I suddenly have nothing on the needles, what with all that finishing in the last week or so. I decided to take a short break between sweaters, because I thought it might be fun to have a couple of fast projects. There were some things in the stash that I thought were calling me, and I could use some small warm things now that fall is getting serious.

So, I cast on for a pair of handwarmers using a soy wool blend that’s been marinating in the stash for something like 4 years. (I thought it was about time, really.) But then I didn’t like the way it was knitting up, and I wasn’t getting the gauge I wanted, and this that and the other, and in short it was just wrong.

So I pulled it out and started over. I have another yarn that I spindled while in Germany, and I love the color and have been dying to use it. I’ve been mulling over the concept of a tam sort of hat since I started one in Germany that ended up not being a tam at all, but rather an interesting exploration of colorwork. I wound the yarn, and I cast on.

And then I promptly discovered that I’d done a much better job of making a fine fingering weight yarn than I had originally thought. I’d be knitting the hat on size 1 needles, with something like 10 stitches per inch. Not a bad thing, but not exactly a fast project. And, I decided that I wanted it to be somewhat lacy, which requires planning and thought and things like that. Not really my specialty at the moment (oh, but someday, someday…). The brain cells are still, unfortunately, occupied elsewhere, so I decided that my lacy tam is going to need to wait.

That left me back where I’d started. Two sweaters ready to cast on, and nothing in the snack knitting category. But I also needed bus knitting, so I settled on some stash busting activity instead.

Branden has always liked scarves knit lengthwise with different color stripes. They’ve always appealed, and they’re almost always garter. Fortunately, I prefer to knit scarves lengthwise, and my brain is currently managing to remain capable of garter stitch, so it seemed like a match made in heaven. Add to that the pile of Cascade Eco Wool that I still have left over after getting through his sweater (seriously, I swear that there is no end to it), and we had a deal.

So I wound a bunch of 7-yard pieces of wool on my warping board, and made them into little balls. At the beginning of a row, I grab a little ball of whatever color comes, and I knit to the end.

This was working great, except that I have (yet again) run out of little balls of yarn. Turns out that garter stitch takes a lot of rows.

So tonight, I’m spinning. And I’m thinking about winding up more yarn against tomorrow’s bus ride. In the end, it may have been easier to just cast on for the sweater…