A FO, near FO, and not even started yet

I appear to have all stages of knitting representing at Chez Sknitty this weekend.

For a FO, I felted and embroidered the House Slippers from Knit 2 Together I finished the knitting on a spell back:

I was first considering adding buttons as embellishment, perhaps with embroidery, but I finally decided it would look too fussy and random, and clash with the chic feel of the lime green and grey color combo. So I added only some cross stitch after felting, and I’m pleased. Such a small touch but they really looked much plainer without!

I used 1 skein of Malabrigo in Lettuce and about a half a skein of Nashua Creative Focus Worsted in grey, with US11 and 13 needles, for a women’s large. A great pattern and useful for stashbusting too!

For a near FO, I am almost done with the Vine Lace Cardi from SweaterBabe:

I just have the collar to complete and buttons to add, which I haven’t picked out yet. All the ends are woven in, and I have decided to omit the “pleated patch pockets”. Although the design amazingly doesn’t look all that bulky, given the gauge (a huge part of it’s appeal), the body of the cardi alone is about 650g of Polar. Plenty of weight and warmth already, and I hesitate to create further bulk around the widest part of the hips.

As soon as I post this, I will be working on the collar and hopefully having this lay outside all day to dry after a wet block. A cardigan in a little over a week – can’t beat that! Love chunky yarn.

For not even started yet, it’s Big Pink. I received the additional yarn on Wednesday. And whew! The colors are a perfect match. Even better than I had hoped! Whew again. We all know the disappointment that can come of picking yarn colors off a monitor. Now I am waiting for the hooks to arrive.

I have learned 2 things in my introduction to tunisian crochet. 1 – To make a large-ish tunisian project, one requires a “single-ended” hook with a cable, or extender, to hold the stitches. 2 – Such hooks are in general somewhat hard to come by, compared to regular crochet hooks, and nearly impossible to find in sizes larger than about 6 or 6.5 mm.

Stitch Diva does sell lovely handmade maple hooks in all the large sizes from Jenkin’s Woodworking, with a minimum 2-week backorder and for $30USD a go. While I am sure these are worth every penny as a piece of handwork, for something I am trying for the first time and wanting to complete the project sooner rather than later, this was not my favorite option. Actually, should I like the technique, I could easily see investing in these hooks, especially the size 35 to create the super big fluffy afghan like in the pattern photos!

But they don’t appear to be commercially manufactured. At all. I eventually went to the websites of Susan Bates, Boye, Addi, and all the major crochet hook manufacturers directly to see if they even made these. Not that I could see.

So. Ebay. Thank goodness for Ebay. I’m not a big Ebayer for no particular reason, but it sure saved the day this time. On all of Ebay, there was ONE, only one, shop that had current listings for tunisian crochet hooks with extenders in any larger size. I mean, Ebay’s a big place. One. In this shop, and in others I saw by way of looking at completed auctions, Annie’s Attic apparently manufactured/sold “Easy Tunisian Crochet” sets of larger hooks once upon a time, and these are still floating around. I watched the auction for the only set available and then bid in the last 15 seconds. I got it. I feel a little bad for the couple people who had been going back and forth. But that’s auctions for you.

Ironically, the shop is located in Atwater, CA, not too far from me. But she doesn’t keep a “storefront” so will still be mailed. They should arrive Monday or Tuesday.

In the meantime, I’m going to spend some time this weekend learning the technique with a single strand and color, which I can do with my plain old hooks.

Have a great weekend, knitting and otherwise!