Triumph

I have, at last, caught up on my blocking pile.  Hurray!  Which means there's a whole lotta pretty at the end of this post, if I do say so myself.

I finished my Rosa Flora just in time.  I only had a few days of puttering around on other WIPs before the new shawl came out.  It's beautiful and, as always, very cleverly designed.  I'm using Sanguine Gryphon Gaia Lace in "Memoires des Arbres."



I've oopsed into a few stash enhancements recently. 

BFL and Silk Lace in "Aquarius" from Andrea At Bullard Farm



BFL Superwash in Autmun Red, also from Andrea



Zen Yarn Garden Serenity Lace in an exclusive colorway from Steven Be (this one was a gift)



Cashmere and Silk in Sea Veggies from Allison at Iridaceae Colorworks, who knows my weaknesses well. 



And the ingredients for a Poinsettia Tam and cuffs - Shalimar Breathless in Scarab and Kid Seta Lux in...211 (terribly creative).  You can't see it but there is a metallic thread in the Lux so it is sparkly.  It's a sport weight, which is considerably heavier than the laceweight brushed mohair Romi used, but there's always a little fudge-factor with these fuzzy yarns...so I'm telling myself, anyway.  We'll see how it works out!



Now, on to the FO's! Have some beauty shots of my unpinned Perpetua:







Rosa turned out lovely.  The color is hard to capture, but I think I finally got close - the truth is somewhere in between the various shades in these pics.  This is Ainea from Iridacae colorworks in a custom color Allison dyed just for me, me, me! (She'll dye custom orders for you too - but I'm still special).











I blocked my Lyrica Euterpe, the last muse that was still waiting attention.











My Carson shawl is still drying, but it turned out great.





Now...where the heck am I going to put all of these?


 
I leave you with this image of our happy married feet, snuggled in wool.

Clutter

People often say that I knit fast, but I don't think that's true - I just knit a LOT.  With no kids, no dog, few more "active" hobbies, a shamefully high tolerance for household clutter, a husband that does all the cooking, and a highly cultivated ability to procrastinate things I don't like to do, I spend a lot of time knitting.

My high clutter tolerance does not really extend to knitting "clutter" - by which I mean, half-finished projects laying about the house.  I definitely have a maximum tolerance threshold in this area.  This is one reason I avoid promising to make things for other people.  I always make a mental note of the people who have expressed interest in my knitting or that I think might like a particular article, but I almost never say "yes, I will knit that for you," because at heart I am a deeply selfish knitter, and I want to make what I want to make. 

I don't refer to these project as "clutter" because they are unloved or because I am unwilling to do them, but for some reason they have taken a secondary position, either because I was caught up in another project, or because I hit some snag that required time and attention to address.  Mostly, they are little items or items that are almost finished, that I feel should be done in a reasonable amount of time.  In the past couple of weeks I have been overcome with - I'm not sure "guilt" is the right word, but it's as close as I can get, for these poor neglected projects. 

So, even though I desperately want to be working on lace and catching up with Romi before she has time to release another pattern (which won't be long - the new P&L is due out sometimes towards the end of the month if I'm not mistaken, and it sounds like we are headed for another shawl out of the e-book around the same time), I have been spending some time cleaning up "clutter" projects.

Last week was, obviously, the first spurt, resulting in a bunch of blocked shawls, the completed thrummed mittens, and finishing the first sock of CodeNinja's honeymoon socks.  This week I knit the entire second sock, which just goes to show that I had little to no excuse for spending five months on the first one. 



And oddly enough, the first one (the one on top) seems lighter than the second one, which I really can't account for.  I mean, even if the first one had been left out in the sun for a period of its non-progress, would it have faded so evenly all over?  I'm wondering if the first one just appears lighter because CodeNinja tried it on more times so it is a little stretched out?  No idea - we'll see what happens when I wash it.

Regardless, our matched pair of socks, both made from String Theory yarn I bought a couple of days before the wedding, are finished.



And, because it tickles me, here is the sock for my Cinderella-sized foot on top of his sock.



That makes two "clutter" projects off the plate.  I have one more pair of socks I promised to someone, which are not even started (well, they were started and I didn't like them so I ripped them out), a second sock for CodeNinja on another pair that never got finished (this one particularly annoys me because I have been proud of my immunity to second sock syndrome up until now, but the needles I was using were bad and I had to free up a set), and then a pair of armwarmers for me that have been the project that sits by my computer and gets a few rounds while I am waiting for stuff to load, reading something, or any other activity that doesn't use my hands.  I'm going to try not to be nettled about the lack of progress on those, since that is sort of the point of the project.  So, the one pair of socks, my Galadriel's Mirror shawl which is almost, almost complete, and a sweater that I am resigned will take me until the end of time to finish, because it is always my last choice for knitting.  I think if I can get one of these three off my plate, I will be down to a satisfactory level of knitting clutter.

