Wednesday, October 6, 2010

How far in a day.

Experiment: complete. Turns out I can work through almost 65g of yarn (about 190 yards) between the hours of 9am and 3:30 pm. I did take a break to eat lunch at that conference, but I also knit all the way home while I walked, so I figure it's a wash.

This was gratifying, and it was very nice to be touching cashmere and angora and lambswool all day, and the simple stitch is very beautiful, but I'm back to thinking that a 10" wide scarf is not the best use of 200g of this yarn, so I may frog. Or supplement. Haven't decided.

Monday was cold, so I cast on for a new hat with my very first handspun before heading out to a 2-hour meeting I could knit through. That one fairly quickly looked like this:


and I even got as far as well-through-the-crown before I got home. But then I tried it on and: no.

Turns out that when thick and thin yarn goes from super bulky to laceweight in a matter of inches, repeatedly, you run a high risk of having your gauge change dramatically and in clumps. This does not produce a flattering hat shape.

Also, it appears I need more circular and/or double-pointed needles, because I only have up to 4.5mm in the materials and points I like, and I would have needed 6mm for this project. I'm going to give it one more try with the needles I have though - the photo above having been taken just before I started attempt number two, also since frogged - this time with the tiny bit I spun from this colourway after I figured out how to use a spindle.

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