Christmas Knitting Wrap Up and Ene's Scarf

I am glad to be back to an all-consuming, all-encompassing, engrossing knit. In the madness of the xmas knitting season I not only had more than one project going at a time, I was constantly thinking of all of the other projects I had to finish. To give you an idea of what it was like inside my head, let me give you this little snapshot:

What yarn do I need to buy? What yarn should it be? Where will I find it? What color should I use? What size should I make? How long will it take to block? How will I block it? What if I can’t find the yarn? What will I make?

There wasn’t enough headspace left for me to exist alongside this litany of concerns, worry and self-doubt. But that’s over now. So, let’s talk a little bit more about the xmas knitting, and a little about Ene’s Scarf. First, xmas.

In a comment on an earlier entry Glaistig asked me how the Cascade Quatro was, and I’m glad she did. I have never used Cascade yarn before I made the Centersquare hats. I picked the Cascade yarn for a couple of reasons: it’s all natural fibers (mostly wool,) it comes in many colors, it’s worsted weight, and it’s reasonably priced. For these two projects I used: one skein of Cascade 220 (the mauve color) (100% wool,) one skein of Cascade Quatro (the yellow color) (100% wool, I think,) and two skeins of Cascade Pastazo (the purple color and the green color) (50% wool, 50% llama.) How did I like this yarn? I like it. Since they are all made from natural fibers they all stretched well. I was able to hand wind all four hanks into balls by hand without assistance because the hanks are wound in such a way that there aren’t any funny loops which lead to tangles in them. There’s 200-some yards to a hank so you get a fair amount of value for your dollar. They’re all just good, sturdy, yarns. As far as the Quatro goes, it’s just Cascade 220 with two complimentary colors plied together. In my case, the skein of Quatro contained a sunny yellow color and more a muted yellow color. Since the Pastazo is 50% llama, it is pretty fuzzy, but really soft at the same time.

I also wanted to mention that the Centersquare pattern did contain an error when it first went up on Knitty, but it has since been corrected. This, by the way, is one quick knit. I finished both hats within a couple of days and was quite pleased with the result. I will say that if I were to knit it again that I would probably make mine a smidgen bigger, but that’s because I should always make anything I knit in fair isle bigger than I think it should be. Because fair isle pulls in.

Before I run out of energy, time and space I did want to talk a little about Ene’s Scarf. The scarf starts along the two lower (read: longest) edges. This means that the casting on is a bitch (375 stitches) and the first few rows take forever, but it also means that the rows gets shorter as you knit. This, is a good thing. I’m still only on row 16 however. And that’s about it for me. I will be leaving town tomorrow and not returning until next week, so there probably won’t be any posts here until sometime next week. You all have a merry xmas and a happy new year.