Springtime Bandit

Thank you for your comments on Wordpress.  It sounds like if I mess around with it a little I'll like it just as much as blogger.  Apples and Oranges, but still a great fruit you can enjoy year round.  Don't expect a change anytime soon.  I have to set everything up first.

Once school starts it's time to get ready for fall.  Though in Southern California the summer weather is just starting.  This last week had to be the hottest of this year.  We'll get fall sometime around Thanksgiving.  Then there is the January and February warm up.  I remember going to the beach in a bikini for a Super Bowl party once.  We finally have our winter April thru June-ish.  Really it's just the rainy season.

Anywho, I get in the fall mood and start knitting all those warm woolens again, but I have enough time to finish a couple of projects before I really need to use them.  Then I get to go shopping for the right stuff to wear with it.

Speaking of fall fashions, I need to buy rain boots while they are in stock.  Because today there were thunderstorms!  I love it. As you can see BG doesn't.  Weird SoCal weather.

I started this right after school was back in session.  I love making shawls because they seems so fast.  Of course when you get to a couple hundres stitches on the needles it can take an eternity to knit a row.  But by then the pattern is memorized and I get anxious to see how the colors will match up.  I don't make huge shawls either.  I like mine to act more like scarves.

That is why when I saw the worsted weight Springtime Bandit (rav) I fell in love.  I mean really, bigger yarn.  I can knit this up so quickly that way. 

I used Malabrigo Silky which is closer to a DK weight on size US 8 needles.  My gauge was 5st/inch opposed to the 4st/inch that the pattern calls for.  I stuck with this gauge because I liked the way the stitches draped.  I made up for the loss by working an extra round of the body pattern.  My finished triangle was 50x36x22 inches, so slightly larger than the finished measurements in the pattern, 50x33x20.  I lightly steam blocked in with my iron, so I'm certain I could of skipped the extra repeat and blocked it out larger.

I think that I am starting to fall out of love with Malabrigo.  Even though I pick out the same dye lots and try to match up skeins that look alike, I still find huge variations in the color saturation.  I had this problem with the Kids February Sweater that I made BG and actually re knit the entire thing to try to resolve it.  The problem was not resolved after changing around the skeins.

Here in the variegated colorway I came across the same problem.  In the first skein the blues and yellows are very prominent while in the second skein they blend into the purples and grays more.  If you are looking for it, you can see it in the above shot. While being worn, this is not noticeable because the shawl is folded up on itself.

By the time I started on the third skein the yellows and blues were starting to pop again.  Normally this is my queue to start frogging.  That's a bad habit that I am trying to break.   It was also just the last ten rows so I'm ignoring it.  We are talking big steps here people.  That and I'm tired of reknitting things.