Eet is Feeneeshed!
This, ladies and gents, is a lot of garter stitch. A rather epic amount of garter stitch. Perfect reading knitting.
Pattern review: What more could I say about Color Affection that the thousands of other people who have knit it have not already said? The pattern is simple, chic, and well written – so simple that I slightly regret how much I paid for the pattern. I guess you are paying for cleverness, not necessarily relative complexity. I was skeptical about the tight top edge, but after a severe blocking, it works just fine. If I make another, which might happen someday, I probably won’t add the YO after the 2-stitch border like the Yarn Harlot did.
After a certain point, I stopped using the pattern. I came up with clever ways to keep track of whether I was on a double M1 row or a regular M1 row, then I just learned to read the M1s so I didn’t have to keep track. I ignored the pattern’s direction to stop with the 3-color section after a given point, and just went until I ran out of white – which was conveniently almost all the way across, as you see below.
Yarn Review: What can I say about Berroco’s Ultra Alpaca Fine that the thousands of other people who have knit with it have not said? It’s light, drapey, heathered, and exceedingly economical (usually retails for under 11$ for over 400 yards). I had the peacock color in my stash, and the white was mysterious leftovers from a couple of sock projects, so I only had to buy the teal. This was one enormous and affordable knitting project.
Garter stitch stripes continue to climb the ladder of my favorite things. They’re also the hot stuff on Ravelry right now, so I’m not the only one who thinks so. Veera Valmalki, the designer, has taken advantage of that, and some more established designers like Steven West and Hanne Falkenberg are among the many who have been on that bandwagon for a very long time. Sometime, when my queue is shorter, my shoulder doesn’t hurt, and my creative energy is sufficiently recharged, I’d like to sketch with yarn and garter stitch stripes.
Too much else to do. Which is also why I will resist casting on a laceweight version. For now.
Osborn Fiber Studio 