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Sunny and 54° predicted.

warm enough to open a window for the cat

I got up at 5 to feed the cat, but she let me go back to sleep on the sofa. 9:30. She let me sleep until 9:30.

The Little Monster misses J, who has gone to the Crazy State (RI) for his dad’s birthday (81^st). He’s only been gone a day and she’s following me around wanting to be petted. J is usually the object of her affection; I’m her much-scarred playmate. How does she get those claws so sharp so fast?

The ice is melting! The parking lot out back is an icy lake. I think the drains are still plugged with ice.

I have a theory why the two socks came out different sizes. While knitting a third sock, I thought that the twist on the third cake seemed tight. I have finished the leg and I find that it matches the shorter of two existing legs. The two completed socks are the same length more or less, but the foot is longer on one and the leg longer on the other, by five-eighths of an inch or so. I switched the two balls when knitting the second sock and have tighter twisted yarn on opposite ends of the pair. It’s a theory.

If true, the getting a matching foot will be a challenge.

This is the scarf I’ve been working on for J for over a year. It’s now just an end-to-end garter stitch, but it is such a bore. It was garter stitch, knit entirely through the back loop, but that was never going to be finished—not enough stretch in this yarn—and I frogged and started over recently.

detail➥

J doesn’t think I’ll ever finish it; therefore, assuming I can knit on it in morning before he gets up, it will make a nice Valentine’s gift.

Yarn

elsebeth lavold Silky Cashmere, 003 Black, 005 Wine, 004 Rust

Needles

Addi Turbo 5.00mm (US #8), 150cm circ

Pattern

CO a lot, knit back and forth ad nauseum

BTW, I use the wooden spool on the circ cable (lower right) to push the work along the needle.

PS. One of my pet peeves is people who don’t show you what the back of a scarf looks like. It always shows when worn. (I’m guilty too.)

PPS. I’ve updated the reading list.

Back to knitting.

Moderately cool. Hat & gloves optional; the smaller patches of ice melting.

The brioche neck-warmer is a total failure. Too big, too stiff vertically, too limp horizontally, too many loose fibers (like putting a longhair cat over your head).

I dislike chunky yarn even more than I did before. And I think my reaction to alpaca is not imaginary. My eyes itch when I’m knitting it.

It’s just me and the Little Monster this weekend, and she, at last, has finally settled into her morning nap. I should get some knitting done.

9:30 am: started the third sock of the KPPPM pair for my niece. As I suspected, the third skein is patterning out much lighter than the other two. I know, I know. One is supposed to knit these yarn in alternating rows, but I hadn’t intended to use this skein at all.

4:00 pm: I had just washed the litter box and filled it with new litter and was washing my hands and…

Cold still, but above freezing.

If I could knit as well as I can buy, I’d be a superb knitter. I made my way over to Brooklyn General Store for the first time today. I just found out about it on Ravelry last week. I decided to count the five long block, eight short block walk as exercise—not to mention the heavy lifting required as I schlepped my overstuffed yarn tote back home.

In here you can see hints of some ridiculous projects I have in my head.

• In the foreground is Morehouse Farm Lace, which I strangely think could be a nice double-knit hat some year. Fingering, about the same weight, maybe as the Jameson & Smith I used on Feather & Fan, but one ply. The two browns are different: one is ‘natural silver’ and the other is ‘natural brown’. The two on the right are ‘natural oatmeal’
• The Manos on the left is Manos Silk Blend, which should be a scarf for myself. Sort of a putty color with greenish hues.
• The rich orange is Malabrigo Lace, which just looked too good to pass and there were only two.
• The big blob of off-white in the rear is Misti Alpaca Super Chunky, my fourth attempt at finding a wool suitable for he neck-warmer my niece wants. [I'm developing quite a stash of chunky yarns in the off-white range. I could make bath mats, but the above-pictured feline would just pee on them.]
• To its right, Trekking (xxl) in a manly color. Could be socks IF I COULD EVER KNIT TWO DECENT SOCKS THE SAME SIZE.

Which brings us to the current situation. My knitting lately sucks. Two socks with the same number of stitches on the same needles are two different sizes, probably because the first sock was knit two years before the second. I’m tempted to knit a third and hope it matches one of the others.

The Tunisian rib socks just look weird, even if they are the same size. If they fit I’ll be shocked.

The neck-warmer is a struggle on 10mm circs (US 15). I tried dpn’s, but the yarn-overs are hell. I swatched three different chunky and bulky yarns. One was too limp, two were too stiff and all were scratchy. The fourth selection, Tahki Baby, is stiff if relatively soft. It looks more like a cake than something to go around the neck.

Misti Alpaca Chunky, which I tried next, while soft, is too limp. I’m hoping the Super Chunky works out.

But mainly I hate fat yarn and fat needles. This brioche should be a no-brainer: on the needles, then off. I’m spending way too much time, money and mental effort on this.

And the cat doesn’t help. Her idea of playing with yarn involves chewing on it, or at a minimum sitting on it. If she’d only learn to wind it and find new places to store it.

More later. It’s late and I’m falling asleep.