project(s) at hand

I may not be writing, but I'm keeping my hands busy these days.

A couple of weeks ago, I took my Mom over to Big Lots and we hit the jackpot: bins and bins of specialty yarns for only $1 per skein. Typically, yarns like Lion Brand's Fun Fur or Bernat's Boa sell for $5-6 per skein, although you can sometimes get them on sale for about $3. One dollar per skein was an extraordinary bargain.

I decided on the spot to make some scarves for the preschool's silent auction (handmade things are always good). I got some nice fuzzy, furry brown for DS2 (who was with us that first day), so I could knit him a puppy. While I was pawing through the bins, I saw some beautiful pink/purple variegated yarn that I knew DD would love, so I bought a quantity to make a blanket for her, too. (Technically, it's for Teddy, but it will be big enough to wrap wround her, too.)

Here's the first of the scarves for the silent action, knit from one strand of a light blue eyelash+bobble yarn and one strand of jewel-toned furry yarn. The scarf is 5 feet long and exquisitely soft and warm.


And here's DD's blanket, in process. She can barely contain herself and every morning asks if I'm done yet. I think if I bound it off and handed it to her now, she'd be thrilled -- but I'll persist until it reaches the proper size.


These are all straight garter stitch, no pattern at all. I took a guess at how wide I wanted the scarf (30 stitches) and used that gauge to figure out how many stitches to do for the blanket (75 stitches). I'm using nice big, but not too big, size 11 needles, and the work just flies.

Knitting with these yarns is a bit like knitting in a blizzard, because it can be hard to see the individual stitches. I'm a bit hyper about dropping a stitch because it would be nearly impossible to see. But the upside of this difficult yarn is that the fuzzy/furry business hides a multitude of sins. You can't see anything woven in or the occasional missed thread -- they look great, they feel great, and they cost next to nothing to make. And they're working up so fast! This is the best kind of project for me.