that does bring up the only downside of this yarn… I would never be able to knit something with it, but I don’t think that’ll be a problem anytime. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I cannot knit with cotton yarn and will probably never figure out how to knit with cotton yarn. That is fine by me now.

Now onto the second one, the yarn I am using for my Cachoeira socks.

For those of you that are observant, you will realize that I have not made any progress what-so-ever on these socks since I made a blog post about starting them on Friday. Ok, that’s a lie, I have completed another row, but that’s not so obvious and definitely not much. I’ve been more focused on school work than knitting this weekend sadly.

Anyways, the yarn I am using on this project is Malabrigo Sock Yarn. Yes, I am oh-so-original to be using sock yarn on a sock pattern, haha. Unlike the last one, this yarn was not picked out for this project. Actually, my boyfriend had picked out this yarn (yeah, he has good taste in yarn, doesn’t he?) for a pair of fingerless gloves that I was supposed to make him. However, those fingerless gloves were being done very slowly (like progress was going slower on them than it is on his blanket) and then he came to visit and told me to just rip them and use the yarn for something for myself. So really, I picked the pattern for the yarn… After attempting another pattern with it.

I’m going to make it clear here that there was nothing wrong with the yarn to make me not want to make the fingerless gloves for my boyfriend. I actually really really wanted to make those gloves. However, I was busy with school work (so much exams and studying and homework) that I had no time to knit and when I did have time to knit, I did not want to just do stockinette row after stockinette row. It got boring very quickly. If I had been making the gloves using a different pattern that had some lace or ribbing or something in it, I would’ve been fine. (And I fully intend to have some gloves made for him for next winter, but he doesn’t know that yet… Until he reads this which he may)

Now back to the main focus, the yarn. I am in love with this yarn! Seriously, it is extremely soft and comes in some gorgeous colorways. This skein was actually labeled “800 Tiziano Red”, but when you look here at Malabrigo’s website’s page for their sock yarn you may be able to tell from my picture that this looks a lot more like the “801 Botticelli Red”. I’m not sure whether mine was mislabeled or just dyed much differently than the picture looks. But this is nothing to me, just something I noticed and thought since I’m making a post focused on yarn, I can definitely bring that up.

When I was asking people for opinions on what this yarn may want to be, I was told to not make socks with it. My brain immediately went “Wait, wha…?” The reason for this was that supposedly this yarn, when worn feels so soft that many have been afraid they are going to easily wear a hole in the socks. So it was recommended that I make fingerless gloves with this yarn. However, once I had seen the Cachoeira socks pattern, I understood exactly what people meant when they say the yarn tells you what it wants to be. I knew that moment the pattern caught my attention, this exact 440.0 yards of “800 Tiziano Red” that looks like “801 Botticelli Red” Malabrigo Sock yarn wants to be made into these socks. I decided that I will find out myself if it is a bad idea to make socks out of this yarn and to each his/her own opinion, but this skein definitely wants to be these socks there is no doubt in my mind.

For both of these yarns, I suppose you may say that I don’t have a “complete” opinion on them yet. Once the projects are complete and the items have been used a bit, I will have more of an idea how I like the yarns. But for now, this is how I see these two yarns and this is a complete enough idea for Day One’s post for the 2nd Annual Knitting and Crochet Blog Week. (Even better, unlike my other posts, this doesn’t only have knitting, it has crocheting in it too!) Please leave input and all if you will on my blog or just this post or the Knitting and Crochet Blog Week even if that is what you wish. Thank you for reading this, even though I know it’s long. I’m happy I’ve at least gotten one post for Knitting and Crochet Blog Week done! I’ve officially participated some!

No FO, but…

I cast-on the Cachoeira socks on Tuesday! I needed to sorta turn my brain off for a short period of time while studying for my Biology exam (which was Wednesday), so decided “Socks!” I never made this “I cast-on!” post because I didn’t feel like I was far enough along to get a good picture of how everything looks so far. Needless to say, I’m still not very far along and won’t be making any speedy progress on these socks anytime soon, but they are coming along. [Those on Rav, there’s a little more information here on my projects page for these socks.]

