I didn’t get to knit on Nanook at all yesterday after work or in the evening. I was briefly consumed with knitting up a fast little toddler hat for Z, since the ones she wore last year are don’t quite provide enough coverage. I’ll have more details on the hat when I can get a picture of her wearing it.

How is Nanook? Pretty great, actually. I did 2.5 bear track repeats on the first day, then got to the increases the second day. I was a bit thrown by the increases temporarily. They’re leaning increases that come out of another stitch. I was counting the increase as part of the same stitch it was borne from. It’s counted separately in this pattern. I messed up the first increase row and didn’t realize it until I got to the next one. I had to rip out a few rows, but that seemed faster than dropping down stitches to try to fix things.

nanook-4

I’m already on my second ball of Cascade 220, so I feel like things are going well. I did pick a worsted weight sweater that required less focus this year. The past two years I’ve done gobs of fingering weight or allover cables and fingering weight, so I guess I’m going easier on myself this year, but I have additional goals to accomplish knitting-wise this month.

Cynthia, if you’re reading this, I’m begging you to stock Cascade 220. I wish my LYS carried this “workhorse” yarn. I would love to be able to support my local yarn store and get this yarn at the same time. It’s soft, it knits up beautifully with good stitch definition, it comes in a rainbow of lovely colors, and it’s AFFORDABLE. At $8 a skein and many sweaters for me or Matt taking 5-6 skeins, it makes my sweater quantities of yarn stash almost as attainable as my sock yarn stashing.  That is, until I run out of room (which is actually the more pressing issue). If you haven’t tried this yarn, give it a shot. It’s not as soft as a merino, but it’s damn good for the price.

Ok, ok. Yarn praises over. I’ve got to get back to knitting.

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