Excess

I took Friday off as a mental health day, so I had a long weekend to enjoy! And enjoy it I did. Though I was very sad to hear over my Twitter feed that Knit Happens is closing its doors, I can't deny I squealed a bit when I heard that they would begin their closing sale on Friday. Friday, which I took off! And which the SO had also conveniently taken off! He was hoping we would be able to watch meteors at an ungodly hour on Thursday night/Friday morning, but his plans were foiled by rain, leaving him free to drive me to the sale.

We arrived before the store opened. There were several other knitters hovering outside the door. We joked about circling like vultures waiting for lions to leave a carcass. We were mostly polite when the doors opened, filing in with some degree of order. Stocks for some items that I was interested in were clearly low or depleted already (curses), but I still scored pretty big.



That, my friends, is 11 balls of S. Charles Tinka and 2 balls of Filatura di Crosa Superior - otherwise known as the ingredients for Leyfi.

I nearly plotzed. The Superior was 50% off and the Tinka was 60% off and this sweater, which I thought was far outside of my financial reach (Superior retails for $25.00/ball, bringing the tab to $50 before you even add in the Tinka), is now going to be MINE. MINE MINE MINE AHAHAHAHA.

Ahem. Sorry. Of course this world is not perfect, and I now face a sizing issue. I have enough yarn, according to the guidelines, to make the 40" size, plus a ball of Tinka to spare. However, this leaves me with no ease at all in the sweater. The next size up takes one ball of Tinka more than I have, and would give me 4 inches of ease, which seems like it might be too much. Rar. Right now I am leaning towards making the 40". Knowing me it's unlikely I will get exact gauge anyway, so maybe if I'm lucky my gauge issues will give me a little extra ease (but not too much).

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I also got this:



Schaefer Andrea, 100% silk, in colorway Barbara McClintock. I don't know what this will become. I'm thinking about Waves of Grain, maybe? I feel like it should be something corn/grain related (there are not, as it turns out, all that many corn-related lace designs). I can't help it - I'm a theme person. I'm kind of regretting not signing up for Bad Cat Designs Summer Swatch Me thingy, because this totally looks like corn growing on stalks to me.

Once again, though, I'm getting ahead of myself. I have a ton of projects to worry about before I get fussed about that.

Anyway. In addition to the above-mentioned yarn, I got a Euclan sampler pack. I have tried Kookabura wash and Soak wash, and Euclan is the only one I haven't tried yet. I also snagged an Addi Turbo lace needle. I want to try one of those babies out. I love my KP interchangeable needle set, but it's true that they aren't the sturdiest. If I like the Addi lace needles I may invest in an Addi interchangeable set. However, the lace interchangeables that they've come out with have shorter tips than usual to accommodate a 16" cable. I don't want shorter tips, I find them very uncomfortable to work with, so I'm absolutely waiting until they come out with full length tips. In the meantime, I'll try the one I bought and see how I like them.

Since I was in the area, I went to check out Fibre Space, since I had never been their before. OMG. So much love. I really wish they were easier to get to/closer to my home. I walked in and they had big signs that said LACE, WORSTED, FINGERING. I thought, FINALLY, a yarn shop that understands how I shop. I went straight for the lace area, and then straight to the sock yarn. I looked over all the other yarns, too, but it was so nice to be able to immediately see all the yarn in the weight I needed/wanted.

I bought this:



And this:



The top is Fiberphile in a colorway whose name I have totally forgotten, and the one on the bottom is Dragonfly Fiber Djinni in the awesome colorway "Reluctant Dragon." I am now on a mission to find the perfect dragon-themed sock to make with it. I squealed a little when I picked up this yarn because it uses the same yarn base as my beloved Casbah.

I also had a little falling down during the week and ordered yarn from Fiber Optic, so in addition to the yarn I bought on Friday, I came home to two skeins in my mailbox.





