Just Knitting

As long as these #10 needles (or possibly one 10 and one 10 1/2) were handy--meaning I hadn't put them up yet--I decided to knit something mindless.

I grabbed this Bernat Max, which is discontinued now. I had bought a couple of these on clearance a few years ago because that thick/thin texture was really cool-looking. But I found that I wasn't really happy with most of the things I tried to do with that yarn.

I think the thick/thin texture--even though it's cool--does not freely lend itself to many patterns. In fact, I tried Ysolda Teague's Urchin pattern, which is designed for thick/thin yarn, but I just didn't like the way it looked. The hat is supposed to have an organic look to it, like the shell of a sea urchin. But (and maybe it's because this Max yarn is not the same thick/thin yarn the designer used) this looked a little too organic to me.

Anyway, I cast on for this scarf using the 10-10 1/2s, but the stitches were way too tight. Like bulletproof tight. So I tried some 13s. But they didn't work very well, either. So I cast onto some 15s and they were just right!

This is plain ol' garter stitch, but the thick/thin texture really adds interest. I don't know why this yarn never worked for anything else. I think it must be simply that I was trying to make the yarn do something it didn't want to do. And the difference is guage.