The good, the bad, the ugly

The good: from the Once in a Blue Moon Rare Gems sale at BMFA -


All lightweight, one in each category (Earth, Fire, Air, and Water), not necessarily in that order since I think Tina & her dyers based the categories on what dyes and overdyes were used, not necessarily what the end result was. I love them all, but if I had to pick favorites, they are the 2 intensely deep ones on the left.

Also good: The first Knetted sock I cast on for the Blue Moon Cast On -


Sept RSC kit
medium weight STR in River Rocked
pattern size: medium-ish
size 2.50 mm KP circs
mod: foot decreased to 54 sts, 1 extra diamond repeat on the leg, but I bet if I weigh this sock & the remaining skein, I could've gotten on more diamond repeat on the leg.

The good & the bad:


pattern: Jasmine fingerless mitts by Adrienne Fong
yarn: Crystal Palace Mini Mochi in Neptune Rainbow
needle size: 2.50 mm KP Harmony circ
mod: extra lace repeat since Monkey1 wanted it longer

When we got back from vacation, I realized that the light turquoise was very sparse to almost non-existent in the second skein. The second half of the first skein & most of the second skein had a royal blue instead of the turquoise, so I punted the idea of getting both mitts to match color progression at all.

I do like the pattern & the colorway though, so that's good. The bad however was the yarn. It's splitty, the single ply is underspun in spots & I had to spit-splice it together many times, and it behaves like sticky mohair when attempting to frog or tink back a bit (looks mohair-ish too w/its halo). Maybe if I knit my Noro sock or sample Malabrigo sock, I would feel differently. Or even if I got a second generation of the mini-mochi instead of the first? Who knows, but it'll be awhile before I knit up the second skein.

It's just bad:


It used to be a completed Brioche Hat for DH. Then he asked me to extend it - several months after it sat in a dresser drawer in our cabin upon completion.

The bad part's not that I started slowly frogging it from the top even though I don't remember much on how a brioche stitch in progress looks like after several months. It's the stitch that snagged on something in the drawer he kept it in. It's to the right of the orange stitch marker, an inch from the cast on row that is currently causing me much angst. So, to fix that somehow (duplicate stitch for 2 inches on each side of it?) or to frog entirely & start over? That is my dilemma.

The ugly, though I could call it a swatch since I intend to frog & start over, but probably in a different pattern, maybe something stripey instead:


pattern: Beginner's Fair Isle Headband
size 7 KP circs
yarn: Nashua Handknits Grand Opera in Teal & Silver

Sometimes I should say no to Monkey1's requests when I feel it probably won't work. It was a bad combination of needle size, gauge, yarn and pattern. I didn't bring my entire needle set when we were vacationing, I had limits but tried it anyway. I did like the initial pattern & yarn combo on size 5 dpns, but that made the headband infant-sized and too stiff to work as a headband. I probably should've started a stripey scarf instead, which is what was intended for the leftover yarn. Knitting on size 7 circs Magic Loop style made the colorwork look really crappy and made keeping the floats even at the transition halves w/this yarn difficult.

Hopefully next time I tell Monkey1 it won't work, she (and I) will believe it and I won't need to "swatch" to prove my point. But then, that's par for the course in the parent/child experience.