Sometimes something will happen in my knitting world that just completely stumps me.  Exhibits A and B:

 

What you see above are two swatches for the Nantucket jacket in the yarn I bought (still trying to make it work!)  The pattern calls for 4.5st/in.  Both swatches above read 5st/in, even though they were knit with different size needles.  The one on the left is size 7 needles, and on the right is size 8.  On size 9s I get the same, so I didn’t bother with the picture.  How is this possible?

Then I swatched in pattern on 3 different sized needles.  I couldn’t get an accurate st/in count (how are you supposed to do that on non-repeating patterns?) but I can tell you that all 3 swatches are basically the same width, meaning that apparently  I am cursed with this yarn.  I won’t make a larger size because of the difference in the way the little seed stitch triangles look.  I’m still going back and forth about buying the recommended yarn.  Even with the WEBs discount it would still cost me $84.  I’m a fast knitter, so I have a pretty firm policy where a sweater is not allowed to cost me more than $40 to knit.  So what I need is another yarn that gets 4.5st/in on size 9 needles.

Ok… on to my second yarn problem of the day.  Well, it’s not really a problem today, but I am wondering….  I bought this yarn on closeout from Littleknits.  It’s GGH Sir Galli, 100% silk, a full bag for under $40.

It’s a really pretty tweedy yarn.  The only problem?  The silk smell.  Now, I’ve never noticed a problem with this before, as I am noticeably lacking in the sense of smell department.  I thought, if it bothers me… so I went and stuck it under Marc’s nose.  He had to leave the room.  So yeah… stinky silk.   I’m just terrified to knit anything with this, because I don’t want to walk around smelling that all day.  I have, in fact, isolated this yarn into its own container so that it will have no chance of contaminating my other yarns.  I’ve read online about washing the silk in water with shampoo and baking soda.  Has anyone tried this and had it work?  I will admit to getting even more grossed out when I read about why silk smells.  Worm spit… eww…

And here is my progress on Ms. Marigold.  It actually would have been more, were it not for the several hours I spent desperately swatching for the Nantucket jacket.  I’ve decreased by 8 stitches (and tried it on) and now I’m to the increase section.  Looks to fit well so far!