Lots of Knitting, Not Much to Show

Encore Sock Scarf
Originally uploaded by sunasak

I knitted tons this weekend, but most of it was on the Maelstrom shawl, and well, it really doesn't look too different from before the weekend started. I know I made progress, though, because I finished the first repeat of the main pattern and got well into the second repeat. And of course, it was quite appropriate to be working on the hurricane-shaped shawl while waiting for the hurricane to come. Of course, I patiently waited in the LYS, while all we got was wind, while our friends and relations in Houston and parts south had a much worse experience (as well as our Ohio friends!). I have no photo of Maelstrom, because I can't really get an angle that looks like something nice. Sadly, it rather resembles a giant deposit of doggie doo doo, especially the wrong side. Nice image, I know, but it will be a lovely muted shawl when it's done!

I did start the thing you see illustrated, which I talked about in the last entry (so go take a nap if you find this repetitive--I want to say more about it). What is it? Well, certainly not something that takes all my knitterly intellectual powers, that's for sure. It's a K1P1 shawl of 40 stitches in width, made from the new-ish Plymouth Encore Sock yarn. It's DK weight, so not really my idea of fun sock material, but I was intrigued with the mottled effect and the self striping aspect. To be honest, what brought this on was that in the past couple of days I had recommended this kind of scarf to two knitters wanting to branch out from plain garter stitch scarves. In addition to the one I mentioned on Saturday, another one wanted to use self-striping sock yarn for a scarf, and I told her how a stockinette one would curl up. However, doing a K1P1 ribbing makes a fabric that quite resembles stockinette on both sides, resulting in a flat scarf that has no "wrong" side. This is just a simpler version of that Brooklyn Tweed scarf everyone was making last year.The nice thing about this DK weight yarn is you don't need as many stitches to get scarf width, and it will go faster. Still, such a thing in self-striping sock yarn sure would be pretty. I think you might need two skeins, though, and often you can't find two of the same 400-yard skeins.

Well, that's enough on a very simple thing. It just looked like it would make a nice gift. Especially with a matching hat!

And speaking of sock yarn, I did work on the Stripey Celebratory Chevron socks this weekend, too. Still loving the bamboo blend yarn and the pattern. I could make this pattern over and over, and am finally not putting errant YOs as much as I was.

On to the rest of the week. I hope all the weather is calm, wherever you are in this big ole world.