Inspired by Jana (who is the best knitter I know), I bought some gorgeous yarn at Romni, dug around on Ravelry and found a pattern I thought was do-able and got to work. It was hard at first: I couldn’t even remember how to cast on and I stared at the needles willing my hands to just do what they know how to do, and it worked. I’d bought 2 balls of yarn, so I thought, hey, I could do this pattern in crochet too, let’s have a race.
Nope, I didn’t fiddle with colour at all in that picture, that’s actually what the yarns look like. On the left is Misti Alpaca hand paint yarn, #18. On the right is Wisdom Yarns Poems Sock, colour 958. Crochet is winning the speed race, I’ve always loved crochet for that reason, but knitting (it’s on #3 needles, fiddly twiddly stuff) is winning for pure gorgeousness. The Misti Alpaca yarn is SO nice, it’s soft and smooth and there are no weird variations in the yarn at all. The Poems is very, very nice, the colour is incredible, but the yarn goes thin, thick, thin, thin, thick and kind of drives me crazy. Both are a little itchy and both will need to be blocked when finished, but I do believe they will soften up once washed. I am hoping Jana can advise me on how to know when I am in the middle and need to start decreasing. Or I need a small scale.
When they’re both done, I will update.
I haven’t knitted in ages. I keep meaning to learn crochet so I can do more fun things (like hats and mittens) since I never learned double-pointed needles. The speed seems so much nicer, I lose interest in things fast.
Those look awesome Caitlin. I should show you the really soft sock yarn yarn I picked up yesterday.
I have the same problem about when to start the decreases. Do you have a little kitchen scale or anything? Maybe just see if the post office will let you borrow theirs for a few moments? Picking one up is one my to do list for this winter, but that doesn’t really help out right now :)
I should just suck it up and go to Chinatown and buy one. I need shoes for my zombie costume, maybe I’ll do that this weekend.
And thanks. In the future, expect me at your door to use your ball winder, doing it by hand is balls.
Rach, yep, you should crochet, it’s great for so many projects.