Science Monkey

Did you know I twist my stitches? Yeah, neither did I!

This past weekend was Hanks first anniversary super-mega-ginoromo sale, so Emma and I hit the yarn store to spend the gift certificates that I got for my birthday (and a little more, besides). I’ve decided that my next big project will be Speed Racer from Son of Stitch ‘n Bitch. Sadly, I can’t find any good pictures of the finished product. I’ll have to remedy that.

To that end, I bought a new set of circular needles (Addi turbos! So fun!) and a ball of the yarn I want to use. The sweater will be essentially all blue, with a wide orange stripe down the top of the sleeve. The yarn I bought is from Lorna’s Laces Green Line. The body will be navy and the stripe will be a nice, matte orange called Courage. The navy is on order, but I grabbed a ball of the orange to use for swatching.

Woo! Swatching! Something new! Actually, I’m not such a fan, but it’s a good thing that I did the swatch. The pattern calls for a gauge of 4 stitches per inch and I’m knitting at about 5 with this yarn. Without the swatch, I wouldn’t have known that and the sweater would have been 20% too small, and I would have been Quite Upset. Fortunately, this problem can be solved with a quick application of math, and the sweater will be cast on as soon as that navy yarn comes in.

It turns out that the swatch, when finished, makes a nice cat pillow. Awwww…

Okay, okay. I cheated a little on that picture. She was so zonked out that I could have put a piece of sandpaper under her head and she would have slept happily. Still, it’s cute, right?

When I took the swatch back to the yarn store for advice on how to proceed, Lorena noticed that I twisted my stitches. News to me! It turned into a nice little lesson on the difference between twisted and non-twisted stitches, and when to use twisted stitches. That was a surprise, but it turned out to be useful.

In other knitting news, I ripped back the second sock this weekend. I was getting close to being finished, when I noticed that I had screwed up the heel. Grr. Somehow I basically turned the sole of the sock inside out, with the seam on the outside. Emma saw purl bumps on the bottom of the sock, too, but I never noticed those. Feh. So, sorry, Sarah. It’s going to be a little while longer until the socks are done. But they’re going to be gorgeous! I promise!