Mine appears to have left me recently. First I discovered mis-crossed cables on the front of the Bramblewood vest and had to drop the stitches back and redo about thirty rows. Then I started this last night:

And this morning stiff hands confirmed what I suspected by the end of the evening: that this yarn is not just a bit too scratchy to ever become the big cosy jumper I was imagining, but it’s really a bit thick for the pattern. Even though I had perfect gauge, I was using a 12ply for a 10ply pattern, and once I got to the cables the yarn got very resistant. So off to the frog pond it goes.

I love this pattern, but I don’t have any other yarn suitable and I don’t want to buy more. It seems I’m always trying to ‘use up’ yarn. That means I’m always looking for patterns to match yarn rather than the other way around. But then I run into problems because Australian (or NZ in the case of the yarn above) yarns tend to be 8ply (dk) or 12ply (bulky). 10ply is rare so there’s not much in my stash. But many of the patterns I like are for 10ply yarns. On the bright side, I’ve found that many Aussie 8ply yarns are actually a bit thicker than dk, and can be subbed for 10ply. Obviously it doesn’t work the other way – using 12ply for 10ply patterns!

Anyway, I’m back to searching for patterns to match with the yarn I have. I’ve found a lovely fair isle vest to knit up half my old Patonyle stash with. It uses steeks, but I’ll avoid them because sock yarn tends to be slippery (something I’ve learned from weaving) and probably won’t hold together well enough.

As for the 12ply above… I have no idea what to knit out of it. A jacket would be better, because of the slight scratchiness. There were no patterns in Ravelry that I liked, however. Any ideas?