Purple Passion

Monday was the Machine Knitting group, and it was planned to be a "work" day--bring whatever you need to work on.  I figured that would be a great time to do some swatching for mittens.  When going through my yarn, I found a couple balls of summery yarns, perfect for more scarves, but not on the Singer 327.  I take the LK150 to the meeting, so they would be great for it.

I started out, castin on L15-R16; IxIIIxIIIxIIIx....IIIxI  (there might have been two needles on the ends).  I did a chain stitch cast on, chaining one for the out of work needles.  Then I knit the first row manually (because the carriage wouldn't do it, LOL).  T8.

I put the center needle of each group of three in hold, knit 3 rows, cancel hold, knit two rows.  If it were a thinner yarn, I would have tucked for 4 rows, so it would have been a little easier on the brain.  For the beads, I knit the first row of the two rows of knitting all the needles, then slipped the bead on the stitch that had been tucked, and knit the second plain row.

I was a little more than 1/2 way through the ball of yarn, when I realized it wasn't very long.  I ripped back to the top of the beads (I had done three rows of the beads), then while keeping with the pattern, I gradually decreased on the sides so I was down to three less sts on each edge.  However, when I got to the other end, I was distracted, and excited to be almost finished, and forgot to increase back out...after knitting a row or two of the bead rows....ripped back, did the increasing gradually, started the beading again, thought "I think I can knit a bit more without running out of yarn", ripped back the beading....ran out of time.  Packed up everything, but got it right back out after I got home.  Finished it up, casting off with the latch hook, chaining one over each empty needle.  I even got it blocked out on Monday night, though I had to leave it overnight.  I gave it to my SIL today, when I went over to help get her apartment ready for her mother's visit.

I think she liked it :)

Yarn:  "Rumba" by Chanteleine (French company?), 50g, 112m/123yd

54% acrylic, 46% cotton, 19sts/24rows on 4-4.5mm

Yarn In:  12 574gr

Yarn Out:  10 614gr+ 50gr = 10 664gr

Balance:  1910 gr more In than Out

Costs:  $287.71/156 days = $1.84/day

I'm not sure about the number of days I've been doing this.  According to my last confession, this should be day 154.  However, my daybook says this is the 151st day of the year, plus the 5 last days of December, brings me to 156.  So, I'm going with that.

I also have another ball of this yarn, in a pretty fuchsia....