Sunday, January 4, 2015

Improvisations

It's been quiet on the blog but I think by now you know it's safe to assume I'm super busy when that happens! I finally settled down and finished the sweater for my friend Tiffany down at Little Mouse on the Prairie (lovely handmade jewelry - check it out!) so I get to mail that tomorrow and I'm pretty stoked about it. Below, I'm testing it out and the doctor is learning how to take candids. Work in progress.
With that one off my needles, I'm back to the doctor's raglan pullover, from a GarnStudio pattern here. I'm not using their yarn so my gauge is off and I'm a little concerned the arms will be a big small for him. But I also loathe frogging. I'm not sure which is worse! But casting on the sleeves today, I realized I don't have size 10 (6mm) double-pointed needles, which led me to try out a new technique: magic loop.
I kept seeing this magic loop technique in patterns that I was browsing on Ravelry, but thought it was a little weird and a LOT daunting. But since I wanted to knit and didn't have the right needles, I decided to try it out. It's a way of using your circular needles (the knitting needles that are on a cable instead of two separate straight needles) like double-pointed needles, and it involves splitting your stitches in half, pulling the extra cable out between the half-way point, and alternating between knitting each half. This description over at For Dummies was my guide (I'll take pictures over a video every time) and after I got past the really irritating cast on, the rest of it was quite easy! But after I finished the ribbing I had to switch to my 6.5mm needles and although they are double pointed needles, the yarn does not want to come off of them! I used some cornflour (corn starch for those of you in North America) to make them slidier but it was only temporary. Plastic needles and their own special quirks.
I'm looking forward to putting some new pieces into the shop this week too! A headband pattern maybe? A scarf? Even though it's comparatively mild here, the nasty cold snap in the Prairies definitely requires some bundling up! 
Happy back-to-work Monday everyone! Yeah yeah, I know, but let's all make the best of it ;)

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