Friday, February 26, 2010

Noro Jag

Ah, Spring. The time when a knitter's fancy turns to thoughts of Noro...or is that just me?

I'm on another Noro jag. Happens every once in a while. Remember last year's must-have Noro Giant Granny Square? This year it's the Noro Log Cabin Blanket. The need to make one of these (Rav link) bit hard while I was in Lake Tahoe. And thanks to the internet, even though I couldn't make my intended pilgrimage to Jimmy Beans Wool in Reno (seems some of the males in my household don't see the necessity of driving two hours round trip to visit a yarn shop from which I can order yarn online in a matter of seconds--party poopers, all of them), I discovered that Noro Yuzen has recently been put on clearance by a number of my favorite yarn pushers...uh, suppliers. I ordered mine from WEBS here, but it's also on sale at Little Knits.

This is a round about way of explaining that I bought a blanket's worth of Noro last week. Wanna make somethin' of it?

And here's the current progress:

I started two days ago and have discovered, despite all the other projects on the needles, that these little squares are a lot like potato chips: I can't have just one. In fact, I'm not sure anything else is going to get done until I've turned my entire supply of ever-changing Noro colorways into log cabin squares.


(Don't mind the wonkiness. I haven't blocked any of them yet.)

I bought two hanks each of ten different colorways. Each hank makes one 11-inch square on size 7 needles at 18 sts/4 inches in garter. Don't be fooled by the gauge listed on Noro yarns. It's always wrong. I don't know whether yarn gauge is measured differently in Japan or whether it's just a Noro thing, but I find the yarn is always at least one size larger than listed; in other words, this "dk" weight yarn is really a worsted/aran weight yarn.

In case anyone is of a similar mind, these squares are wicked easy to make. After the first one, you don't need anything resembling a pattern to whip them out, and you may not even have to look at your hands, if you can resist staring at the color changes.

I worked this one sitting in Younger Son's academic awards ceremony today (honor roll-yay!).

He's the one on the far right. Congratulations, Goober!

8 comments:

At Home Mommy Knits said...

The noro squares look great without the block. Congrats on your son! Next time you are in this neck of the woods maybe I'll meet you at Jimmy Beans and a cup of coffee. No one in my family wants to go with me either :)

sophanne said...

I'm not sure what sound lemmings make but as soon as I know I'll likely be following- that looks grand.

pdxknitterati/MicheleLB said...

Yes, yes, yes! We did a baby blanket out of log cabin squares, and it was definitely like potato chips! Each square is so manageable. Way better than doing one big log cabin blanket; the strips get really long after a while. I've done blankets both ways, and squares are the way to go. Yours look great!

Sheepmom said...

I don't think there is ANYTHING better than Noro - I just love all the colors.
I just finished a cap in Noro. Now I'm looking for something else to make out of Noro and the log cabins look promising. I think it may have to be done in Noro 209 - love the bright (BRIGHT) colors in that dye lot.
I wish I could figure out how theydye trheir yarns to make such beautiful colors.
Benita
www.asheepstail.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

Noro, such addictiveness...

Melissa Morgan-Oakes said...

CREEPY! We have not had internet for days. Friday evening I cast on and began aggressively knitting a NORO LOG CABIN SQUARE.

Fibra Artysta said...

Love it! Love it! Love it!

hassam said...

so nice love it