Thank you so much to everyone who took the time on my last post about this knitting project to take the time to share advice, tips and a lot of encouragement. It was so much appreciated that I’ve gone from having a row of cast-on stitches to a whole 11 cm of material now!

I was impressed how fast the rib part worked up but the 9 inches of stockinette now is looking like such an endless task that I think I could take up training for a marathon and complete said marathon before I ever got to the end of it. Things are going much better, there have been a few dropped but rescued stitches – although I am admittedly not keeping a close eye on stitch numbers for the ones that magically grow and disappear.

I can’t rave enough about how much I love this yarn. It has withstood a brutal amount of frogging and is the perfect antidote for all the people who consider yarn an infernally itchy, scratchy monstrosity. The small amount of silk content gives it this subtle sheen and it is wonderfully squashy. You can see on some of the close up photos it does have a small amount of ‘hair’, probably from the yak content, but it isn’t excessive. I love the feel of fibres like unspun alpaca but really don’t like the hairiness, especially of most commercial alpaca yarns I’ve seen. I think removing more of the guard hairs before spinning is supposed to help but, for me, I’ve not found a property to it I like enough that’s worth preserving with.

I started the Sockhead Hat as I wanted a very simple pattern I could just get on with without regular consultation of a pattern. I’m not sure now if I’m regretting that. I love being able to not count rows and stitches, and with the drudgery of a surplus pointless video conferencing meetings recently, it’s a good way to feel productive while my brain melts. However, it is…. a bit boring? I don’t remember feeling like this with the Herbaceous Mitts at all, where I had the patterned section to break things up. I think I am finding I am a sucker for punishment.

The one thing I am enjoying about endless stockinette though is that it is unflinching in showing up any little problems in the fabric construction. I am somewhat hoping that blocking will take care of a few of the looser tension parts when bridging between the double pointed needles. (Am I being too optimistic readers?) There are a few other points where an errant DPN has broken its way through previously knitted material and parts where I may have included a few of the wrong type of stitches.

However, the end is the goal here, not perfection and to some extent I want to get a better feeling for what I can ‘get away’ with versus what is worth spending the time to go back and fix. I have a newfound respect for embroidery in this regard. There’s a lot more flexibility with fixing or covering mistakes even from a while ago with most techniques then there is with knitting. Unless there are some more ninja knitting secrets that I still need to learn.

For now though, knit x 144, purl x 144 and repeat…..