I haven’t gotten to the pattern yet, but will be starting it starting with the next row, which means “I finished the cuff! Yay!”

 

Here is a picture of the cuff =)

I was honestly very pleasantly surprised when I looked through the four pictures I took that one came out so well that it actually shows the details! Seriously, some may even be able to tell what the pattern is just by looking at this picture! So I’m very pleased to say the least. =]

Oh, one more thing. For those that don’t know about it, the 2nd Annual Knitting & Crochet Blog Week starts on Monday! I’m hoping to be able to put something up on every day (I’m about to start working ahead a little bit after I do a bit of homework) So check it out if you haven’t yet. =]

I Be Back!

Alrighty! I’m back! I’ve been gone and busy as all get out.

Anyways, my boyfriend told me to go ahead and rip the fingerless gloves I’ve been working on (very slowly) for him and make something else. So I’ve decided on these socks from Knitty. (The link that says “these” goes to the pattern on Ravelry. The link that says “Knitty” goes to the pattern on Knitty.com. Simple right?) I decided on the Cachoeira socks because they look difficult enough to keep me entertained and learning something, but seem simple enough they won’t take too much brain power. So yay! New sock pattern in my queue!

However, I now have an issue… If you look in that link that goes to my queue, I also have yarn for the Crazy Ribs Fingerless Gloves and that’s not the only issue! If you look at my Ravelry project page, you’ll see that I have three WIPS. One is a cotton blanket for my boyfriend that needs quite a bit of work still. One is a bag to be used for projects that I got in a kit from Knitpicks. That one’s not too much of a priority, but is very slow-going and good for majorly mindless knitting. (Seriously, it’s just knit stitches in the round, kinda boring) And finally are my in-progress Dragonfly Socks, which have been in progress for a long time. I mean, since I started them I’ve been a little on and off knitting (due to how busy I am) and these have been on and off my main focus. I’ve got one sock done, which was finished last summer and the other partly started.

And this leads me to why all of the information in the above paragraph is issue-ful. (It’s my blog, “issue-ful” can be a word if I want it to be. I also say this when I talk.)

1. I’m not 100% sure if I want to have two sock patterns going at once, because one (most likely the Dragonfly Socks) will be put o the back burner)
2. I should know better than to cast-on two projects at once. Plus, later I can cast-on the other if I need, so I need to save one in case that has to happen.
3. That blanket for the boyfriend, needs focused on. So there’s another reason to why only one can be started.
4. Which one do I cast on?!?!?!

I think that’s all that needs to be listed there under the “issue-ful” category. So next, I’m going to make a poll that I will keep open until I make up my mind. The votes on the poll (if there are any) will be taken into consideration, but I’d like to know what you all would do.

When I added the poll, I realized there’s a lot of words in this post so far! And I’m guessing some of you don’t wanna look at a post and see tons of words. So I’m going to go grab some pictures of the pretties I want to cast-on and put them on here. =]

The pretty socks I wanna make.

The pretty/awesome fingerless gloves I wanna make.

And that’s all for now. =] I hope I get some input by the time I’m back from Zumba. I’m leaving in about 10 min & will be back in about an hour & a half. I may edit this when I get back from there or I may just work on reading (I should do that) or I may just start the frogging (rip-it rip-it) of the no-longer-gonna-be-boyfriends-fingerless-gloves so I have my Malabrigo Sock Yarn free. That’d be smart too. We’ll see! =]

A bit of edits less than 5 minutes after posting this… One, I clicked my like button because I was curious what it looked like when someone likes the blog posts on here and I can’t undo it. Oops. Two, I forgot what two was… I’ll probably be back to add three (AKA me remembering two.)

Eep, sorry!

So, I haven’t been posting, obviously. The last time I did, was my Idea Searching post that was a week ago I believe. I haven’t been feeling too well, and I’m studying my butt off for a Biology lab practical and a Chemistry exam next week. Even better is I’m going to a concert on Tuesday night (Kid Rock, whoo!) and what’s the next day? Chemistry exam. I got the tickets before knowing when my exams are and well, I would’ve preferred to go to Miranda Lambert, which is later in the month, but oh well. I let my friend chose.