I regret nothing. (though I must observe from the last few pictures, I seem to be going through a green period)

I ordered gift yarn from KnitPicks to get a jump on the Christmas knitting (also some birthday knitting for which I am woefully behind) and that...did not arrive. Even though it should have. I'm going to have to call the post office because I am really annoyed that my packages are not coming. My package from Twilight Knits has also not arrived, and I'm really mad about it. I contacted her and she definitely mailed it, and she is very graciously sending me another skein, which I really appreciate since I don't hold her responsible for the failings of USPS. Either someone else is getting all my yarn deliveries, or someone at the post office is hoarding it for themselves. I am not amused. I know my address has been correct on all these packages, so I don't know what's going on.

In addition to all this yarn acquisition, I did actually do some knitting. All this shopping has induced some guilt over some of my UFO's, so I pulled a bunch of them out. I finished my Summer Flies Shawl since I was close to the end - although this took a great deal more time than I expected because of the ruffle. My love of ruffles will kill me one day. I adore ruffles on the finished project. I hate that the only way to get a ruffle is to rapidly increase from a reasonable number of stitches to an insane number of stitches (or the reverse - either way, you are knitting an insane number of stitches) and then knit stockinette until you want to die.





At least it was a worsted weight yarn. Cut it a little close with the yarn requirements on that one. The picot bind off took foreeeeever. These pictures are unblocked, since it was late when I finished.

I finished a swatch for the Simone sweater from French Girl Knits (shut up. it still counts as finishing if you started the swatch more than four months ago).



I didn't get guage. I was closest on the size 8 needle, but I may have to knit another swatch with a 9 to see if I can do better. Supatight Knitta strikes again.

I pulled out my featherweight cardigan and began binding off the collar. This project needs nothing but that bind off and sleeves to be finished. Shameful.



I'm a little worried my bind off is too tight, even though I'm using a needle something like three or four sizes up. I need to decide whether to keep going or undo what I've done (again - I started out with a needle only one or two sizes up) and try again with either a larger needle or a different bind-off technique. I wish I could remember what I did for the bottom edge, as that bind off is both beautiful and appropriately stretchy.

Not pictured is Veronique from French Girl Knits, which is also on my list of "just suck it up and finish it" projects. This one needs to be seamed before I continue, and I intended to block it and then seam it, since seaming unblocked edges seemed like a recipe for madness. However my hatred for blocking and my hatred for seaming have combined to sideline this project for months, which is really too bad because I really, really like the garment in the book. Therefore, I commit to you, blog, that before I post again, I shall block and seam this piece so that I may knit on. Once seamed, it will be knit in the round until I'm satisfied with the total length of it, and then it will need sleeves.

Both of these garments are knit in fine weight yarns - Veronique in Kidsilk Haze and the Featherweight cardigan in a laceweight (knit picks gloss lace, I think) so even though there isn't much left to be done on them, finishing these still represents kind of a lot of knitting. Boring knitting. Time to get some movies from Netflix.

Sleep is a curse

I am so close to being finished with my sweater! I don't know what it is - that first diamond took sooooooo looooooong but now they are whipping by. I knit as fast as I possibly could last night, but I couldn't finish. Around 9:30 I stopped to take stock of my progress. Maybe, just maybe, if I stayed up late I could finish. This is a dangerous tactic, because my propensity for mistakes increases drastically with the lateness of the hour, but it would be worth the risk to be done. I have plans for the rest of the week so I wouldn't be able to work on it until Saturday at the earliest.

"How much more do you think I have to go?" I asked hopefully, showing the chart to the SO.

"Hmm," he said. "You started here tonight?" I nodded anxiously. "And you're here now?" Nodnodnod. "Well, I'd say you've probably got another four or five hours."

"What?!" I grabbed the book back and stared at the chart. "No way! Look how small that is! And there's decreases at each diamond so the rows get shorter!"

