Knitting Zen

Even though I haven't been blogging here much (or at all, really), I've actually been knitting. I finished a poncho -- actually, I think I probably knitted and ripped and knitted and ripped it about three times before I finally decided to finish it. I started out using Amy's Instant Poncho pattern, but it was meant for cotton (and was meant to be washed and dried), and I was using wool, and it became apparent that it was going to be WAY too big for yarn that wasn't going to be washed and subsequently shrunk.

So then I tried Stephanie's Very Harlot Poncho, but I didn't like the way the increases looked.

So I did sort of a combination. I cast on the number of stitches from the Harlot poncho and started it out the same way, but did the increases like the Instant Poncho. Oh, and I used Encore Bulky instead of worsted, and I used Size 11 needles instead of, I believe, the 13's she recommended.

I finished it on Thanksgiving at my parents' house and started making fringe by wrapping my yarn around a "Prevention" magazine I found on the coffeetable. The trouble was, I'd knit and reknit the yarn a few times, and while it did fine when knitted, it was too curly for fringe.

So I ended up having to order another skein of yarn, and it hasn't come yet. But once it does, I'll have a new poncho! I'm very pleased about that. And I started another one! I told myself that the first one was kind of a test run, and if it didn't work out, it was okay. But now that I knit it, and liked it, I'm making another one out of some Feza Star that I bought for half price at my local yarn store, and which I haven't been able to find online.

It's burgundy, kind of, with little flecks of "stuff" . . . I don't know. It's kind of weird. But it was half off! I bought a TON of it, probably enough to make two ponchos . . .