Except, there's one little snag in that plan.  My church is sending a missions team to the Czech republic and all of the church's knitters & crocheters are being asked to contribute hats, scarves, and such for the orphanage that we support there.  One of my friends who is organizing this effort said that since I am the "sock queen" (that is mostly what they see me knitting, since socks are small and portable) she was hoping that I could knit some socks.  So, I have several balls of KnitPicks Felici winging their way to me to become little socks for orphans.  I thought the self-striping yarn would be fun.  I ordered enough to make 4 pair, so those are on my knitting list as well.  Guess those will be my "carry-around" projects for a while!  I have never knitted socks for non-adult feet so I need to figure out what a good size is for the age guidance I was given, which was "elementary school."  I picked two colorways that are "girly" and two that are more masculine.  Fortunately, I am going to visit my mother in November and hopefully I will get some travel knitting in, otherwise I would despair of being able to keep up with all of my knitting desires and obligations!  (It's the desires part that is the problem.  If only I were a better person who was more willing to knit things that are useful for other people, instead of frothy lace shawls for me!)

Nevertheless, I am still trying to keep up with my lace, and to prove it, I have made it to chart E of Rosa Flora.  I think of this as the beginning of the fun part, since I am heading for the lovely leaf motif coming soon!  My "duty before pleasure" approach to the last couple of weeks has slowed her development sadly, but I am glad to be making progress at last.



Meanwhile I have cast on the second sock of CodeNinja's pair to be my travel around project.  I don't really love the yarn at all, but with one complete sock, I feel I would be better off just getting the second one done than having a single sock lay around forever! 

Many Things

I can't believe I've gone so long without blogging.  I am ashamed.  But as a result, I do have a loooooooot to share.

My usual rule is WIPs first, and that won't actually take long today.  The socks I intended to knit on our honeymoon...



Are still WIPs, but I managed to finish the first one at least.  Often, this happens, where I get to a certain point on a sock and then it sits around forever because there is one bit that needs time and attention that I don't have.  In this case, I needed CodeNinja to try it on.  I would have him try it on periodically, discover I still had knitting to do, and then I would knit a little bit, but not too much, because there wasn't that much farther to go, and then I would have him put it on again and it STILL wouldn't be done.  I took advantage of the football game this weekend to finish the sock, since that kept him planted on the couch for a reasonable chunk of time where he could try it on and then wouldn't walk away before I could knit what needed knitting.

Even so, it was a challenge, because for some reason I find football games to be the BEST naptime I ever have.  I don't know why, but I always snooze really well during games, and CodeNinja puts up with me sleeping on him even though it keeps him from being able to holler freely at the TV.  So the whole time I was trying to finish that sock, I was feeling very sleepy and droopy.  I persevered, finished the sock, and then slept through the fourth quarter.

The other WIP is Rosa Flora, the summer Pins & Lace pattern from Romi, which I'm working in a GORGEOUS custom colorway from Allison at Iridaceae Colorworks (which I have, sadly, utterly failed to photograph well).



But, I put Rosa on hold to finish these, because I was feeling terribly guilty that the first mitten was sitting around half done for so long.



I cranked the second mitten out in a day, that's how guilty I felt.  Now they are finished and I can mail them off to warm the fingers of my dear friend.  The mitten pattern came with a pattern for a thrummed hat, and I have plenty of leftover yarn and fleece, so I do think I will make one, but I'm going to go ahead and send the mittens in case I don't get around to the hat for a while!

I've had a huge stack of stuff waiting around to be blocked, and I tried to crank through some of that as well.  First, Meadowgold got a blocking job and then got mailed off to my mama for her birthday.











I did miss a picot in one place and had to kind of fake it, but I don't think mom will notice.





Love it.  Love how it came out.  Tanis Silver Label fingering weight Silk in colorway Gold.

I made a worsted weight version of Romi's new pattern Geschenk out of Cascade Eco-wool, for a friend who unexpectedly lost her adult son.  I knit this in only a few days and still got a good size.  I was in a hurry so I only got pictures of it on the mats.







Next, a tale of two Terps - First the fingering weight version of Terpsichore in Zen Yarn Gardens Bamboolicious in colorway Harvest, knit, again, for my mother, though I haven't sent it to her yet.









And one for me, the large laceweight version with the bigger border, in Iridaceae Colorworks Dierama in Black Iris.  Purple is just one of the hardest colors out there to photograph and this yarn is so gorgeous, I wish I could do it justice.  It really looks best when folded gracefully over itself, as you'll see in the photos - the shawl on the mats doesn't look that exciting, but over the chair you get a much better sense of the color.  I almost wish I had used it on a shawl that was slightly less open since I like it so much and you loose some of the richness in the openwork, but then you see the ends drape together and it's soooooo beautiful!





 

Stupidly, I originally photographed the shawl wrong side out, so I had to go retake these pictures!!  I tortured them a little to get the color as close as I could make it.











Finally, still on the boards, my Perpetua shawl in Shelby B yarns in colorway Minister of Magic. This is one of those yarns with sterling silver in it and it is QUITE sparkly.  The shawl appears much darker than it is in these photos because it's quite wet still.







I also recently finished a Carson shawl, the first pattern from Romi's year 3 7 small shawls ebook, and it is now in my to-block pile along with my Lyrica Euterpe.  I'm hoping to get them both blocked this weekend, and then I will be all caught up on my blocking!  I think.  If I haven't forgotten something.