I ended up taking today off from working the Etsy thing again, mostly. Got some shop feedback from a free critique, and it looks like I'm going to need to entirely redo the 200+ photos I took on Saturday. Good, honest critique, but a bit frustrating, especially on top of what was already a rather frustrating day for multiple reasons. Not the least of which being that I somehow lost one half of a pair of earrings I made back in the fall, which I just realized that I forgot to actually post on here, but it was made to go with this shirt. Just fell right out of my ear, and I have no idea whether it was here, a parking lot, or somewhere in the church building where the school I teach band at is in, because I didn't notice until I was up in the loft. That makes me sad.
So needless to say, I wasn't really in the mood to work on anything connected to jewelry. So instead, I knitted up some gauge tests for two hats--this beret, and then I found this hat to use up the rest of the Constellation Gloves yarn on. The chunky yarn swatch went great--fits exactly on the needles it was supposed to, according to my little gauge tester card thingy. The beret is being a little more difficult. I tried a swatch last night on size 7, which it called for, and it was half an inch too small just going across, so I didn't bother checking the height. Tonight, I tried size 8, which ended up being too big. Apparently, size 7.5 doesn't exist. So I think I might just end up trying the 7s and hoping for the best.
I also took a leap of faith that I'm going to stick with knitting this time--tonight's swatch test just confirmed what I already suspected, which is that I reeeeeeally prefer bamboo needles to aluminum. The latter are just way too slippery for me. And I already knew that Joann's doesn't have the circular needle size I need, at least as far as the cord length goes. There's not even a spot for them at my local store. So while poking around online, I discovered this shop on Etsy that sells a set of 15 bamboo 16" circular needles, ranging from sizes 0 to 15, for about the cost of buying 3 pairs of bamboo needles of whatever brand Joann's and a lot of my other usual craft haunts is. It sounded too good to be true, but I checked the feedback and it was all positive, and in sufficient numbers to convince me that these could actually be decent. So I splurged and bought them. (And if you told me 3 months ago that I'd be building a stash of knitting needles, I would have laughed in your face.) So that'll cover what I need for both hats....and I've heard it's a good size for socks, too, which I wouldn't put it past myself to try, since my feet get cold inside my boots in the winter! If I can find sock yarn that's wool-free, anyway...
At least, I hope that I find things to make with these needles other than 2 hats!
Off to bed with me....definitely need to sleep off this day.
Edit: Yeah, changed the background again. I wanted something springier!
I never really liked the feel of aluminum crochet hooks, either, but I use them because they usually have a smoother curve to the hook part, something I really need with fingering and lace yarns especially.
ReplyDeleteFor my second knitting project (https://acrobat.com/app.html#d=ak0yPfhfjLyQLgreEmMzmg), I bought some size 8 needles from Knitpicks.com; they're wood polished to the point of feeling like glass, they're so smooth, but still not slippery. I prefer them to how cold steel would feel, I'm certain. And they're pretty! :) They also have wooden interchangeable tips for their circular needles. I plan on building up my needle collection from them slowly as I need new needles.