Knitting & Crochet Blog Week - Late to the party - Days 1 & 2

As you can see from the above banner its Knitting blog week - you are suppose to blog about a given topic on a given day.  I've been procrastinating about this, but having read some of the entries its looks like everyone is having a good time, getting lots of visitors to their blogs, so I've decided to pull my finger out and get on, especially as its raining and I can't get out on the garden.

Day One - Tale of Two Yarns - choose two yarns and tell what you like or dislike about them. 

Well I'm not a yarn snob so you won't be hearing about some fantastic yarn I've bought which I needed to take out a 2nd mortgage for.  I like yarn that has acrylic as part of its makeup.  I can hear the gasps of disapproval from here.  I like to be able to throw my knitted items into the washing machine and for them to come out as they went in.  Having experienced knitting with 100% wool yarn and then seeing the end result after my daughter washed in the machine, its an awful waste of time and effort.  Having said that I think the nicest yarn I used was for a little cardigan for a friend daughter's christening, knitted in Sublime Yarns Baby Cashmere Merino Silk 4ply

With regards to a yarn I'm not keen on, that would have to be Paton's Smoothie, whilst the end result looks good it splits terribly

So on to Day 2 - Skill + 1Up - Look back over the year to see how you have improved knitwise.

For me this was lace knitting, I went right out of my comfort zone when I joined a KAL on the Grandmas Hand Forum its was for the Travelling Woman Shawl,  I learnt that its not easy to unpick lace, I learnt about installing lifelines and making sure my stitch markers were in the right place. I was pleased with the result.  I now have all the necessary blocking equipment so future lace projects will hopefully have a crisper finish.

I still need to push myself into sock knitting, its my goal for 2011