Quite Fetching

My name is Roxanne and I'm a Fetching-holic.

Behold:











The above were all made using Reynolds Odyssey, worsted weight, 100% merino wool, 104 yds/50g on US 6/4 mm needles. A nice yarn, with just enough leftover that I didn't feel the need to panic as I headed toward the end of the second mitt of a pair. The orangey-red colorway was the first pair I made. The pattern is easy to memorize, once you've made a pair correctly. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring the pattern with me the day I knit the first one, and left the 3rd cable crossing off. Rather than ripping it out, I just made the 2nd mitt to match. They still fit, they're still pretty, and unless you compare them to a pair done correctly, you'd never think there was anything "wrong" with them, right? Right?

These two pairs were made with a different yarn...





... the yarn specified in the pattern, Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran, 90 m/50g ball. I ran out of yarn on the first pair (the rust colored ones), ending up with a thumb exactly one round shorter than the thumb of the first pair. I'm debating whether to leave them that way, or to pick out the cast off for the first thumb and rip a round out so they'll match each other.

For the second pair, I made sure I had only about a 3" tail after my cast on was complete (I ripped out the first cast on each time in order to make sure I didn't have too long a tail), and I eliminated one round on each mitt by crossing the first cable one round early. [ETA: actually, I just looked at my mitts, and I thought I was crossing them a round early, but I actually crossed them where the pattern calls for. ] I waited until both mitts were complete before I did the thumbs. I divided the yarn left after knitting the two mitt bodies, so that if I ran short, I could run short the same on both thumbs. In the end, I had about a foot extra (after allowing for a 3-4" tail after cast off) hanging off each thumb.

For these, I used Cascade 220 Handpaint. One hank was enough for two pairs.



Other stuff:
In August 2007 I went to Nantucket for a long weekend with a friend. There was a great yarn shop on the island and aside from the Kaffe Fasset Regia sock yarn I bought there, I also bought a single hank of Tilli Tomas Rock Star, a 100% silk Aran weight yarn with glass beads threaded through it. It cost me something like $45 for that single skein, and I had no idea what, if anything, I would ever do with it. I kind of thought I'd just keep it as a pet. Then I thought maybe I'd make a scarf out of it. A scarf with lots of yarn overs to extend the meager 150 yds this single skein of silky goodness contained. I tried a few things, but wasn't happy, so I put it in a ziploc bag and stuffed it in my bedside table.

A few weeks ago I was clearing out my bedside table and I came across that ziploc bag. I looked around on Ravelry to see what other people had made with their Rock Star. By the next night, I had this:



I believe the pattern is Lace Scarf, by Debbie Bliss. (I pretty much figured out the pattern by looking at the pictures.)

It's still not blocked (a theme in my knitting lately, as I'm sure you noticed nearly every pair of those Fetchings has yarn tails hanging off them). It's not terribly long, either, and I'm still not sure how I'm going to wear it. I'm not much of a scarf-as-accessory person. (Let's face it, I'm not much of any kind of accessory person.) I'm more of a Holy Crap, it's 20 below outside, I need something wool covering my face so I can breathe outside kind of person.