My So-called Flicca

flicca1
Originally uploaded by cob_web

This is the start of a sleeve for Flicca. For the first time ever I've ha da problem with Guage. I know, had to happen at some point, right?

I started knitting the sleeve on the recommended needles (7mm), thinking that it would do as a swatch, since I never have problem with guage anyway...

Now, I'm making the sleeves a bit narrower than the pattern as they are HUGE, but I had worked out how wide my mods should make them. They were coming out significantly smaller than they should have been... so I got nervous.

And frogged :-(

So I decided to knit a swatch on 8mm needles. but then ignored what it told me and cast on with them. Which was risky. meanwhile I realised I should probably wash and block said swatch as rib is a funny old thing.

The next day I measured the newly dried swatch and discovered its still a bit off. I'm getting 14 st to 10cm rather than 12.

Oh well. I come up between two sizes anyway so I'm going to knit the bigger one and hopefully it will be OK.

Ha.

Why yes, I probably am completely insane.

The advantage is that the yarn (Sirdar Click Chunky) is 70% acrylic and 30% wool, so it stands up to frogging and reknitting very well.

Of course, the irony is that by the time I finish this it will be summer! I'm also now glad that Matt's socks are plain stst, as rib sends me slightly loopy and the whole thing is ribbed.

I seem to be having a red phase, as M's socks are red too. They clash horribly together though.

ION I'm thinking of buying some procion dyes and sock yarn to have a go at more dying. The place I'm looking at buying from recommends a book, which I'm tempted to get.. but I'm wondering if there are any detailed blogs or websites out there that might be useful without paying for a book? Any ideas?

Shop I'm looking at is here: http://www.dtcrafts.co.uk/index.html
Book they recommend is here: http://www.dtcrafts.co.uk/books/bk001.html