Sadly, his math-fu defeated my knitter logic as he pointed out how long it had taken me to go from here to here and therefore how long I could expect it to take to get me from there to there. I ran out of yarn for the night 10 minutes before Deadliest Catch was over, so I gave up, watched the rest of the episode (Jake! You are breaking my heart! You were so happy and excited and young and now you are so jaded and cynical and mean!) and went to bed. I think it should only take me one more ball of yarn to finish, so I'll wind it sometime this week and hopefully finish this weekend.

I have been doing a lot of yarn surfing this week. I'm not officially on a yarn diet anymore but I am trying to maintain some degree of self control, especially since I already have plenty of stuff to work on. I am enamored of Fly Designs at the moment. It's definitely on my 'yarns to try' list. I am especially pleased that they have a merino-tencel blend sock yarn. The last pair of merino-tencel (the blue embossed stitch socks) socks that I made were really nice and have worn very well. I've been on the lookout for that blend ever since but it doesn't seem very common, at least not in the brick-and-mortar stores around here. I still have plenty of sock yarn to go through so I am trying to be good, but the next time I need a fix I will be all over that. The colors are fantastic, too.

In order to keep my yarn-buying impulses under control, I've been looking at patterns instead lately. Whenever I find a pattern that I like on Ravelry, I fav it, and then when I am looking for a new project I go shop my favs. Once I've knit it, I take it out of my favs. However, I don't think all this pattern browsing is helping me. There are so many things I want to do! I have about 240 faved patterns to date. I have about 9 in my queue, 5 lace projects, 2 socks, and one pullover that I keep changing my mind about. I have about 1400 yards of Valley Yarns Northampton in my stash and I can't makeup my mind what to do with it. I'm thinking I would prefer a cardigan or something that would go over other clothes. Northampton is soft but I'm not sure it's next-to-the skin soft. Then again, I am kind of spoiled in the softness category. I'm thinking about Rogue, but I'm a little short on yardage. I'd need 1485 and I only have 1400 and change - and that's assuming none of the skeins are short. So, I'd be taking a risk. I'm not really sure it's a good one, especially considering how economical Northampton is. I could just go buy 7 balls and not be so worried. $35 plus shipping for security - not a bad tradeoff in my mind. So, that gets me a rogue hoodie but does not solve the problem of what to make with the Northampton I already have! Maybe Hey Teach? I'd want to make the skirt a little longer but that might could work. Hmmm...

Self-Indulgence

Current knitting frustrations aside, my stash has experienced considerable growth over the holiday, even though only a couple of people got me yarn for Christmas.

The SO's mom gave me this:



and this:



(note the lovely handmade drop-spine box she presented it in)

The panda silk is so lovely I am considering whether it could possibly be used for something other than socks. Not that I don't love socks, but it would just be so pretty in a lace scarf or something like that. Pondering.

On top of this, I have managed to make her something of a knitting convert. She does crochet some, and learned to knit once many many years ago, but up until now she has continually protested that purling was awful, the height of all evils, something greatly to be detested, but then on New Years' Eve I showed her how to do it and she found that it was not, in fact, as difficult as she had thought. She promptly took herself to a yarn shop, procured some large needles and a variety of novelty-ish yarns, and is knitting away. Score 1 for the knitters! (she does, however, protest that she is only going to knit square things...and socks, eventually)

Such a convert was she that she called me about Aylin's anniversary sale, and met me there (even though she had already been and bought a bunch of stuff). I procured this:



One of the ladies working there looked at me and said, "Are you making...the scarf?" and I had to laugh and admit that I was indeed. Baaaaaah.

I also bought this:



The SO's mom (I shall have to think of a better way to refer to her, because that is getting tiresome and sounds oddly disrespectful to me) gave me a kit some time ago for a tilli thomas bag using these yarns, but she had only bought one skein of each, and when I looked at the yarn requirements, I found that - one skein was no where near enough. Fortunately, my memory was equal to the task and I was able to get matching skeins last night. They might be different dye lots, but they are close enough. I know I could have asked and Aylin's could've looked it up for me, but to tell the truth...I didn't want to admit in front of SOMom that she didn't buy me enough. It was very generous to get it for me at all and I didn't want her to feel bad. I am determined now to knit this bag up ASAP since I am sure she must wonder why it is taking me so long to make it.

