Tag Archives: Yarn Snob

Done and undone

Posted on July 1, 2022 | 8 comments

I finished my assigned pooling hat with the sunbursts/flowers. It’s cute! I tried it on, and it’s a little snug on me. It measures 17” around; those sunbursts do pull in the fabric a bit. The hat in the above picture isn’t blocked; blocking will make the sunbursts prettier.

Calvin’s already good-looking enough!

I haven’t blocked the hat yet because I also want to knit a hat using this criss cross stitch I used in my Criss Cross accessories and Tilt Shift Wrap. I needed to know if I have enough yarn to do that.

Now that I’ve started, I’m pretty sure I don’t have enough yarn to knit both, and I think I’m more likely to wear the criss cross stitch, so I’m frogging the sunburst hat while I knit the criss cross version.

I don’t mind re-knitting; the yarn is ridiculously entertaining. I’ll knit a sunburst headband with the yarn that’s left from the skein. It’s been fun figuring out how big (how many wraps, how many stitches) I need to make the sunbursts and criss crosses look their best. This will vary depending on your yarn! I’m teaching this very fun class at Knit Maine in September. We’ll be using this exact same yarn in class; it’s Wonderful Worsted from Yarn Snob yarns in Cabana Boy.

The winner of 3 months of Knit Camp from Olive Knits is…Quite a Yarn Blog! I’ll contact you for info to connect you with Knit Camp. Congratulations!

And finally…

(Project bag from NerdBirdMakery).

Who ever thought we’d be set back by 50 years? Outrageous. Women’s rights are human rights. Dissent. Protest. Effect change. Let your voice be heard.

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Assigned pooling progress

Posted on June 22, 2022 | 2 comments

I started knitting another Shall We Dance cowl with the Cabana Boy from Yarn Snob, but my heart wasn’t in it.

I already have two of these cowls, and I wanted to play more with the yarn. Also, this kind of pooling requires me to actually look at my knitting to make sure the colors are stacking the way I want them to, and I like to read my kindle and not pay attention!

So I’m playing with assigned pooling. If the yarn is orange, it’s time for a sunburst! They’re slightly pink at the edges, because I want them to be 5 stitches wide. I like them! But, as is usual for my design process, I’m probably going to frog this (again!). I thought I’d like the rolled brim, but it wants to keep rolling, and that makes it hard for me to know when to start the crown shaping. I think I’ll like a sleeker k2p2 rib.

I’ll probably do a taller version of this criss-cross stitch, too. But for a baby size hat, with a rolled bottom. I think there’s enough yarn to do two hats (one adult, one baby), but I’m not sure yet. The play continues!

What are you knitting?

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Cabana Boy

Posted on June 8, 2022 | 15 comments

I’m teaching a pooling class at Knit Maine this fall; we’ll talk about both applied pooling and planned pooling. We’ll be using this cheery yarn from Keith Leonard at Yarn Snob. The colorway is Cabana Boy, and it’s awesome.

This is what it looks like when the skein is untwisted. You can tell by looking at it that the colors will pool, if you want them to. I definitely want them to! I like that bit of organization in my knitting, rather than random color riot everywhere.

Spiraling is a type of pooling. If you are knitting on the number of stitches that uses exactly one (or more) pass around your skein, the colors will pool and align straight up, in this case orange above orange, pink above pink, blue above blue. If that’s not your number, your colors will spiral to the right or left, depending on if you’re working more or fewer stitches than that magic number. If I wanted this hat to pool straight up, it would only be about 72 stitches, and would fit a baby/toddler. The yarn is the boss! If I wanted a different sized hat, the color stripe is going to spiral instead of stack.

In applied pooling, you let the yarn tell you when to do something. Every time that color appears, it’s a signal to use a particular stitch pattern. In this case, I did crossed stitches using multiple yarn overs. But you don’t have to be that fancy, you could go as simple as purling every time you’re above a particular color (because the purl stitch will create a bump in that color on a stockinette background).

So that’s the work knitting going on right now. I’m probably going to knit a Shall We Dance cowl with it, because that’s what I’m most likely to wear.

You know what I’m not wearing? These glasses!

(Previously my progressives, Rx sunglasses, bifocals, and computer glasses)

I had cataract surgeries in May, and at the same time corrected my vision from extreme myopia to 20/20 and 20/25. The world looks bright and colorful and CLEAR! No more haziness. I’ll re-use two of these frames, one for sunglasses with a reader bottom, and one for computer glasses. Because I’m still OLD and need readers now. Every day I wake up amazed that I can just open my eyes and SEE. Thrilling!

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