W00t, an FO!
Jul. 20th, 2008 12:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
omorkaTL;DR: OMFG, Magic Loop saved my ass! All hail the Magic Loop technique!
Have I mentioned that I hate hate hate double-pointed needles? Well, I do. Holy freaking crap, do I hate them. I can't knit on a porcupine. I know, half the knitters out there swear by them and feel like there's something missing on a circular, but I am not one of them. Y'all are welcome to them; my not using them means there are more for y'all.
So I wanted to make the MIL a hat to keep her head warm in the hospital - she's really sensitive to drafts. I went with some KnitPicks Swish Bulky in the Brindle Heather colorway, because it was thick enough to knit up quick, smooth enough to show off a pattern, and the color was understated but interesting. (Plus, it's so soft! And I didn't want to give her something she couldn't wash.) I'd bookmarked Emilee Mooney's Foliage hat (from the Fall '07 issue of Knitty) as something I wanted to make for myself at some point, so I decided to try it out - the colorway and the leaf pattern seemed like a good match, and the lace pattern would give her some ventilation while still being fuzzy and warm. One problem: I don't own a pair of 10.5 DPNs. I do, however, have a Knitpicks Options set and the cables to make a 47" circular needle. So I decided I'd give the Magic Loop technique a shot.
Wonder of wonders! No laddering! No needles falling out at awkward moments! I didn't even need to switch to a smaller circ to finish; I kept looping all the way to the cast off. *happy knitter dance* I am never using a DPN for anything other than i-cord ever again if I can help it. Magic Loop is Teh Awesome!
The other thing I tried new on this was the bind-off - I hate ribbing in the first place, and I knew that if I tried to cast off in ribbing in the usual method, I'd end up with a totally unyielding edge. So I tried the decrease bind-off instead, which worked okay except that when I wove in the tail at the end, I messed up the pattern and now that part (a) looks noticeably different and (b) isn't as stretchy as the rest. Ah, well. She probably won't notice. And it is nice and stretchy, to match the ribbing.
Yeah, so photo from my crappy digital camera with a white towel in the background:
Not quite true to color; there's more green in the heather and less red than the photo suggests. At least on my monitor. This is unblocked, as wearing it will put it in the correct shape for her head, and I didn't want to accidentally block it to too long or too wide. I'm quite happy with how the pattern turned out, not quite so happy about the binding (see above).
I ordered a skein of the same yarn in Verdant Heather, which I will probably knit into the same hat for myself sometime later. Not right now; not being cold-natured, I won't need it until November at the earliest. I also have a little less than half the skein left of this yarn; I might be able to get a third hat (probably another toque in a different pattern) out of the remnants of the two if I'm careful.
I am halfway done with the applied i-cord on Cobweb. I am hoping to finish the frakking thing and finally block it sometime this week, now that I'm on London time and can probably make it across the Atlantic by Tuesday.
Have I mentioned that I hate hate hate double-pointed needles? Well, I do. Holy freaking crap, do I hate them. I can't knit on a porcupine. I know, half the knitters out there swear by them and feel like there's something missing on a circular, but I am not one of them. Y'all are welcome to them; my not using them means there are more for y'all.
So I wanted to make the MIL a hat to keep her head warm in the hospital - she's really sensitive to drafts. I went with some KnitPicks Swish Bulky in the Brindle Heather colorway, because it was thick enough to knit up quick, smooth enough to show off a pattern, and the color was understated but interesting. (Plus, it's so soft! And I didn't want to give her something she couldn't wash.) I'd bookmarked Emilee Mooney's Foliage hat (from the Fall '07 issue of Knitty) as something I wanted to make for myself at some point, so I decided to try it out - the colorway and the leaf pattern seemed like a good match, and the lace pattern would give her some ventilation while still being fuzzy and warm. One problem: I don't own a pair of 10.5 DPNs. I do, however, have a Knitpicks Options set and the cables to make a 47" circular needle. So I decided I'd give the Magic Loop technique a shot.
Wonder of wonders! No laddering! No needles falling out at awkward moments! I didn't even need to switch to a smaller circ to finish; I kept looping all the way to the cast off. *happy knitter dance* I am never using a DPN for anything other than i-cord ever again if I can help it. Magic Loop is Teh Awesome!
The other thing I tried new on this was the bind-off - I hate ribbing in the first place, and I knew that if I tried to cast off in ribbing in the usual method, I'd end up with a totally unyielding edge. So I tried the decrease bind-off instead, which worked okay except that when I wove in the tail at the end, I messed up the pattern and now that part (a) looks noticeably different and (b) isn't as stretchy as the rest. Ah, well. She probably won't notice. And it is nice and stretchy, to match the ribbing.
Yeah, so photo from my crappy digital camera with a white towel in the background:
Not quite true to color; there's more green in the heather and less red than the photo suggests. At least on my monitor. This is unblocked, as wearing it will put it in the correct shape for her head, and I didn't want to accidentally block it to too long or too wide. I'm quite happy with how the pattern turned out, not quite so happy about the binding (see above).
I ordered a skein of the same yarn in Verdant Heather, which I will probably knit into the same hat for myself sometime later. Not right now; not being cold-natured, I won't need it until November at the earliest. I also have a little less than half the skein left of this yarn; I might be able to get a third hat (probably another toque in a different pattern) out of the remnants of the two if I'm careful.
I am halfway done with the applied i-cord on Cobweb. I am hoping to finish the frakking thing and finally block it sometime this week, now that I'm on London time and can probably make it across the Atlantic by Tuesday.