Before I even left for Christmas I had ordered this:



which will become a Hemlock Ring Blanket. I'm going to go back and find the Ready-Set-Knit podcast knitalong for that too and pretend I am part of the cool crowd who knitted this ages ago.

I also ordered this:



Which is a sparkly mohair that I got for so cheap that I am sure it is not entirely on the up and up. I have had an uncomfortable feeling ever since I got the order confirmation and saw that it was shipping from Turkey. I will have to do more research before I buy anything there again. This is, alas, more Christmas knitting, but no deadline on it for now. A work friend wanted a white sparkly snowflake scarf. well, 2 down...I will have to work on the snowflake thing. But it's not as if I don't have resources. I have all this to draw on:



Wasn't that a lovely segway? Have some edging shots - big ones, because I could not find any that showed the edging to my satisfaction when I was looking to knit it, so here's hoping someone else will find these useful:





I was squinting at many other pictures trying to figure out if the purl side really was supposed to be the right side, and couldn't figure it out, so - I hope it is! I am somewhat concerned because I can't figure out how this is supposed to be the right hem, because it totally looks like the left hem to me in every way. Except, I guess, when you are knitting, because you are holding the shawl upside down? I am sure I could e-mail the designer or ask on ravelry and have her answer my question very nicely, but apparently I am determined to figure it out without help. It looks fine the way it is, anyway, so I'm trying not to fret. The edging does make it so pretty and feminine looking!

One more, to show a little more of the pre-edging:



I love the row of eyelets it's making along the edges. Should certainly help when it comes time to block! If that day ever comes (I am almost done with 1/2 of the edging).

If she does not like it I may cry. Kind of a lot.

Back to the yarn pr0n...

When I got back from my lousy vacation, and everything seemed to be going wrong, I bought some feel-better yarn, and it arrived to thrill me the day before yesterday - but I didn't see it until I was on my way out to work yesterday morning, so I grabbed the package and took it with me, ripped it open in the car, and admired it all day.

Handmaiden Casbah in Topaz:



and Peridot:



I didn't realize how much blue was in the peridot until I took that picture, but I checked the skein and it is definitely there. If it were on the other side, though, it would show more green.

I have decided that I really hate my current sock, and I think it is on its way to the frog pond. I already frogged back to the ribbing, thinking I just hated the way it was working up, but I really think I just can't stand that color combo right now. (it's hand dyed and I feel guilty for saying that - I'm sure the designer is a wonderful person and that this colorway is perfect for someone that I have not met yet, and will eventually meet a happy fate)

I started the Noro scarf yesterday to give me something simple to knit at choir tonight, but the rest I have put aside for now. Sockwise, I am caught in serious indecision. I am having a hard time letting go of my current sock, no matter how much I hate it, and I am having an even harder time deciding what I would knit and what pattern I would use. I did buy the Pink Lemon Twist new fallen snow pattern, but I just don't know.

Everything else must wait until the Christmas knitting is done, and so, alas, must this:



I am DYING. As a side note...I managed to make one of the footman joints about a quarter of an inch shorter than the other one, because I am apparently measuring impaired (really, I think that it has more to do with it being difficult to put the screw in without accidentally pushing the treadle either up or down before the screw makes it to the joint, but both possibilities are valid). Is this a problem? Am I going to be miserable? Should I just buy a new footman joint and fix it right away, and am I sabotaging myself as a new spinner by having uneven footman joints? Or am I being overly anal and is it really not that important?

(Please note that the smear on the treadle does not in any way mean that I do not love and respect my new wheel. I was just a little clumsy while oiling the hinges. I swear to be a better, more coordinated person in the future and not so reckless with the application of the oil. It is my first wheel, and I was excited.)

