Friday, August 9, 2013

About waffles and needles

In a week my nest will be empty once again. The summer has flown by!

There isn't much back to school shopping that needs to be done. All the dorm stuff we bought last year will be used again this year, so Zack and his roommate are pretty much good to go. But he wants a waffle iron. (He makes killer waffles with protein shake mix and cocoa as a base.)

Waffle irons are pretty easy to come by, but I want one that has an auto-off feature. Zack has been known to lock his keys in the car...with the car running. Auto-off just makes sense. I headed to Amazon, clicked on an Oster model and scrolled down to read the reviews.

  
This "Frequently Bought Together" pairing is:
a. puzzling
b. disturbing
c. unnerving
d. all the above

Who buys waffle irons and crossbows? Together frequently? At the risk of sounding crazy, it's my opinion that the word "frequently" implies more than one occurrence, maybe even more than two.

Update on the Kauni Rainbow Cardigan!

Liana to the rescue!! She brought her Knitpicks interchangeable needles to lunch the other day so I could give them a test drive. I really liked the look of the acrylic needles, and that's the direction I was leaning...until I saw the needles with stitches on them. This may sound weird (and totally obvious) but you can see the backside of the stitches through the clear acrylic. That's just not right. I liked how they felt and the points were nice, but I couldn't get past that transparent thing. Creepy. Then I tried the laminated birch Sunstruck needles. Heaven on a cable! They are absolutely lovely. Good points, smooth wood, warm to the touch, light color that won't compete with the yarn.

I also checked out the Addi Bamboo circulars. Ick. I know to some knitters, Addi needles are the ultimate luxury. I have a couple sets of the turbos and they are nice. BUT they are darned expensive. Here's what I didn't like about the bamboo needles. Addi has embossed the needle size into the bamboo. The embossing is about a half-inch long. Sure, this is a good way to identify the needle size, however that embossed area breaks up the smoothness of the bamboo and make the stitches drag. I'm not paying $16 per set for something that will make me hate knitting. (Fingernails on a chalkboard!)

Yesterday I took the plunge and made the Knitpicks purchase. The Sunstruck needles, in varying sizes and cable lengths (along with a few extras so I could get free shipping), should be here early next week!

4 comments:

  1. Don't you know, you need a crossbow to hunt for the waffles before you can iron them?

    I have the Addi clicks and love them except for the join. It can be snaggy. Will have to try the Sunstrucks.

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    1. Waffle hunting can be very dangerous!!

      I also have the Denise interchangeables, which I really like (I've had them for years!) but I need sizes 3, 4 or 5. Too small for the interchangeable sets.

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  2. Glad I could help! I get around the needle-size issue with red nail polish. On the metal part of the needles, with the nail polish I make a long dash to represent 5 and dots to represent 1. As an example, on my size 9 needle I have a dash and 4 dots. I can easily tell that it's a size 9 needle at a quick glance!

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    Replies
    1. I noticed the red marks on your needles the other day. It's like Morse Code for knitting needles. Very appealing to the ham radio side of my brain!

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