Project Talk: Loose Ends

I have weaving loose ends on my knitting, I despise it, I detest it, and I avoid it whenever possible. To join yarns I usually try to spit felt (such an attractive term) or splice them together, I leave them hang if the project is going to be lined, I use the ends up and seaming. But sometimes, there is no way to avoid it, and you end up with somewhere between one and two, or a whole mess of ends to weave in. In these cases, the only thing to do is to grumble, complain, curse, and deal with it. 

A pile of loose ends.

This is the main drawback of working on my Scrap Sock Yarn Blanket. It is one of those projects that I am destined to be working on forever. It is designed as a blanket made up of mitered squares joined together. Each square only uses less than 5 grams of yarn (for comparison, a single sock uses between 30 and 50 grams), so this project is the perfect way to use up those little balls leftover from socks. However, this construction leaves you with at least one, and sometimes two loose end per square, which annoys me, but I cannot figure out a way to prevent it.

Much better!

I've taken to stopping at the end of each new row of squares and going back to weave in the ends from that section. Rows are either 14 or 15 squares long, which gives me somewhere between 15 and 30 ends to weave in per row. This is not ideal, but I'm certain that I will appreciate the effort I put in to stop between rows when I finish the blanket.

And there's much more to come!

However, at this point finishing the project seems like a far away dream to me at this point. This is the epitome of a long-term project. I started this project in September 2008 and at this point am completing the fourth row of squares. Also, for some reason now unclear to me, I decided to make the blanket about 5 feet wide. When it is finished, it will be huge, but right now it is a blanket that is 5 feet wide and only 8 inches tall. I have, however managed to amass a large collection of sock yarn to use, which I guess, is something. Plus, each pair of socks I knit provides me with more yarn.


After my frenzy of finishing last week, I decided to take it easy for a week and avoid any projects that are driven by a deadline. I enjoy process knitting much more than product knitting anyway. I had met two of my deadlines and have almost a month to meet the next one, for which I'll cast on this weekend. I also need to post both finished photos and action shots of the Invisibility Shawl, which turned out quite lovely. It looked great with my dress and received many compliments this weekend. But right now, I'm going to continue to work on tiny squares and enjoy the simple, easy knitting.

Knit Picks Harmony

I've been wanting to get the Harmony interchangable needles from knitpicks for quite awhile now. I started knitting using straights, which I almost never use anymore. From that I moved on to the boyd needlemaster set. Don't get me wrong, I thought that those needles were alright, but the cables drove me crazy and I never could seem to get the tips tightly onto the cables, they were always coming unscrewed.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I finally took the plunge and bought the Harmony set. I was a little worried about the purchase, I'd seen good and bad reviews about the needles. The needles did not disappoint me. To start out with, they are beautiful, even more so than the pictures. Knitting with the needles was wonderful, the cables are so flexible and it does not take much to get the tips tight onto the cable. The tips are smooth, and the join seems flawless (some reviewers complained of a bump, but I can't find a bump, even when I look) the yarn slides smoothly over the whole thing.

To sum it all up, I love these needles. I've already got two projects on them, a scarf (the pattern is called "Holding Hands, Feeding Ducks," such a great name!) and the Wicked sweater from Zephyr Style. I'm working both projects in worsted weight wool, (Malabrigo for the scarf and Paton's Classic Merino for the sweater) and both are knitting up beautifully on my new needles. I couldn't be happier!