Lots of knitting

Well, it's been a while. Bad, bad case of Seasonal Affective Disorder. 'Nuff said on that.

Have been doing lots of knitting. Made two hats with the Binary Cable Hat pattern on Ravelry. I just love this pattern! It lets me cable while at the same time appealing to the geeky side of me as the cables represent the numbers 1 - 16 in binary. But it's cool enough that if it was gifted to a non-geek they'd love it, too.


The big picture shows the details.

Collin begged me for a hat, and I made him one in black and red using the Fibonacci strip sequence. For those of you not familiar with this, the number of rows in each band are added together to get the number of rows in the next band like this: first band has 1 row, 2nd has 2, add them together, next band has 3, etc. His hat used this sequence: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, then what I needed to do the crown decrease. I'm hoping that by placing a mathematical pattern on his head, math will flow into his head by osmosis. It's worth a try.



My poncho is now over half done. I am proud to report that I no longer need the pattern to work it - the cables just make sense!!! I've put it aside for a while because I've been itching to make a sweater, and I chose Michael Cors Cabled Sweater from the Fall 2004 edition of Vogue Knitting. If you are a Ravelry member, you can see a good example of it here. This is a little less than I have done currently - I just started it 3 days ago, so I'm happy with my progress.



One thing that has really helped is that I have learned to cable without using a cable needle. I've only done this over 4 stitches and am not sure that I could do it over 6, but it really speeds things up. I found a video for you from YouTube that demonstrates the basic way of doing this - I've found the method in this video to be by far the easiest.



Another thing about this sweater. It called for Tahki-Stacy "Zara Plus" yarn. At $10.50 a 50 oz. skein, and with me needing 21 skeins, this sweater would have cost me around $220 to make. I would love to go out and get this yarn, really, really would. However, I'm not related in any way to Daddy Warbucks. So, the sweater is being made with Caron Simply Soft. I know - a Michael Kors in acrylic???!!! This yarn is soft, I like knitting with it, it has a lot of give, and I'll be able to machine wash and dry the sweater. And it will just get softer and softer. Yes, acrylic is o.k. Embrace it. Love it. Just be sure to use a soft kind like Caron Simply Soft (my fave) or Vanna's Choice (which I feel is a little rougher) or Berroco Comfort (a nylon/acrylic blend and also the most expensive, but the most bragworthy with your knitty friends, of the bunch). Yes, acrylic can be your friend.


We aren't related. Plus, he's not real.