some pics!

Although I am not loving the yarn, I am still plugging away on the patternless log cabinesque "blanket" which may or may not end up being big enough to actually call a blanket. At least the yarn is cheap-o and readily available at any Wal*Mart nationwide so I could always add to it even after I use up my stash and decide it's "done."

Here is the bad intarsia followed by a picture of the corrected intarsia.





I know it's the "wrong" side but I still think it's pretty cool overall how the colors join up on the back:



Needles - Denise 8's

I'm running lowest on the bright red color and have the most orange left. I am thinking I will need to buy more of this yarn for it to be any decent size of a blanket which is kind of depressing.

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In other news, I've picked up some Caron Simply Soft to do a test-knit of a tank top pattern I just bought and I'm looking for prices on Berroco Bonsai to do a knit-along pullover with Amy. So many things on the needles right now!! I will be pulling some of them off the needles and re-wrapping the yarn for another time when I have the love for the frou-frou yarn again... poor blue periwinkle fluff...

back to swatching. I think I'm actually going to run this swatch through the washer and dryer to see how it fares. If it works to gauge on size 6's then I need to go buy some size 3's since that's what the pattern calls for to start with. Sounds like some Addis Turbos may be in my future since my Denise set doesn't go that small! :-) Can you tell I'm excited? WEll, off to bed for me; it's already tomorrow!

Garter Intarsia

On our drive up to Dallas this weekend (a 4 hour drive with 2 kids) I knit quite a bit. I'm plugging away on that patternless log cabin blanket. I've got 3 skeins of scratchy Red Heart acrylic that I'm randomly alternating to form the blanket. I don't want it to look like a traditional log cabin though, so I'm adding a little intarsia here and there to mix things up. BUT - I had never knit intarsia before and got my instructions off knittinghelp.com wherein the instructions are given on stockinette stitch, not garter. I proceeded to knit in garter and do the intarsia switch for stockinette and ended up with a messy join. I left it though, because sometimes you need a mistake in your FO to keep yourself grounded. Plus, I had already bound it off and am too lazy to frog something already "finished."

Needless to say, I was thinking there had to be a better way to do what I wanted to do and sure enough there is! I'm now happy with the results of my garter intarsia thanks to this tutorial.

If I get around to taking pictures, I'll edit this to add them in...