Lace break

I'm busy. Things are just going to get even more busy as Thanksgiving, D's birthday, and Christmas come around. I'm going to take a break from lace and attention holding knits. I'll still be knitting, but I'm going to focus on mindless knitting for the next few weeks. I did finish clue #7 of the Secret of Chrysopolis. I even reverse engineered clue #8 for that stole and started it. Then I changed my mind and I plan on working on it after the official clue #8 comes out. I haven't touched clue #6 for the Secret of the Stole.

I've already kicked things off with starting a Montego Bay Scarf from the 2007 summer issue of Interweave Knits. I'm using the Fleece Artist sea wool that I won during the Summer of Socks. Well, I started it, frogged it, and started again. It was turning out too wide with the initial cast on of 43 stitches. I casted on 35 the second time around and I like this width a lot better. I don't think that I'll do the fringe.

I plan on making a Swiss Cheese scarf with some of my Wollmeise yarn. That yarn is just too pretty for socks and I've been looking around Ravelry for patterns to try. Speaking of Ravelry, can I just say again how cool that place is? There are a few different ways to look around the giant database of Ravelry. One way is to look up wollmeise yarn in the yarn section. Then I can look at the types of projects that were made with that yarn. Or if I can think of a pattern, like the swiss cheese scarf, I can look that up in the pattern section. Then I can skim the results to see if anyone made it out of fingering weight yarn. Several people did and I was able to read how the altered the pattern from lace weight to fingering weight.

Another quick project that I want to make are fingerless gloves for the kids. Last year, I made them quick little wrist warmer things, but I like the separate finger sections better. I was thinking of doing Knucks, but I might not after reading about it on Ravelry. There were several comments on how long it took to weave the ends in and close the holes in between the fingers. Then I remembered the Hooray for Me gloves. Those are knit in the other direction and the holes might not be a problem that way. That pattern has the added plus of already being in fingering weight yarn. I would have to alter Knucks for my yarn. I plan on using some kind of sock yarn for these fingerless gloves because anything bulkier would probably be uncomfortable for E and D's little hands.

Okay, I have a lot of sock yarn and a lot of socks. I've been trying to figure out different patterns to make that aren't socks. Jen just finished a My So-Called Scarf out of worsted weight wollmeise and it was sooo pretty. I wonder how long it would take to knit one out of fingering weight. It would probably be a thin scarf since I only have 100gms of any given color. Or I could use two skeins of yarn and alternate them to make a wider and longer scarf. Hmmmm, that's something to think about.

And speaking of using two different sock yarns for a scarf, I immediately thought of the Chevron scarf that just about everyone has tried. I don't have that book, but it's pretty easy to figure out from all of the pictures out there. I'm thinking of trying it in garter stitch because that would fit in better with the mindless knitting.