Sunday, October 01, 2006

trains are perfect for knitting


I had a work meeting in NYC, and took the train to and from, since it's much easier than flying (and also, my brain hates flying). I had packed one knitting project, which was the mistake rib scarf yarns, not even casted on yet. As it turned out, the yarns weren't quite as compatible as I had hoped. The weights were good, but the black's silk content gave it a really different feel than the merino, and the black was a little too stark of a contrast. So, I tromped around the city, checking out options at various yarn stores. With the help of a lovely salesperson at The Point, I decided on doubling Noro Silk Garden against my multi-color spun yarn (other options considered included a couple of Uruguayan handpaints, and some tweedy yarns, but I loved the idea of the two yarns with fairly long color repeats).

I had to wrestle quite a bit with the Noro -- since I had to double it, that meant buying two skeins, and trying to get the colorways on both to line up exactly. Luckily, I had the help of a friend who has more spatial sense than I do, and with some minor cutting and reballing multiple times, we had it worked out. I knew I wouldn't have quite enough yarn, but still only bought two balls. I'm not sure what my logic was there -- probably that I was already spending quite a lot of money (since I also felt compelled to pick up a skein of Lorna's Laces Worsted in Mineshaft -- so pretty). I ended up buying two more skeins of Silk Garden at Downtown Yarns, in a different colorway, again wrestling them to match up, color by color.

I knitted the whole scarf, starting Friday at the yarn store, finishing up on the train on the way home yesterday. Sadly, my new camera won't be here until Tuesday, so no finished object picture -- just a less-than-great quality camera shot pic of the tasty cupcake at Point, and my SG, mid-re-skeining.

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