Another convert

I took The Book into my local knitting store yesterday (Stitch Therapy in Park Slope, Brooklyn) and the owner was so excited about it! She's ordering it for the store and can't wait to get started on her own scarves. She was really impressed with the quality of the patterns and the unusual techniques.

I, meanwhile, am working on Cocoons, but it's not easy. The linen yarn doesn't stretch at all, so it's tough to do the knitting around on 2 needles. I think I'm going to try making the cocoons on smaller needles and see if that makes it any easier.

New Wave

After a few failed attempts, I'm on my way. And the "failures" were really quite silly, and completely my fault. I read through the instructions until I was pretty clear but I never bothered to check out the recommended yarn. Bad me! Because of the needle size I just assumed that the yarn was thicker than it was. So when I substituted with Andean silk I went down .5 mm on each needle. I don't think the silk content helped much either. This pattern needs a crisp yarn, not a flowly one. Upon realizing my mistake (after going to the source yarn's site all ready to order) I switched over to Cascade 220 from my stash and back to the recommended needle size. I still cast on with more stitches than the pattern calls for because I like a wider scarf. Now all seems to be smooth sailing. I'm also using two circs (Knitpicks Options) instead of DPNs. Much easier!

Looking inside the gap

Combining the stitches

Even though this is basically stockinette in the round, it remains interesting because of the two needle sizes and the combining stitches and rib division. Every time you recombine the stitches with one row of rib, you are basically flipping sides. When divide them again you are putting the larger stitches on the smaller needles and vice versa.