Sometimes looming, surprises me by going from wonderfully simple to just plain impossible. I am always taken aback, especially when it is a pattern I have made over and over - and when it is a pattern that I have written! This is looming uphill.
Right now, it is yarn that is confounding me. The “Simple Lace Wrap” for the June Loom-a-long was made with Nashua Wooly Stripes. This was a wool yarn that varied in width from worsted to heavy worsted. It was wonderful to work with, and made a nice, soft wrap that was just warm enough for the transition from winter to spring.
Thinking that our warmer days needed a lighter wrap, I cast-on with Knit Picks “Comfy” in worsted weight. UGH! Even though I had just made my Aunt a gorgeous cape (The Peony Cape) with this yarn, it refused to work for the Wrap. I swatched several other lighter yarns with no success. I even tried switching between the CinDwood and the Knifty Knitter purple hat loom. Uphill all the way.
At last I pulled out an inexpensive, but similar yarn, Lighthouse Waves, a 70% wool, 30% soy yarn. It has the same varied thickness as the Nashua. Now I am happily looming-a-long. I may be a little short in the yardage (350 yards) but I will see how the wool/soy blocks out, and add a border if needed in another yarn.
What baffles me is how I can make a pattern over and over in several yarns, and have not a problem, and then, have days where nothing seems to work. I think this is not at all unusual, and hope that newer loomers won’t be put off by the occasional day of uphill looming. The downhill is pretty nice.
I think sometimes a yarn knows what it wants to be and will refuse to be anything else that is why we have all these downhill and uphill moments whilst we try and work it out. I have days like this often and try to handle the yarn as much as possible before deciding what to make with it. Often I realise that the yarn will not work with anything I want to do with it or bought it for so have to come up with something new just for that yarn, its weird how it works out as you have just discovered Renee but brilliant when it does just work :) Helen xx
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