Socktoberfest, oh Socktoberfest. I had such plans for you. Bearfoot! Yarn Pirate! Lots of socks! Lots of holiday gift knitting was to be completed! However, the second I mention these plans on this here blog, I abandon them. The lone pseudo Rib and Cable sock to the right there is all I have to show for a month of non-sock knitting. It’s not quite the Rib and Cable sock pattern (from an Interweave Knits last year) because my gauge was way off, but it’s still purty. The sock is enjoying some Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, yum!

Does a scarf knit with sock yarn count for anything? It’s like knitting 3 socks, right?

Pattern: Chevron Scarf, Last Minute Knitted Gifts
Yarn: Claudia’s Handpaints in the Ooops colorway
Notes: I alternated between two balls as I knit this, because they were very, very different in intensity (despite being in the same dyelot)

Which side do you prefer? I like the stockinette side, but there are definitely votes for the reverse-stockinette action.

The scarf needs to be blocked better – it has a tendency to fold in half when worn, which is already driving me crazy. It’s pretty thin and drapey, which is ideal for The Season that Houston Calls Winter (ie, fall). Overall, I am pleased!

The Chevron Scarf, it grows. I’m desperately trying to find my inner kelp! and ignore the obvious color issues. Not quite pooling, but the scarf is decidedly darker on the left side than the right. This started happening around inch 3, and the only thing keeping me from ripping it all out is that I’m alternating between two balls to knit the thing (and therefore, ripping would involve untwisting the two strands every other row and would be impossibly slow and maddening and I’d rather poke at my eyes with a butterknife). Channelling my inner kelp!…

Oh, and I’m working on something new! A sweater! Not for me. For Yarntopia, a sample for the shop. I never would have chosen the yarn myself (Louisa Harding Thalia – a neato looking ribbon), but it is the fastest knit ever. Ever! Size 11 needles! Make that 13’s due to my death-grip gauge! The pattern is Beckmickle from the Winter’s Muse Landscapes book. If I put my mind to it, I can get through 1+ skeins in a day. I picked up the yarn last Tuesday, and I’ve got both sleeves and the back done already! Um, a certain 6 hour defensive driving course that someone had to take because she SPEEDS LIKE A DEMON also helped get the knitting done quickly.

And the Socktoberfest Rib and Cable socks? Ugh, I don’t even want to look at them right now. If I were speaking to the yarn, I would tell it how pissed I was that the socks came out too tight (and ignore the yarn’s retort that I have the aforementioned death grip on the needles), yet I was still hopeful because I have a new idea rooting around in my head for the socks. But I’m so not talking to the yarn, so there!

We’ve been in Houston a year now (!), but never really visited Austin. The YH thing doesn’t really count, since I saw no more than a yarn store, a baptist church, and a restaraunt. Last weekend a friend of ours was driving through Austin (and we have a couple of other friends living there), so we finally made the trip.

We were going to check out the UT campus, but as we drove by there were a large number of people in orange tshirts. Oh, it’s game day, stay the hell away from campus. Instead, we checked out the capitol building. Like everything in Texas, it is large and Texan. Even the drain was a big Texas star.

Bats everywhere! Lots of bats leave the Congress bridge every evening, and we were totally there, man.

I got to see Sarah on Sunday, and it was her birthday – the big 3-0! As a gift to herself, Sarah indulged in some gorgeous cashmere-silk yarn. I was a good little kelp and only bought a couple more skeins of this Claudia Handpaints sock yarn. I had purchased some back in July, but I didn’t think that I’d have enough for my planned project – the Chevron Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. If I have a ton leftover, it will likely become socks for an xmas gift.

The scarf is flying by – it’s so nice to see noticeable progress when knitting (unlike a certain Sarcelle…). However, I was getting some major pooling issues. I was alternating between two skeins (which are noticeably different dye lots, despite both being in Lot 003), but they would both wind up in sync, so a third of the scarf was the same medium blue color. I fixed this by joining the second skein on the opposite side of the scarf as the first skein. The color progression of each skein goes in opposite directions, and no more obvious pooling. The colors are still shifting oddly (I’ve knit a bit more of the scarf, and the bottom part is much whiter than the top), but I can live with it. The Claudia Handpaints is less tightly-wound and sproingy than Koigu, but it is very, very soft, mmm.