in which our Knitter goes on for several minutes about not much of anything...

This morning, as I sit waiting for the Service Shop to call and let me know that my car is ready and that I can bring over either an arm or a leg in payment, (story/rambling-rant about that and the good times I had Tuesday here) I figured I would show you my haul what I'm going to be working on next.

But first, a success! A (half) FO!!

A SOCK! But not just a sock, a LACE sock, which is a new thing for me. Pattern by Steph at Craftoholic. I really like this sock. The variegated yarn sort of obscures the lace (in the picture anyway) but I like the way it makes the color changes sort of dance around.

As I was working on these socks, I needed to come up with a way to keep my needles together while I wasn't knitting and to keep the stitches on the needles when I was travelling. Maybe I'm the last knitter in the world to come up with something like this, but I thought I'd show you in case you, too, were looking for a way to keep your dpns and sock connected to one another while travelling:

I took a hair elastic and just knotted it at each end. It holds the needles securely and keeps the knitting in one place.

Now, for the next project:
Last week I needed buttons for the baby sweater for my friend Heidi. I went to Walmart because I needed other stuff as well. I was NOT going to look at yarn, assuring myself it wasn't necessary because they don't have a very good stock at that Walmart. However, that particular day, they had just put out new stock! So, I spent some time looking in wonder at the fact that Walmart had some (slightly) nicer yarns. BUT... I was good. I didn't buy any of the new stock.

("Lori" you are demanding at this point, "Where are you going with this?" Well, dear reader, I'll tell you)

I was walking out of the craft section when I saw 2 bags of an off-white/beige mill-end yarn ($4.95 for a pound of unknown fiber content). The Walmarts here (I don't know if this is company wide) often have 1 pound bags of mill-ends for really cheap prices. Occasionally I have recognized the millends as Patons yarns but it hasn't usually been anything I was interested in (the ones I recognized were novelty yarns). There was an end sticking out of one of the bags so I went to feel it. It felt like wool, but I wasn't sure. So I smelled the yarn in the bag (I know. I'm a freak) and it smelled like wool. There was only one thing left to do, for I knew that if this was wool, it was calling my name. I did a spit-felt test on the end of the wool. In Walmart. Yes I did. (Yes, it felted to itself)(Yay)

So, for just under $10 (CDN) I came home with this:

It's somewhere between a DK and a light worsted (I'm never very good at estimating yarn weights). Initially I had thought I might dye it, but on the way home I started thinking about a cabled cardigan with a shawl-type collar and either wooden or tortoise-shell type buttons. (Just now, it took me 3 attempts to spell "collar"... ???)

So, I swatched (I know!!! Me!!! Swatching!!!)

And then I cast on for the sweater. However, the sweater I cast on for is not the same one that I swatched for (the gauges were the same though, so the swatch counts)(right?). I changed my mind between swatching and casting on. And, now that I've knit the ribbing and about 13 rows of the back cable pattern, I don't really like the cable pattern.

So, I plan to frog back to where the ribbing ended and figure out a new cable pattern for myself. I'll use the "template" of the pattern I had chosen (I like the shaping and style) and just put together a couple of cables that I like better. Or, maybe I'll do something else altogether.

Any suggestions for a nice Shawl-collared cabled cardigan? The initial swatch is for the one in the latest Vogue Knitting. I may end up going back to that one, I'm not sure. I don't want it belted (not a good look for me) so I would adapt the overall sweater if I was to make that one. (also, my yarn is a lighter weight than what is called for in that pattern but I did get gauge, so who knows)

Wow, this is disjointed and rambling. Sorry!

I need to make myself finish something else before I work more seriously on the cabled cardigan. I finally made myself finish the interminable body section for my lace sleeved Ribby Cardi. Not sure why that one has been a WIP/UFO for so long, but ... I hope to have a finished sweater by the end of the weekend. I'll show you then. WIP pictures of the body section are not so interesting. You know, as compared with the rest of this SUPER interesting post.

Oy.