So there is my apology and explanation as to why I haven’t posted. I also don’t have much in the way of progress for my boyfriends fingerless gloves. I was knitting the other night and my wrist started killing me, so I’m not sure what is going on there. Well, except for past wrist injuries, but that’s a long story. Anyways, so sorry I haven’t been posting, I’m a busy studying my butt off college student who has lots of crap I have to do. So sorry! I’ll do my best to get some work done on the gloves, but can’t guarantee anything with a busy crap schedule. Good news is that after this week, I get spring break! So I get to sleep lots, study a little (I have a calc exam the week I get back) and I’ll get some knitting done! Hopefully that week I can sneak away from my dads house up to the Starbucks up the street so I have Wifi and can update a bit. =] We’ll see.

Idea Searching

So I shouldn’t be trying to decide what I am going to make with my pretty Crazy Zauberball, but instead finishing the gloves for my boyfriend. However, I am extremely bored with the pattern for the boyfriend’s fingerless gloves because they are just knit stitches with some increase rounds. I’m not even done with the first one because the pattern is just boring me. So I am now doing some idea searching for what to make with my Crazy Zauberball.

First off, some information about my Crazy Zauberball I bought. Here is all the important information like yardage, weight, fiber, etc for those who do not know. Sorry I’m not quite up to typing it all out here in this post because I hurt my finger yesterday doing laundry… Or more like getting ready to do laundry. (If you’d like more information on that, let me know and I can make a post about it if necessary) And so that you know what we’re working with, below is a picture of my pretty Crazy Zauberball. (This colorway is called Filederluft)

Next, what I want to do with it. I want to make fingerless gloves out of it. It’s extremely soft and I love the feel of it and think that some fingerless gloves from it would be perfect. So, I am idea searching right now on Ravelry. What I’ve done so far is I have gone to the yarn’s page and gone to the “pattern ideas” tab and filtered it to gloves, so I have gotten these results. Out of those results, my top three are as follows: (These are not in order of favorites, they’re just the one’s I like in order of where they are in my tabs right now)

1. Monkey Fingerless Mitts by Michelle Johnson– I want to make the socks by Cookie A as well, but that’s an issue seeing as I only have one skein of my Crazy Zauberball and it’d be awesome to have a pair of fingerless gloves matching a pair of socks, but that may have to wait. (I’ve also been considering using my Serenity Sock Weight by Premier Yarns for this, but I’ve also got other sock ideas for it, so I’m not quite sure.)
2. Green Chevron Mitts by Tinysushi– When listed in the pattern ideas, this has a project by it in the Filederluft colorway, which I think looks like it turned out pretty awesome, so I’m interested. However, not quite sure still.
3. And I just realized that my third option is not free and I don’t have money to put down for a glove pattern, especially not $5, because I am a broke college student. So instead of the other one I found in that search, I will instead put a pattern here that I found shortly after buying this yarn and it was my first idea for this yarn. The pattern is Crazy Ribs Fingerless Gloves by Laura Peveler. When I first bought my Crazy Zauberball, I searched for fingerless glove patterns that are not too difficult and I thought would look good with this yarn and this pattern was the first to catch my eye, but I’ve been second guessing it a lot recently, hence the need for this post.

So, finally, I’m asking anyone who peeks at my blog to give me advice! I honestly have no idea what to go with and am at a loss right now and would love some input from others. Please comment with opinions on the three listed above and/or more ideas? It’d be appreciated.

Stupid Freakin’ M1R

So, I’m making the boyfriend fingerless gloves, as my last three posts have said. Well, here is what the increase round tells me to do:

“increase round: Knit to first marker, slip marker, M1L, knit to end of 2nd needle. On 3rd needle knit to 2nd marker, M1R, knit to end of round.”

No problem, right?

Wrong.

I can do the M1L fine, but the M1R never works and always looks all screwed up and a mess. I don’t get it. I’m following the video on the KnittingHelp.com Increases page and it just never looks right. So after trying about five times every time I come to the increase round, I give up. However, next increase round, what will I do? I’ll try and try and try until I’ve tried five times and gotten pissed with the stupid M1R again.

