Disaster Weekend

Now, you would think that being on "storm watch" all weekend would allow for a significant amount of bunkered-in knitting time, and well, it kinda did.

Big-waste-of-time-pointless knitting.

Awhile back I had run out of yarn for my Spiral Scarf. I was using two strands of Sirdar Denim Tweed DK held together for it. When I finally got back to my LYS for more, there was NONE. And it was a cheap enough yarn that I wasn't about to go hunting for it online somewhere.
Across the store I spied the exact same brand of yarn, in the exact same colour --but in a sport weight. I paused to wonder aloud: "can I make this work?" "maybe one-stranded instead with bigger needles?" Due to the nature of the design I thought I could be forgiven the subtlties of an altogether different dye lot, and would it really matter if the heaxgons were slightly different sizes?

Should I check my gauge? Nah, I'm going for it.

Colour-wise it seemed promising at first:

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I was patting myself on the back for being such a genius.

And then:



WTF? You know, it's kind of one of those patterns that you don't really know how it'll look until the whole hex is done. Clearly a subltle change in size with ever shrinking hexagons was not to be. It's like the two bigger ones are just now wearing a jaunty little hat off to the side.

Bah. I tossed it aside in anguish and in favour of some more gratifying "instant knitting":



Yes, what is up with all the raspberry I'm doing lately?



pattern: Mercy beret by Kim Hargreaves (from Rowan Ribbon Twist)
yarn: Twinkle soft Chunky in Raspberry (1 skein)
needles: US #17

Cute huh?

There comes a time in every knitters life when their confidence level starts to go up. You become cocky and think to yourself "Gauge is for suckers, all chunky yarns are the same, right?--I don't need to check no stinking gauge".

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Apparently Twinkle yarn is like the hugest of the huge. I even struggled to be able to only use one skein of the stuff...omitting rows just to make it work. But what I really should have done was check my freakin' gauge, used smaller needles and saved myself the anguish. Want some more perspective shots? This hat was essentially the size of sofa cushion.



Thick and cushy!



For a fleeting second there I thought I *might* be able to make it work, but I'm sorry, there's just no way.

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The weekend was also kind of a disaster for this reason as well,



Though kind of a beautiful disaster. I don't even want to tell you what I spent, but I guess that's what happens when you avoid a certain store for months on end in an effort to be frugal and de-stash. When you finally get back there for a ten dollar item (which they didn't even have...) you just go mental making up for all that lost time!

I seriously splurged on 9 balls of Rowan Cocoon (and believe me in Canada that's a major splurge...) and the accompanying Rowan #42 so that I can make Iceland.



Which marks the first time that I'm doing a full-fledged garment not on the cheap, not to mention in the same yarn and colour prescribed.

Phewph! Did I actually say I wasn't going to cast on anything new? More on that to come...

And finally--thanks for my two awards, miss Muffy and miss Whistlepea, I am honoured!



Allow me to return the favour to these fine folks:

Knitteroo!
Whistlepea knits
Skrilla Knits
Knit lit
Lolly Knitting Around
Crimson Purl
Craft Pirate
Knitting is kneat-o
My aim is true
Lomester

I could go on and on...my bloglines these days is pretty jam-packed (which is probably why I'm doing more reading than actual updating of late...)