Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Can You Say...

DISASTER!?! As you can see from the picture below, I have a bit of an issue. Isn't it a beauty? I think so. This past weekend I borrowed Shameka's yarn winder because I wanted to reball all the Provence yarn that I had. About half of the skeins I had bought for a previous afghan project that I took apart last summer needed to be rewound into center pulling balls. Now, I had four skeins that were still in the original state and thought since I had the winder I would go ahead and ball them too. Since I didn't have the swift, I improvised. I've done it before and had no problem. My method is simple. Place the skein of yarn around my neck and unravel some and wind, unravel some and wind. It really does work. However, on this skein I had it hanging off my arm as I wound it and before I knew it, there was a knot. As I was trying to work the knot out, the other end of the skein got all twisted in with it. Next thing I knew, I had two separate balls of knots on the floor. You can see that I attempted to wind the ball from the other end so I could maybe untangle it. Such a BIG mess! I'm just so proud of myself.

After reading responses from my post yesterday, I decided that some of you do want to see my blow by blow, inch by inch progress on my projects. So here is the first one. My Provence Throw. I just started the second skein of yarn last night. Even though I am knitting across 204 stitches it is actually knitting up pretty quickly. I am up to 6.5" right now. I'll be knitting to 55" in length. I'm really happy with it.
...and here is my Central Park Hoodie. As you can see, it doesn't look too different from my last post. When I took it to bed last night to work on it, I only got a couple of rows done before I had to put it to the side. My apartment has no air condition and last night my apartment was pretty humid. Even with my fan blowing on me, it was hard knitting on this. Tonight I am planning on devoting more time to it. The good news is that I measured it last night and I am up to 11.5". That means I am 3.5" away from starting the armholes. This is where I'll be knitting each part separately because of the armhole shaping. There isn't a way around it. That's ok though because knitting the body as one piece saves me from having to seam the sides and that it fantastic to me.

Finally, here is the link to the "Better-Than-Booties Baby Socks" pattern. Enjoy!!!

7 comments:

  1. Thanks for the pattern link! :)

    So sorry to hear about the yarn winding catastrophe! I hope you're able to salvage it (without going nuts)--it's beautiful yarn.

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  2. Oh no . . . that's NEVER fun . . .

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  3. OK Deb. I want the whole world to know that I am not going to say I told you so. Instead, I will say this. I could have let you borrow the swift too. It has a nice cushy seat all to itself in the car, and would have loved to go along for the ride through the airport traffic. I'm sorry for your pain sweetie.

    I am enjoying seeing the progress shots, especially since you have so much more than I do. I think I am starting to blog more about knitting than I actually knit. Technology is starting to become a bad thing. Your CPH looks great.

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  4. Having neither swift nor ball winder nor knowledge of the existence of either when I bought my first skein of unwound tweed (was it 300 yds?), I used the neck method as well. after nearly strangling myself and ruining quite a bit of lovely yarn learning about skeins and how they worked, I go for the around the bended knee method. (still no swift or ball winder here.)

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  5. I have a winder with no swift & it always worked out fine (1 whole year)until recently. I had yarn mess a few times in a row in August & now will be using the next 50% off coupon at AC Moore to buy a swift. BTW love the pics of everything though. It always makes me feel like I'm there in your livingroom w/ you.

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  6. I didn't know they sold the swift at AC Moore. I bought my swift at Joann's. I actually ordered it off of the web, because it was more convenient than driving 40 minutes to the closest store in Long Island. And you know I used that 50% off coupon for sure!!!

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  7. What a tangled mess! The afghan is so pretty. Maybe I'll ge tto see CPH in person. Although it might be getting to big to lug around.

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