More stash to come, when I remember to photograph the rest of it. I have at least 4 more skeins to show!

Just Keep Knitting

Friday was the ornament exchange for my church. I whipped together a container for my ornament as fast as I could, as pride would not allow me to just wrap the thing and be done with it. I'm pretty happy with the top:



But I thought the sides were kind of plain. I was out of ideas, short on materials, and like an idiot...I put the paper on first and came up with decorations later.



Which meant those Versamark snowflakes were stamped on a rounded surface. I am a moron. I used an angel punch and my little xyron to stick on the angels. All in all - not my best effort. I wish I had done the top first so I could have based the whole thing around that. The ornament stamp came from Angela's Happy Stamper. I used dark green opaque embossing powder and then cut it out. I adhered it carefully so that it covered up the smudge on the quote. That stamp also came from Angela's.

I put the same ribbon on my Tree ornament, added some tissue paper,



and off I went to the exchange. I got an adorable little snowman ornament, which I neglected to photograph.

This took knitting time away from Whispering Pines, but I'm still plugging along.



That photo shows the color pretty accurately I think. When viewed up close, like this:



It appears white, and you can see the bits of color running through it. But from a distance, as in the first photo, the impression it gives is of an ice blue. Very pretty. Anyway, I'm on the last tree, but every row is so long at this point that whenever I am called upon to describe my progress I use words like plugging, plodding, anything that gives the impression of doggedly toiling onward with your head down, making no effort to measure your progress because it will just discourage you anyway. Other knits are calling, I am trying to ignore them, even as my hands freeze off and the wind gets under my collar and my ears go all tingly (Okay, we have not quite reached tingly levels of cold yet, but the wind on bare hands is enough to make you think you are going to get frostbite just trying to get your groceries out to the car).

One of my friends sent me this for Christmas:



4 oz of hand-dyed fingering weight yarn from the Homestead Heritage craft fair. She got me some worsted last year that has been sitting in my stash waiting for me to get over the aversion to scarfs I had after beginning my knitting life with several. I actually washed one of the skeins last week to try and soften it up a bit, as it was a little rugged and a tad sheepy (If anyone has any solutions for the removal of VM I would love to know, as there is kind of a lot in those skeins).

The sock yarn is not rugged and has no VM and it is shiny and beautiful and the perfect color. It's hard to tell in the photo, but it has more of a semisolid effect to it. Very pretty. Too pretty for socks. I am thinking Hamsa.

I wore my Scheherazade to church on Sunday and two separate people told me they would pay me to make them one. My general reaction was uh, no...As appealing as extra money sounds, I don't think I want to cross that kind of line. I will make presents, I will keep mental notes about what people like, but I am not going to knit for money. Besides, I am pretty sure that is illegal under the pattern copyright.

I'm getting a bonus this year, and I plan to use it to buy a spinning wheel (probably an Ashford Kiwi). I did not make it very far in my resolution to drop spindle every day, so I may be setting myself up for disappointment or insanity by getting a wheel, but I am taking the plunge anyway. Used wheels generally keep a lot of their value.

I wonder if I could get the SO's mom to paint my wheel for me. She is a very good painter and I would so love for my wheel to be pretty. Maybe I can trade her some knitting for it! I don't know, though, would that affect the balance? Would it not spin as well?

Lurv

I haven't been blogging because I haven't had any photos to blog. I've been TAKING them, they just never make it from the camera to the computer. Then I have to take more because the ones I just took are out of date.

I got a LOT of knitting done at the amusement park. Unfortunately, a huge chunk of it had to get ripped out and reknit. DANGIT. I did successfully finish the socks I started at MD Sheep and Wool in the car on the way to the park...only to find that somehow I had experienced a guage change and while the first sock I knit does fit, the second sock is much too big. My stitch guage went from 8.5 st/in to 7.5 st/in. I think I started knitting further down on the needle. I'm unhappy, but not about to rip and reknit.

