Ho hum

I apologize that the interest level in the blog has been so low lately. I'm sure all three of my readers are snoring even as I type. Ha!

And we have here another boring blog. I have finished the center charts on Evenstar and I'm working the border. I was a little disappointed in the border at first - I had envisioned something very deeply scalloped and dramatic, and the border that actually came along - isn't. However, now that I've gotten a few repeats and can now see how it's working out, I'm much happier. When I look at the border it makes me think of a jeweled crown, which strikes me as very appropriate.

It is the nature of circular shawls that it's often really hard to see what the pattern as a whole looks like until you have it off the needles, because it's always bunched up and folded in on itself, looking like the dome of a giant octopus or jellyfish hanging from the needles. I can spread it out and see pieces, but I can't really get the whole picture until it's off the needles. I could have taken it off and put it on waste yarn just to see how it would look, but that's way too much work for me. I'd rather just wait to the end. I haven't been looking at anyone else's pictures, either, not since the first couple of clues, so I can have the magic all to myself.

Unfortunately the magic may be rather delayed. The border pattern has to be repeated 52 times around the shawl and I've done like, 4. The repeats go pretty quickly (the advantage of having a border that isn't all that deep, it's only 17 stitches wide so even though it is heavily beaded, it moves quickly) and I so much prefer knitting on a border to having to cast off 8 million stitches. Plus, when you've been knitting rounds of 8 million stitches since the beginning of time (why yes, I do like my hyperboles, why do you ask?) knitting rows of 17 stitches becomes super fast and fun.

We''ll see how fun it is about repeat number 43, of course. Also I learned a new provisional cast-on method which does not involve a crochet chain, and that makes me happy, since my crochet chains never unzip the way they are supposed to. Never. I'm a little worried about grafting at the end, but it's a small seam so even if I do a bad job, it won't really be that noticeable.

Anyway, life has been exceptionally busy lately. I'm not really sure what happened, but somehow I have been roped into all these social gatherings instead of sitting at home to knit. I don't expect to make much progress this week at all on the shawl, I have so many other things that have to be done. I have to make some cards I promised to my boss and I have a church function this weekend that I have to prepare for.

So that is really all the knitting news that's fit to print, and I don't have any pictures because it pretty much looks like a big white blob. Once I get more of the edging done so that I can spred out at least a section, I'll be able to post at least something. Other than that I am knitting washcloths. Plain, simple, garter stitch squares that take about two hours apiece. Very exciting. And I haven't been weaving in the ends as I finish them, so....yeah. I'm going to be in end-weaving hell eventually. I'll have an end-weaving party and trick my friends into thinking that weaving in ends is fun. They're not knitters, they won't know any better.