Every time.

That is all for my knitting rant. =]

WIP Wednesday

Well, my current WIP is my boyfriend’s fingerless gloves still. I’ve been so busy with ridiculous amounts of school work (biology and chemistry both decided this week formal lab reports would be do along with three chemistry assignments) so I never got to do my “What’s in my Queue” day and am now second guessing the pattern I chose for my yarn for my fingerless gloves. We’ll see. I may just do a list of fingerless glove patterns and ask for opinions on which to use for my yarn. I don’t know, we’ll see.

Anyways, here are some pictures of the fingerless gloves for my boyfriend. They’ve gotten a few inches added on to them this week, which is pretty good for how busy and all I’ve been.

I think this picture shows the color best

Shows progress when you look back at the last few posts

Shows progress as well

Sorry everything’s sorta choppy now. In the middle of making this, I started having roommate issues and am about ready to explode. So yeah, sorry.

Glove Pictures

Alright, so I got the pictures of the longboarding gloves mentioned here. So here they are! =]

Picture is a little blurry and washed out, sorry ="

 

Yeah, it looks huge on me, but that's because I have tiny wrists and hands compared to my boyfriend

I think this picture shows the color best, but it's pretty blurry as well.

So, I hope you enjoy!

Taking a Break

So, while I’m taking a break from studying my butt off for my Biology exam tomorrow, I decided to update this.

I meant to start getting into the weekly habit of doing WIP Wednesdays starting yesterday so I’d at least have a place to start with my blog until I got on more steady ground with my knitting and school work and working out. Well, in the midst of studying for my Biology exam, I forgot. So I’m making a quick, picture-less comment on what I’m working on right now.

I’m using the Dog Paw Gloves pattern to make fingerless gloves for my boyfriend to use for longboarding. (I added a link in case anyone is wondering, “What is longboarding?” so there you go if that’s you =]) I’m using some beautiful Malabrigo sock yarn in 800 Tiziano Red. However, when you click that link and look at the colors, what I’m using looks more like the 801 Boticelli Red. Maybe I got one that was mislabeled because the colorway that it said was 800 Tiziano Red. Oh well, doesn’t matter, but that’s what it looks like and what I’m working on.

Also, I will either post a few pictures of the fingerless gloves mentioned above either tonight or tomorrow. Depends how the studying goes tonight.

Hello world!

Alright, just a little… About what this blog is about. I hope to keep this just to my knitting and crocheting. Hopefully this will encourage me to work more on knitting than I have been lately. It’s been hard to with all my schoolwork that I have, but I fully intend to keep it up at least some. I love doing both and I have taught myself both.

Alright, so hopefully this will be updated two or three (maybe pushing it) times a week. I’m going to give an outline of my plan below:

• Wednesday– Those on Ravelry that are in The Blog Hub and probably even some who aren’t in there, know what Wednesday’s are for many blogging knitters. It is WIP Wednesday and I hope to do this as well. I enjoyed looking at the blogs I randomly scrolled through of that group’s and thought that would be something to help remind me what I’m currently working on.
• Friday– Once again, those on Ravelry in The Blog Hub will know what’s coming here. It’s FO Friday and this will most likely NOT be a weekly update for me. If I finish a project, I will most likely update this blog the day I finish it. However, if a (or a few, you never know) projects are finished in a week and I post them during the week (the week in this case being Friday-to-Friday) I will update my blog on Friday and have links to the blog post about the finished project.
• Some-day-that-isn’t-Friday-or-Wednesday– I will have a “What’s in my queue day” meaning information about patterns that I plan on knitting or crocheting (hopefully) soon. This could also change to “Oooh, pretty patterns I found this week day” We’ll see what it becomes. I know the first one will be a “What’s in my queue day” because I have two patterns picked out for two pretty yarns in my stash. =] So I will pick a day that will most likely be on the weekend. We will see whichever day I have free.

So, I hope this explains my plans for this blog. There will probably be some tangents off of the knitting/crochet topic to my school-work, but I will try to keep those to a minimum, because you don’t wanna come here thinking you’ll hear about knitting/crocheting and then hear about biology or chemistry. Not fun.