New Beginning

In the last couple of days I managed to get a couple of repeats done on the Papyrine Stole project. As I’ve mentioned before the paper yarn is not easy or fast to knit with but it’s kind of a fun challenge. I spent quite a bit of time trying out different stitch markers. I didn’t want anything too fancy or heavy or with dangly bits to catch on the paper. On the top right are the rubber o-rings which were too thick and stuck to the needles too much. On the left are the tiny hair elastics that were thin enough but also stuck just enough so they were hard to move from needle tip to needle tip. (They seem to work better on wood or bamboo needles.) On the Addi lace needles are the ones I ended up using: split rings, 3 dark-coloured and one silver to mark the beginning of the right side.

I also drew the stitch marker locations on the chart and it’s now much easier to follow. The centre section is mostly stockinette separated from the edging of leaves by garter bands. The centre is textured with random patches of reverse stockinette, garter and moss stitch to simulate bark. I plan to increase the width until it is wide enough and then work straight for awhile and finally decrease again toward the end. Like most knitting, even paper doesn’t look that great until it’s blocked! That will happen in the dye-painting process at the end. Stay with me here!

I’m also working on another pair of Monkey Socks (called Monkey See Monkey Too Socks) in Confetti Seta which has some silk in with the wool and nylon content. They’re coming out fine and I’m most of the way down the leg on one and partway on the other. I made the mistake of leaving out a row of st st in one sock so I repeated it in the other so they would match better. Now I’m more careful to count the 3 rows to make sure I’ve got them all before starting the first row with the purls (row 2). Sorry, Cookie A, but I would have put all 3 plain rows together on the chart for ease of following. Even if that meant starting the sock with 3 plain rows after the top rib instead of one. Apparently my brain keeps wanting to begin the repeat on row 2, the first one where something different is happening.

What else? Still schlepping the little plants in and out. It’s been too cold most nights to leave them in the greenhouse yet. It’s getting old really fast but in a couple of days there will be more transplants to start hardening off the same way. That will add considerably to the back-and-forthing if I can’t leave some out so it had better warm up a bit more. Now. At least no frost would be good.