I long to knit

This weekend was a generally low-yield knitting weekend. I'm sad. I would have liked to have done a lot more knitting, but I am trying to get some things checked off the to-do list, so the knitting has (once again) been somewhat pushed to the side.

I did get out of work a little early on Friday, though, and since I had a crappy week, I made a beeline for the yarn shop, where I discovered the wonder of stitch dictionaries.



I also discovered Cascade Pima Cotton in some gorgeously irresistible colors. I got a beautiful teal, which is what is shown here though the color is horrifically rendered. Here is the link to the color card instead. I think what I have is 3734, and I also got a skein of 3704 (I think). It's 220 yards per skein and it was $9 per skein and it is stunning, so even though I'm on a yarn diet I'm kinda sorta thinking about going back and getting more, especially because I really love the crescent slip stitch cotton shawl in the new issue of Interweave Knits. The yarn is soft and shiny and beautiful, and do you know what I'm making with it? A gym towel. Because you know what? The gym is about the least glamorous place ever and I think a soft hand-knitted towel in a beautiful color is a nice bit of luxury and sophistication to remind me that there is more to life than sweat and grime. Part of me feels a little guilty for putting such a beautiful product to such an ignoble use, but I'm telling that part to shut up. Besides, making the thing has whipped by. Anyway, I used my new stitch dictionary and I picked an edging and I picked a stitch pattern and off I went and it's beautiful. I can't remember what the edging was called but it uses the cluster stitch. The main pattern is the broken checkerboard pattern. I luff my new stitch dictionary.

Sadly, progress on Evenstar has been slow since the only real knitting time I had was Friday evening, and I spent it on the towel because I was too tired and brain dead to fiddle with lace and beads. Over the whole three day weekend I only got two additional repeats completed on the edging. This puts me at 13 repeats completed out of 54. Very depressing, especially since, based on last night's knitting, it takes me about an hour to do a repeat, so I basically have a full work week of knitting to do to finish off this piece. This makes me so sad. I really want it to be finished. I am looking longingly toward other projects. Not that my love for this project has diminished or languished at all, but, I'm only human, and the next project I plan to work on is a veritable sunburst of color after all. this. white. I'm still wondering if I will be able to see any blue at all when I finish and block this piece. If I look really hard I can identify the places where the color is pooling, but I can see only that it's a little darker in those places, not that it's blue. Oh well - it's beautiful anyway and nothing shows off a lace pattern like white. Right? Right. I at least like having the beads on the edging, though, the smokeyness of the beads gives it a bit more depth, I think, and takes it a little out of the 'wedding' look.





I'm going on vacation in two weeks and there's a lot I have to get done between now and then. I'm making some cards that friends have asked for that I'm trying to get off my plate (this is why I don't often do things on request, I get so stressed about it) and I have to get the house cleaned. One of my coworkers is coming to pupsit while I am out, and he is kind of a neat nick and I am...not. At all. So I want to get the place in order enough that he doesn't pass out when he walks in the door.

My friend requested a set of thank you cards and a set of thinking of you cards like these, which I had donated to the church fundraiser:



So I made those, and I had more base cards than I needed, so while I was at it I played around with some other things and made these:







The base cards are pink, though you can't really tell in those photos. Pink and black always look good together so these cards are really simple but still really pretty. I have some other things that I started that are partially done, but not finished yet. I really should just sit down and play with things more often. Usually when I'm working on a card it's for something or someone in particular, and I get kind of stressed out about it. Tossing things around, seeing if they work, changing it up if they don't, without feeling like I'm under pressure - that was pretty fun. I'll have to do that more often. I also really like having these pre-cut, pre-folded cards to work with rather than doing it myself. It just speeds the process up quite a bit.

I'm also working on some long cards my boss asked me to make. He likes to give savings bonds to his grandkids for their birthdays so he often asks if I will make up a card to present them in. That's on my agenda for tonight. That will check off the last "do for other people" thing on my list and I can move on to just getting the house clean.

I don't think I'm going to take Evenstar with me while I'm on vacation. It's too big and beads are a bit much to fiddle with for a car trip, so I will probably start my next lace project for that trip. Or I will work that cotton slip-stitch shawl I mentioned. That would be good, easy vacation knitting. I will also need to take something small and easy since we are going to an amusement park for part of the trip and there will be lots of standing in line. I will have to investigate possibilities for that, I think. Last time I went to an amusement park, I took a merino/tencel sock on the grounds that a plant fiber mix wouldn't be too hot. I do have a wool/tencel yarn at home, but I didn't actually like working with it very much when I last used it, so I'm not sure that's what I want to do. I'll have to give this some thought.