Learning Something Every Day Posted on 23 Aug 19:28

We’ve had a festive week! Mike’s mother (who lives here at Edgewood Garden) was 96 years old last Thursday. To help celebrate, his sister, Bea, and her daughters (lovely 27 year old twins) were here for a few days, so I have been a bit lax about my fiber endeavors. They just left and I have finished the dishes and Mike is listing yarns and braids in the shop, so I thought I might write a little bit here.

I knit a scarf for Bea which I gave to her on Wednesday when she arrived. In the process of making it, I discovered something interesting. I had dyed some Mulberry silk 50% NZ wool 50% yarn in denim blue and grey. After a few samples with the yarn, it revealed that it was very slippery on the needles. I decided on wooden ones to help with that. It’s a basic large leaf pattern, so not challenging, but with Mike and Jeanne’s recent dental appointments, it was a good waiting room project. Near the end of the scarf last week, I snapped the tip off of one of the wooden needles. I grabbed another pair of No. 2 needles, this time, coated aluminum to finish the last foot or so of the scarf. The odd thing was that I ended up knitting much more loosely on the metal needles than I had with the wooden ones. Curious. Fortunately, the difference was pretty well hidden by the blocking of the scarf.

Until last week, I had never changed needle material during a knitting project, so it was a revelation to me that I knit so differently on wood and metal. It turns out that the metal needles encouraged me to knit even looser than I usually knit. Learn something every day!