Summer is coming to Texas, which means it will be hot. Hot during the day, hot at night, and hot in the morning. I found a recumbent stationary bicycle so that I can get some exercise this summer, because I have historical data that I won’t go walking in the summer heat. I also know that I am easily distracted, so I have two arm bags with different projects set up on the machine, and there is a stand for my phone so I can get some learning in while I craft and pedal.
Here is the finished brioche knit cowl that I made with yarn that had a long color shift. I absolutely love the play of color that appeared by knitting it from opposite ends of the same pull skein.
The yarn was two ply with each ply a separate color, so some sections were solid color, but others were purple and gray, or blue and purple, and the colored sections were long. As I was rolling up the yarn into two separate balls, I did find some knots from the manufacturer that put an abrupt color change in the yarn. I reknotted those sections to different areas of the yarn that had a closer match. It pays to rewind commercially spun long repeat yarn to check for inappropriate color changes due to knots.
I tried again with the ombre brioche cowl, after I bound off my first botched attempt. This time instead of working from the inside and outside of the commercial pull skein, I divided the yarn into two nostepinne wound balls.
Because each ball will slowly change color as I knit, I marked ball “B” with a blue stitch marker so I could keep track of which one I was working with.
Brioche takes longer because each row is passed over twice: once to knit every other stitch, once to purl every other stitch, slipping the unstitched loops with an added yarn over, but I am quite pleased with the way the color changes play against each other in the fabric.
I had another knitter who wanted to talk brioche knitting, so I had to brush up on my skills. I found a beautiful variegated yarn and decided to work from the inside and the outside of the skein, which was stunning done in the two-color brioche ribbing.
The color shifts are stunning, but the mistakes in the knit were not. I have a 10 second rule: if a casual observer can’t see the mistake in 10 seconds don’t fix it. My mistakes added up and overwhelmed the rule.
The yarn I’m working with is delicate, ripping out the knitting would have made the yarn unusable. Continuing on with all the mistakes was unthinkable, so I bound off and am going to try again.
And yes, those are pictures of two different cats on my lap. I have become a battle ground in cat chess.
I love knitting two socks at the same time on two circular needles, but I forget how to do the initial setup every time. Every. Time. So to help my future self, here is what worked this time (after many trials and errors.)
With the first sock cast on and divided onto two separate circular needles, I cast on 66 stitches for the second sock and transferred all the stitches to a stitch holder.
For me, the trickiest part is getting the two socks in the same direction on the needles, then keeping the stitches untwisted as I join the first row. After that, for me, it is smooth sailing. I never cross the two circular needles, always using the ends of one needle set to knit half of one sock, then half of the other sock (remember to switch yarn sources for each sock, so they stay separate.)
On this particular sock set, I will be knitting a 3×3 rib to start.
Critters and Craft 