Spring Has Sprung

Happy Spring, Everyone!

Congratulations to Jill B, who won my little contest! I've send you a Ravelry message. (You were really close, Betty...just a smidge over).


I'm very happy to have finished my Snow Valley Top. The weather here is on the warm side for an alpaca blend yarn, but it's perfect for me to wear to work in the mornings while it's still cool and be able to survive the air conditioning in my office all day. Without further delay, here it is:



More pictures, along with details on my mods and corrections to the pattern are on Ravelry.

Weighty Matters

I had prepared a post for today, but when I got online to publish it this morning, I saw the news coming out of Japan and wasn't really in the mood. I've decided tonight to queue up some posts since I'll be out of pocket for a little while, but I changed it up a bit. Stay tuned for a something a little extra at the end.

I have known for some time that weighing yarn is a useful way to estimate the length. Lots of people talk about it, and it was even a Car Talk Puzzler! But I'd never actually done it before because I didn't have a kitchen scale. Well, I finally got one a fewl months ago, and it's definitely been very handy.

For example, when I was finishing up my Snow Valley top, I saved the sleeves for last. I had already knit one and had to figure out if I had enough yarn left for the second sleeve. Before the scale, I would have just fretted a lot. But with the scale...



...I figured I'd be okay since my sleeve and the remaining yarn weighed exactly the same. Turns out, the scale did not lie. Whew! I was able to finish my top, but you'll have to wait for awhile before I can show you a modeled shot.

In the meantime, you might have noticed that you can't read the weight in the pictures. This is not a defect with the scale. It's because I decided to delete the reading and let you guess the number. The yarn is Alpaca Silk by Blue Sky Alpacas. Guess the weight shown on the scale (in grams), without going over, and you'll win 2 skeins of Alpaca Silk of your own (I'll give you a list of colors to choose from). If more than one person comes up with the right answer, the winner will be chosen randomly from among them. For each entrant who leaves a comment here with their answer, I'll add another $5 to my Red Cross donation. Make sure I have some way to contact you--email, Ravelry, or blog. Contest closes Friday, March 18th, at 10 PM Pacific Time.

Winding Up

I am the type of person who likes to just start knitting right away as soon as I've committed to a project. I have little patience for things like swatching, and I grumble at the thought of yarn that is not already in a useable form when you purchase it. One of my best knitting investments was a ball winder and swift. Since it's called a "swift," I've always taken that literally. Unless it's a really delicate yarn prone to breakage or fuzzing, I like to really make that thing spin, whipping it around just as fast as it can go. It used to freak out our hamster when she was alive.

Then, I read TechKnitter's post on the usefulness of ball winders. This gave me pause--literally. If you haven't already read it, go do so, and I'll wait. If you have, then you'll understand why I've decided to slow down when I"m winding my yarn now. I try to think of it as an important part of ensuring a good result, rather than a necessary stumbling block before I get to the "real" project.

Making It Count

Let's take a look at some directions:

k2, m1, k till last 2 sts, m1, k2 (increase round)
repeat increase round every 8 rows 3 more times

I used to read instructions like that and write notes to myself about which row number would have the increase action. If the first set of increases happened on row 25, then I'd jot down that they get repeated on rows 33, 41, and 49, and I'd use my row counter to keep track of which row number I was working. There's nothing intuitive about those numbers, though, so I'd have to keep referencing my notes in order to remember which rows to anticipate.

I now use the counter in a different way. For a situation like this, the tens place represents how many increase rows have been done, and the ones place represents how many rows it has been since the last increase. When I'm on the first increase row, I reset the counter to "1-0." With subsequent rows, the ones place gets increased till I get to "1-7"


Since we're increasing every 8 rows in this example, the next row will be an increase row, and the counter gets set to "2-0". I knit on till I get to "2-7," and then "3-0" comes next. Skipping forward, we get to "3-7", and then finally "4-0." That means 4 increases have been completed, so I'm done with that section of the pattern.

How do you use your counter?

*ETA: I had to go back and edit because I mixed up my increases and decreases. Doh! Thanks for catching that, Sue :-)

Deja Vu

I am knitting the Snow Valley top, which currently involves seemingly endless stockinette.



I had the feeling that I've done this knitting before: light green yarn, small needles, stockinette.


Yup. I have. Oh sure, Jasmine and Snow Valley are very different up on top, but so far, they're looking pretty similar, aren't they?