More WIPs than FOs

After a few years of knitting and crochet, I have finally caught a case of startitis. This condition generally rears its head in the new year, so I’m a little behind schedule as we heave towards March (already?). My symptoms include lots of scribbling down of plans, raiding my bin bag stash of bargain wools, swatching like crazy (something I have generally not done until recently), hunting online for patterns and filling the traditionally non-woolly areas of the house with piles of yarn, just so it’s to hand if I need it. A moment of clarity made me google startitis and I have a classic case …

Going with the flow for a moment, here’s a list of current WIPs:

Little Bear’s berry flavoured porridge
Rainbow Pogona
Sofa blanket
First ever pair of socks
icord headphones for my niece’s birthday
Shawl for my other niece’s birthday
Second great divide
My first pattern

Oh, and once the idea popped into my head, I really want to yarnbomb the tree in my front garden!

It’s too many! Progress on Little Bear and Pogona is good – it should only take a couple of days of concerted effort to complete the last two squares on the former, and a few nights of insomniacal knitting for the latter (I’m at the 25-minutes-per-row stage now). Additional yarn is on the way for my sofa blanket so I really shouldn’t cast on until that arrives, but it’s too tempting!

New needles

I’ve always used wood for crochet, but chose metal ChiaoGoos when I bought my first set of interchangeable knitting needles a year or so ago. While I’ve enjoyed using them, I’ve been thinking for a while that I wanted to try wood and/or bamboo.

I began by ordering a 100cm fixed circular KnitPro Symfonie 4mm and a pair of bamboo Hiya Hiya 4mm tips with an 80cm cable. I would have preferred a tip/cable combo for the KnitPro so it was a more comparable contest, but didn’t want to splash out on the starter kit.

I’d already swatched for and cast on my mystery rainbow Pogona, and was part-way through the increases when the new needles arrived. I decided to try the Hiya Hiyas first. I loved them from the very first stitch! They are of course grippier than my metal needles, but nowhere near as grippy as I was expecting from things I’d read about bamboo previously. The grippiness allows me to work much more in the tips of my needles than I ever have with metal, and although there can’t be much difference in terms of weight, they are light enough to feel like I have no ‘equipment’ between my fingers, and the fabric is simply being made by my hands. They are great for a slippery yarn like the mystery rainbow. I’m really enjoying working with a thinner, more flexible cable than on my ChiaoGoos, and I think I’ll be much happier working magic loop with them. The cable also has the ability to swivel, so I no longer find myself twiddling the needle round to the correct angle at the start of each row.

I was so impressed with them that I was very tempted not to try the KnitPros at all, well, at least not until I started a different project. But in the interests of fairness (and setting out what I originally intended to do – to road-test different needles on the same pattern/wool), I switched to them about a third of the way through the Pogona. They lasted only a few rows before swapping back! Although the wood was smoother, it felt waxier than the bamboo and ironically grippier. I was not impressed by the join, even though it was a fixed rather than an interchangeable tip, and there was a slight burr on one tip (something I have also experienced with their crochet hooks).

I’ve already ordered a set of the Hiya Hiyas; for me they won hands down!

And the winner is …

Pogona!

Swatching was spot on for gauge, so I cast on, frogging the garter tab a couple of times before being happy with it. I’m following the modified yarn overs, but I’m not sure I’m doing them correctly, or if I’m happy with the results yet. Giving it a bit longer before I decide …