Monday, February 4, 2008

spoiled rotten

Okay, I've been spoiled. Two parcels arrived for me today. One was some yarn I ordered and the other was a bit of a surprise. The surprise box was from Purling Pirate. I didn't know what to expect - she just told me that she was sending me a few things.

There was some fabric:


I love the skulls with knitting needles and the skulls with scissors. It just cracks me up!

And she sent some yarn:


My very first skein of STR! I might've screamed a little when I saw it. I love you P-la! You rock! And you certainly made my day week year!

Now that I've calmed down a little, I'll show you what else I got in the mail today.


I got 20 balls from the Elann sale last week. I'd tell you to go buy some but they sold out shortly after it was listed.

Last week, I got 2 packages - both of them from Ravelry destashers. Some pretty coloured aluminum dpns that I can't buy in Canada...


And the largest cone of yarn that I've ever seen:


It's Patons SWS and weighs 2.5lbs - should be enough to make the Imogen jacket. I've already swatched and I'll start knitting after I buy a circ needle in the right size.

And after cursing the chart B errata, I finished the Bloody Stupid Johnson hat.



Pattern: Bloody Stupid Johnson by Sarah Lilly
Yarn: Green Mountain Spinnery Alpaca Elegance; 1 skein plus a few yards of a second skein (how annoying)
Needles: 3.5mm & 3.75mm Addi turbo circs
Notes: Knit for Three Bags Full. I don't like the yarn. It doesn't have a consistent thickness. It also feels more like sportweight rather than DK. If you follow the pattern, the finished size is 23" which is huge. My head is 22.75" and I have a large head (according to bicycle helmet manufacturers). So I went down a needle size for the brim, cabled section, and crown short rows. I switched to 3.75mm needles when doing the crown decreases because I didn't want the top of the hat to be too small. Because of the smaller needles, my row gauge was off in the stockinette part so I did 2 extra short rows in the crown section. After washing & blocking, the hat is pretty baggy. If I were to knit this again, I would cast on 16 fewer sts and repeat chart A 5 times (rather than 6). The end result should measure about 21". I would also add an extra stitch to the left side (aka the top) of the cable panel. There are 2 but you lose one to selvedge when you pick up sts to knit the crown. It's not a big deal - after all this hat is very asymmetrical. Bloody Stupid Johnson would be proud to wear it.

2 comments:

Sharon Rose said...

WOW that's a heck of a haul! Love the fabric! :)

Manda said...

wow! you're lucky. first you have a pair of socks knitted out of STR, and now you have your very own skein of str to knit!! great fabric, and yay for all the yarn. your hat is pretty too :D