Polarspun by Lion Brand

It's been a couple of days so first the report on my situation here. The weather is so weird here. We don't normally have snow to the valley level but we are getting it this week. In my yard here yesterday, we woke up to close to four inches of that nasty white stuff. Yes, I am not a fan of snow. They, those weather people, said more snow yesterday, up to another four inches would drop, didn't happen. Then it was last night, more snow, didn't happen. We are bouncing from snow advisories, to snow warnings, to heavy warnings back to advisories. Fun, huh.

In a bit I will be headed to work. Payday is tomorrow and things need doing today to prepare for that.

Yesterday my hands were hurting from all the needle knitting, so I left it all alone to let my hands recoup and feel better. The young man who did the service for my grandson, Noah, and his wife just had a baby. I thought it would be nice to make them a baby gahn.

Now to that title of the polarspun yarn. Oh what a soft feeling yarn. It is yummy to the touch. This is the yarn I wanted (note that wanted), to use to make the baby ghan. I decided to do some larger crocheted yoyo's for the ghan, but when I started out I realized right away that this stuff is not going to work too well unless I wanted to go to a larger hook. You cannot see the stitches. They just disappear in the fluff. Not that it cannot be crocheted, just that it would be harder. I am not into harder right now.

So I went to a loom. I choose a 36" straight panel loom, 1/2" gauge, from CinDWood. I made a mistake in the cast on for my base and actually got four rows done before I realized that I had 26 pegs on one side and 27 on the other working. Not going to work.

So I frogged it. When taking it off the loom I noticed something I didn't like. I had used the figure eight for the base and when the piece came off the loom it started to stretch. It stretched to about 3 times the size it should have been. Oh no, should have swatched. So I swatched a piece in the stockinette stitch and took it off the loom. It stretched. Oh boy did it stretch. Did it bounce back, NO. It has no bounce, this yarn has no memory. Oh some of that nasty stuff that I will have to play around with to find out which craft will work best for it and in which type of project. Gee, I hate yarn like this. What's the good of feeling soft and wonderful if when worked it is not going to hold it's shape. Yuck.

I then examined this polarspun closer, as I should have to begin with. It is not exactly (well in my defination of yarn), yarn. It is thread with fuff attached to it. Thread has no memory. So to my thinking knitting this stuff is the last thing I would want to do, needle or loom. It will be back to crochet for it.

Now I have the loom out and need another yarn. At the same time I bought this polarspun from smiley's, I also bought some other lion brand yarn, some of that homespun. It's a little dark but does have some mixture of colors, including a darker pink that will work well for a little girl. I wound a couple of skeins (three to be exact), and started the baby ghan in this. I am not fond of the homespun for the fact that it bunches along the strand when holding it, but if you use a yarn guide it works quite well.

I have started the piece with a built in edging and am trying one of the ponto stitches. Yea, I know should have swatched but I think this will work ok, and be something different then what I have done before. It is stitch number 4 that I choose. The base is figure eight, the sides will be plain figure eight and the body will be the ponto 4. Should make enough of a difference in the look to see it. At least I hope so.

By the time I finished messing around with that polorspun it was getting late and I only got the base edging and a couple of rows of the ponto 4 done, so not enough yet to see it. Tonight I am going to try to split the knitting time between the needle and the loom. Maybe that way I won't impact those hands a badly as I did a couple of nights ago. Shame on me, I know better. I don't have the trouble that I use to, but then I am usually more careful then this. Shame, shame, shame on me.