Loooong term project

I have been gathering materials for quite some time in order to make a Shipwreck. I did some trading and purchasing on Ravelry to get enough Skinny Bugga! in the colourway Eurota Purplewing. I spent a lot of time looking at beads, and before I was done had ordered 3 different sets.

The knitting began in May. It's a circular shawl, so it starts like this:

Once the centre three charts are knit, the knitter strings beads onto the yarn and knits a bajillion rounds, adding beads. The beads need to be strung on before you knit. This involves getting the right number of beads onto your yarn, and then sliding the beads down the strand as you progress through the skein.  It's very fiddly.

I started knitting the beaded part on vacation this summer. The beads are supposed to be placed randomly. I had intended to bring a die to cast to determine where to place the beads, but I didn't. I found that I wasn't very good at generating satisfactorily random numbers, so I ran to the gift shop for a deck of cards.  Cards 1-6 indicate the numbered stitch to add the bead. Cards 7-Q are assigned the numerical values 1-6 again. A King card indicates knit a few past 6 and add 2 beads.

 The shawl is sitting in the basement and gets grabbed on a regular basis, but I'm only about 10 rounds into the process.  (ETA--Did I mention there's 580 stitches per round?)  There's a whole lot of beaded knitting remaining.

On accuracy

In 2008, I purchased a new scale, and was very pleased with it. Even at the time, we acknowledged that it was a little light on accuracy, but it did the trick.

Enough time has passed that I can now replace it with one that has increased accuracy.

Exhibit A:

On the left, a stuffed puff weighs 3 grams. I weighed a small ball of yarn and also got three grams, and therefore thought I might be able to get a full puff out of it. I could not.

Exhibit B:

The old scale's range of accuracy is revealed. Items weighing both 2.3 g and 3.5 g both were assessed at 3g. Elementary math students would recognize that as very sloppy rounding.

The scale is tiny, but it does the trick.

Maybe in another 3 years, I'll buy with with accuracy to two decimal points?

Man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything

A week ago when I posted that I'd purchased acrylic yarn, I honestly believed I'd be posting the final product that night. The knitting did indeed go quickly, but I cast on 5 times before I got the size right. Yesterday the hat all came together and it's done.

The hat is fashioned after a hat worn by the character  Jayne in the show Firefly. I mostly followed directions here, based on careful scrutiny of the show. I held the yarn doubled and used a size 11 needle.



I'll go back to wool, now, thanks!

Oh, and I bought a little Pom Pom Maker because my pompoms always look like crap.  Such fun!!