Make it work

The process I’ve perfected for online yarn shopping is hypnotic. I open two browsers and set one to ravelry’s yarn search and one to http://www.yarn.com. Then I sort the yarn for sale by price, and starting with the cheapest, I scroll through the pages in order. Anything promising gets researched in ravelry, which leads to colors I like, which leads to other projects I might like. Top contenders are added to the yarn.com shopping cart, which slowly fills up until I paw through it at some point and decide whether or not to really buy anything.

Isn’t that what hobbies are supposed to be? Little pockets of all-absorbing preoccupation?

I’m shopping for yarn because it’s a good way to unwind on Friday night and because I just finished a project. It was a big one that took a long while, so I’m ready to get my hands on something new.

The big monster project started out as a blanket with horizontal stripes. I cast on…oh geez I can’t even remember now…300 stitches? 250? After a few inches I realized a) there wouldn’t be enough yarn for a blanket and b) I’d already knit several thousand stitches and I wasn’t frogging now. Nope. If Tim Gunn were there he would’ve said, “MAKE IT WORK”.

So the horizontal-striped blanket became a horizontal-striped shawl.

Ravelry Link

Pattern: Inspired by the Elm Avenue Throw Blanket

Modifications: I put one big asymmetrical teal stripe in there to keep it interesting. I also knit into the front/back every other stitch on the increase rows so my gathered stockinette sections aren’t as puckered.

Yarn: 4.5 skeins of Bristol Yarn Gallery Ashton (550 yards) and 5.5 skeins of Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool (1056 yards). I love the smell and feel of Silky Wool. This was my first time working with the Ashton (I purchased a bunch on clearance from DBNY).

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