Saturday, February 05, 2011

In which colour abounds

Well, a week without my computer (and it really is much, much happier now), and a few days sans-internet (this is still ongoing... lots of time at cafes to study...), and I am far overdue for an update.

I meant to post about starting the Beaumont Tam (also from Made in Brooklyn), but it was finished nearly before it was started! Knit in Elsbeth Lavold Silky Wool (ecru) and Noro Silk Garden Sock (colours+), I think it took me all of five days to knit (and that was with some serious pacing: 5 rounds a day to make sure I would be able to bright it to knit night). Coupled with the three days it took to knit Grove, and... well, I'm starting to see a pattern.

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Colour, colour and more colour! The Elsbeth Lavold was lovely as always. The Noro... well I have a Thing (yes, a Thing) about Noro. In fact, I know many people share this Thing. Noro can be like a beautiful temptress, luring unsuspecting sailors (knitters) to the shore of her apparently beautiful paradise (the undeniably gorgeous colourways), only to reveal a hideous monster (the all too frequent shades of sick hidden inside the ball) lying beneath the glamer. And then there is the quality. Handspun? Sure, gorgeous, but do we really need to be faced with unseemly amounts of plant fiber, not to mention the unpredictable thick and thin nature of the yarn? Now, to be fair, this ball of Silk Garden Sock was not so bad; there weren't any thick points, and while I would not have trusted some of the thinner areas for socks, it was OK for a hat. And even the colour turned out alright! But a few more rounds and I would have been faced with a nice crown of sick at the tip of the tam...

Noro, I like you, and most of the time, you are just fine! But... the unpredictability makes me antsy to use you too often.

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I can't speak to the fit of the hat, as I have not yet found anyone to give it to! But the pattern was a delight to knit, the yarn was nice to work with... all around, a great knit!

Next... a blanket (finished mere hours after Beaumont), and maybe some gloves (knit in - get this - three days!)

Oh, and as an aside, I have begun hosting a small local knit night. If anyone in Victoria cares to come out, we've been meeting at the Cornerstone Cafe on Wednesdays at 4pm - we'd love to see the group grow.