I finished most of the toe of my soldier socks, but later had to rip it out because I didn't have the pattern with me and read the instructions wrong. So, I spent Sunday undoing that bit and reknitting it. Then I triumphantly wove in the ends, put the socks in the laundry, and triumphantly came out with...a pair of socks approximately 1/2 in different in length. ARGH. I'm nervous about unpicking reknitting now that it has been washed, but I don't see that I have much choice.

Also in the car, I cast on and knit the first couple rows of the socks I planned to knit actually at the park. I'm using the embossed stitch pattern from More Sensational Knitted Socks. The yarn is the C*eye*ber Fiber merino-tencel sock blend I got at Maryland Sheep & Wool. The colorway is Periwinkle and I LOVE it. It's so shiny and pretty and it is turning into a gorgeous sock. It's pretty enough in the pattern stitch but then I started doing the heel flap and it is striping in beautiful even stripes that have me tickled so much that I am afraid there may be something wrong with me. I also switched down a needle size for these socks, since I really haven't been happy with the fit on all my previous socks, and I'm much happier with the tighter fabric I've been getting. My only sadness is that I fear these socks will wear out rather quickly since they have no nylon content. I'm not into darning.

However, it hasn't all been roses and happiness...I messed up the stitch pattern for the first few repeats. I couldn't figure out why it wasn't looking right and eventually I found the bit I had been reading incorrectly...and I had to rip out all the progress I made while standing in the 2 hour plus line for one of the rides. I was really unhappy about that since making so much sock progress was the only thing that made that line bearable (it was not my idea to stand in it). Fortunately, I was out of the line by the time I discovered the mistake, or I might have stabbed someone. By the time we got back to the car that evening, I had almost won back all that progress.

A lot of people in the line did kind of the nudge-point-whisper thing at my knitting, but by the end of the line, after passing the same people in the cattle gates fifty-bajillion times, people were starting to actually talk to me about it, to ask what I was making and voice their wish that they had something to do. It was kinda neat!

Amusement Park Knitting

I love the SO. We're going to Hershey Park this weekend, and I mentioned that I needed to pick my trip knitting, and I said something about socks, and he said, the sweetheart, "It's a long trip. Are you sure socks are enough?"

^_^ Isn't he cute?

I don't think there is really any danger of me running out of stuff to knit. First of all, I plan to take both my socks for soldiers socks and the socks I started at MD Sheep and Wool, in the hopes that I can finish both in the car. Then, I want something to knit in line, and socks are definitely on the menu for that (don't worry, I will leave them at the loading area when I get on a ride, so that I do not get punctured). I'm thinking I'm going to wind up the C*eye*ber Fyber I got at MD Sheep & Wool, and xerox the Embossed Stitch pattern from my copy of More Sensational Knitted socks. I think a 4 stitch pattern SHOULD be easy enough to not mess up.

I have the skein of Casbah in Peacock all wound up and ready to go for the Caledonian Mist socks from Pink Lemon, but I think the merino-tencel blend will be more pleasant to work with the the hot weather.

I will probably also take along a shawl project of some sort, just in case - I have all that Jojoland sitting around for a Wrapped in Comfort Shawl. I think I've decided on the Water Turtles Shawl, but "decided" is always a moving target with me.

There is, of course, always the chance that I will fall asleep or something and get no knitting done at all, but I'm hopeful.

A Hazy Shade of Moonlight

Normally I post once a week or so, so that I have pictures to post - but, it's been a busy week and it makes me feel better to blog, so we have a bunch of small pictureless posts instead. Actually looking back - there have been a lot of pictureless posts lately. Oops. I promise, the pictures will return shortly.

