This is the YouTube Video that taught me how to make Bobbles for the Pasa Doble Shawl.
So that’s a quote from the movie “The Three Amigos” in case you didn’t know – funny flick and a family classic in our house – Martin Short, Chevy Chase, and Steve Martin.
I now have a plethora of knitting needles. I became frustrated last month that I didn’t have a set of 10 1/2 double pointed needles… and realized I only had 1 pair of double pointed needles period (because WalMart only carries size 3 double pointed needles. Period. What is up with that?). So anyway… the only 10 1/2’s I could find on line were like $8 and if I was going to pay that plus shipping then I’d drive my happy rear to either Evansville or Russelville and give the not-so-local-yarn-shop my money.
Frustrated, I did a search for Huge Knitting Needle Lot – and lo’ found one with a 120+ needles – most of which were double pointed! So I bid, and I won, and for about $35 got roughly 40 sets of needles – plus a vintage canister needle case, a set of cable needles, and a set of stitch holders.
FABU!
Vintage Knitting Needle Cannister
Vintage Knitting Needle Cannister - With Needles
Completely unimportant – but when you move the cannister around it sounds like a rain stick!
Knitting Needle Bag
Vintage Straight Knitting Needles
Vintage Double-Pointed Needles
Vintage Circular Needles
Vintage Cable Needles and Stitch Holders
With all these needles I needed a way to figure out what I had… so I downloaded an nifty little app onto my ITouch called Ewe Stash. It’s $2.99 (most I’ve spend on an app) but so far it’s really handy! You can inventory your knitting needles, your crochet hooks, and your yarn. So far I’ve only entered the knitting needles but I inputted 51 sets of needles in about an hour.
Ewe Stash App
So I’ve been knitting away – sorry no update on Wednesday; I had crafty-brain-melt or something and could not figure out what to post about.
I’m up to 17″ on the vest back and 13″ on the shawl. I’ve also gotten faster on the Shawl – it now only takes me 3 hours per section (cable cross to cable cross) instead of 4. Whew! I’ll take what I can get! The first progress report can be seen here.
Pasa Doble 13"
Kimono Vest 17"
I am making progress! And I haven’t pulled out all my hair! Here’s the Pasa Doble Shaw at 8 inches long – each time you see those cables cross… that’s 4 hours! So I’ve got about 14 hours into this thing so far. Ack! With another 28 inches to go that means… math… math… grumble… grumble… like 60 more hours! OMG… hopfully my numbers are off, ’cause like Barbie said, “Math is Hard!” I’m mostly working on this one on the weekends (locked in my bedroom) and a 1/2 hour every morning before I get up and get ready for work (while watching BBC News!).
I’ve made it to 12″ on the Kimono Vest – 12 more inches to go on the back and I’m thinking I should have bought another ball of purple… hopefully the yarn dosen’t disappear from Joanne’s sales floor. Luckily this project is simple enough that I can work on it while watching TV and driving too and from work (when I’m not ranting at my carpool coworking about the things that go on in our workplace – why can’t I win the lottery so I can stay home and make beautiful things all day!?!). It makes one long for a Zombie Invasion so you could hole up for a month or two and knit while the Zomb’s starve to death (by 28 days later rules anyway). Ah, Zombies….
So, before Christmas I drug Mom into a yarn shop – and ‘lo, she didn’t fall asleep in one of their comfy chairs while I shopped; she actually found a pattern that she really liked. The pattern was from the Plymouth Yarn Company and is for a Vest Kimono.
I was so proud!
So I promptly bought the pattern and we shopped the rest of the day for nice yarn I could actually afford (because I’m po’). Luckily we found a sale at Joanne’s for buy 1 get 1 half off – we originally thought it said buy 1 get 1 free – which had me positively drooling, but we reread the sign and pouted about it. Of course we still had to argue at the register because the sale price didn’t come up, I volunteered to go check it again – if I’m wrong, I’m wrong – but the manager just ok’d it and we went on our way. The yarn is Country by Caron – it’s a 25% Merino Wool/75% Acrylic Blend. I’m not wild about acrylic, but it does have the Merino in it. I’m hoping the acrylic base will make it more abuse tolerant (I’m mean to my clothes and assume everyone else is too). The main color is #0014, Deep Purple and the accent is a white #0007, called Naturally.
It’s a fairly simple pattern – or so it seems – the lady at Knit Wits said not to bind off the individual pieces, just put them on a holder, and when I’m ready she’ll show me how to do a 3 needle bind off. Yay! (And yes I feel guilty for not buying my yarn from her – but in my defense I did buy the pattern and a ball of yarn for another project there – I just can’t buy multiple skeins of yarn without a sale price!).
Anyway – I quickly got started and was making decent progress on the back using my funky plastic knitting needles from the 70’s (that I got at the Salvation Army for $0.60!) when I made a mistake…
I set my knitting down and left the room.
And my 90 pound Labrador used my project box as a stepping stool to get up on the couch (like he really needed the boost).
And shattered my funky knitting needle (of course it wasn’t the empty one, it was the one holding all the dang stitches).
Then, to top it all off – I didn’t have another pair of needles in that size.
I’ve been so irritated about it that I’ve been torturing myself with the Pasa Doble Shaw this whole time (see my previous post). It’s been sitting there, just like this, for almost 3 weeks!
But I have finally left my aggravation behind me, bought new needles and am willing to try again during ‘tv time’ tonight.