Unraveled Wednesday: 2/5/25

I'm joining Kat and the Unravelers today, with a warm FO, some disappointing unraveling, and a new cast on. 

I finished my Tunis Hot Waffles (ravelry link) mitts and they are as warm as I had hoped. I had to pick a lot of VM out of the yarn as I knit, but that just reminded me that this was very sheepy yarn. I wouldn't want to knit a cowl or sweater out of this as it would be far too scratchy, but it is perfect for a pair of substantial mitts.

The two-color shawl that I wrote about last week was a big disappointment. I dug through my stash, found two yarns that I thought would work together well and cast on. After three false starts and finally admitting that there was no way I was going to enjoy knitting this pattern, I gave up and started thinking in a different direction. The shawl I was going to knit was the Simon Shawl (ravelry link). I liked the look of the fabric in the photos and the attached i-cord was interesting. When I finally gave up, my fabric looked like this:

It didn't look anything like the houndstooth impression I had from the pattern photos and the i-cord in alternating colors just looked clownish. There is a definite right and wrong side and I didn't like either one of them. There was no discernable logic to the pattern, so that meant I would have to be looking at the multi-page pattern all the time. I could have knit more rows so I would have more real estate to judge as Kym often advises, but by the time I produced that little scrap above (36 tedious rows), I knew this was not the pattern for me. Maybe it's the yarn I chose, maybe it's a knitting skill that I'm lacking, but I do know what I like to knit and what I don't. 

But I do like the yarns I chose; they are ones I've been "saving" in my stash for eight or nine years. The gray is lovely and soft from Blue Sky Alpaca and the blue is a moody Madeline Tosh single called Stargazing. I looked at other two-color shawls for over an hour and you'll never guess what I decided on. 

 

A Hitchhiker that uses both yarns! It doesn't look like much so far because I spent a bit of time trying to figure out the best place to change yarns. I think I've arrived at a reasonable way to do it, so I hope to have more done next week. Forget that stuff I wrote last week about possibly being done with Hitchhikers; I may have been suffering from politically induced stress and prone to writing nonsense. Now that I've ripped out those 36 laborious rows, planned my Hitchhiker and cast on, I'm much happier. This Hitchhiker knitting might even help me deal with future politically induced stress due to extreme chaos.

After reading loads of books last week, I haven't finished anything this week. I am reading a couple of ARCs and listening to another weirdly fun book, so stay tuned for some reviews next week.

What are you making and reading this week?