I have, of course, started some new things since finishing Scheherazade. Or at least, I've attempted to. It's...not going well. I first tried to tackle the Jojoland Harmony scarf I was planning, Elm Row from Knitspot...but the yarn has gotten hopelessly tangled. I'm not sure what I did - I must've wound it too fast? Is there some type of rule about winding laceweight? I don't know, but it tangled badly right off the ball and I didn't make it more than a couple of rows in before I gave up in frustration. Not sure how I plan to resolve that problem, since rewinding it will still mean dealing with the tangles.

I put the yarn in time out and fetched out the Kidsilk Haze I've had squirreled away for the Moonlight Sonata shawl. That one's giving me trouble too...I've never worked with mohair before, and I really had a lot of trouble with the pattern instructions at first. I am trying not to lose hope - this frequently happens to me at the beginning of a pattern. It takes a while to get into the rhythm. Anyway, I have the collar plus two rows done. I'm really struggling with doubting my choices - doubting the yarn, doubting the color, doubting whether I should even have attempted this whole mess at all - but I'm trying to have a little faith. I'll give it a few more rows and pretty soon I'll be sailing along...hopefully. I did worry about guage and whether the pattern would show up as it should, but I checked out a few Moonlight Sonatas made out of KSH on Ravelry and it seems to have worked out for them. The color is "Nightly" and it is one of those navy blues so deep it is almost black. I keep worrying about whether it is TOO close to black, but one of the first things the SO said when he saw me making the collar was "That's a pretty color" so it must not be too bad. When I set it down and step back a bit, I feel better, so I think it's just new project anxiety. It'll be fine. (or am I in knitter's denial? always a possibility).

Go Greased Lightening

I was too lazy to take photos for this post. The only thing interesting is the center motif anyway - which I did finish this weekend. I finished off chart 1, motored through chart 2, and got halfway through chart 3. Clearly, I didn't do much other than knit this weekend.

I did make another visit to With Yarn in Front, since I'd been told they were getting in more yarn this week, and I totally only meant to look but - well, you know how that goes. I left with 4 skeins of Jojoland Melody in a colorway made of purlples and blues and reds that were so me that I could not possibly pass them up. I plan to use them for a Wrapped in Comfort shawl, though I'm not sure which one. I really like Michelle's shawl, it's my favorite in the book, but the drape is part of what I love about it so I'm thinking it might be better to do it in a different yarn. I will have to spend some time with the book before I decide.

I'm working on this stole with absolute determination, though. I've worked on it almost exlusively. Last night after I went upstairs to go to bed, I did work on a garter stitch scarf because I was tired and troubled and needed to be soothed, but other than that, I'm so longing for this shawl to be complete that I really haven't worked on much else.

I need to turn the heel on my sock in progress, and I have to work the toe for my socks for soldiers socks, so even my thoughtless projects are stalled for the moment. I have to find the pattern for the soldier socks because I'm pretty sure the instructions for the toe are somehow different from the instructions I usually use, and I think I followed the pattern instructions on the first sock, so I should do that on this one as well. I just have to get the pattern and the sock in the same place for five minutes to figure it out, and then I will be able to (finally) finish off that pair and start on the next one (which will, mercifully, not be black nor quite so large as this pair).

I have to look up the eye of partridge heel instructions I used on the first sock of my pair so that I can do that heel. I'm pretty sure I can figure out what I did, but I'd like to look back just to make sure.

To be honest, I'm kind of ready to be done with all those projects. Not that I don't love them, but a) I haven't finished anyting for a while and I need a finishing fix b) so many other things have come up that I want to try!

One thing I fear - I may be so addicted to lace knitting after this stole that I kind of don't want to knit anything else. I could start a hat or something but really, I just want to knit more lace! This can't happen! I have plans for many other non-lace things! What about those projects? I want those things!

...but I really want to knit lace.

50% and a new LYS

First things first - I give you, exactly 1/2 of Scheherazade, which is pretty much the maximum I can accurately photograph anyway:







I had a really difficult time with the edging at first, not becuase it's hard (it's not), but just because I had this feeling that I was knitting out into space - it was bizarrely scary to knit out away from the main body of the stole. I had to redo the first row more times than was really reasonable. I cast on 24 stitches, counted, found I had only 23, cast on one more, counted again, and then purled back with more difficulty than I anticipated (I had forgotten how much more difficult the first couple of rows are because there is no weight to hold the stitches on the needle taut). Then, I started on the first chart row, got to the end, and discovered I had done something wrong, because I had too many stitches left over. I unpicked, recounted, and found that I had 23. Perplexed, I picked back, cast on one more stitch, did the whole thing again, and still had stitches left over. Really confused, I picked back again, counted stitches again, and again found that I had 23.

More confused than ever, I re-cast on that 24th stitch AGAIN, but this time as I purled back I actually thought about it and realized that having one stitch too few did not explain why I kept having too many stitches when I got to the end of the charted row. Then I realized that my eyes had just glazed past the s in the first box of the charted row. I was supposed to slip the first stitch, and that was why I had too many. I still don't know how I kept getting 23 stitches, but when I followed the directions properly, I got to the end of the row and everything was fine. After that, I really had no trouble.

When I completed the last row of the stole body, I rearranged my stitch markers so that I had one every 14 stitches, rather than every 10. I did this because the edging repeat is 14 rows (28, actually, but you only bind off a body stitch on the wrong side rows). That way I knew that if I got to the marker and I was not on the last repeat row, I had done something wrong. I didn't have any problems with this, but having the marker there did help me figure out which row I was on a couple of times when something distracted me and I forgot whether I had already moved my marker magnet or not.

After I took pictures I unpinned it and put it away. It seemed like tempting fate to try unpicking the cast-on just then. I have never worked with a provisional cast-on before so I decided it would be best to do it while well rested and not on a knitting high.

A new LYS has opened up right near the SO's appartment (so conveeeeeniant! I told him that the next time he puts his foot in his mouth to skip the flower shop and just pop into the yarn store). It's called With Yarn in Front and I don't think it has a website yet. It took me several tries to get there during open hours but I was very pleased. It's clean, organized, not too crowded (though this may change as they get more stock in - still, I really like the openness. I can't stand the crammed feeling of most yarn shops, where I can't turn around without fear of upsetting something), and the owner is very enthusiastic and helpful (almost too much so, but it is their first week or so, so I forgive). She proudly showed me what the shop had, including some milk yarn (so soft!) and corn yarn (feels like cotton). The prices were really nice, too.

The SO gamely went along with me and when I selected a skein of Jojoland Harmony laceweight (880 yards for 8 bucks - keep in mind, though, that it is actually finer than regular lace yarn, which I did not consider - even so, I think it's a good deal), he bought it for me! He is so sweet. I was intrigued by the color changes. I think I am going to try it out on the Knitspot pattern Elm Row. The colorway I got is called Harvest:



and I really wanted a fall-type pattern, but nothing too complicated that would be obscured with the colors. A leaf motif seems perfect. I'm really excited to see how it works up; it was all I could do not to ditch Scheherezade and cast on! However, it will take a little more thought than that, I think, because the yarn is finer weight than the pattern calls for, so I will have to (gasp) swatch and figure out how many pattern repeats I need to add to get a nice width. Then I'll just keep going until I run out. I have a feeling this may result in a short scarf, but if so, I'll live. In this weight it's definately an accent scarf rather than a warm scarf anyway. The suggested yarn is any laceweight that is about 400 yards per 50 grams. Harmony is 880 for 50 grams. It'll be a learning experience for me for sure - I am a little scared of ending up with a really oddly proportioned strip of knitting, but I am going to forge ahead and see what happens.

But, first things first - the other half of Scheherazade!

Incentive

So I have struck a deal with the SO, that if I can lose 15 pounds, he will buy me a set of blocking wires as a reward, and if I lose 25, I get a blocking board. That is so the motivation I needed. ^_^ (for the record, he is not making me lose weight, I want to do that, but somehow weight loss in and of itself was not enough reward, so when I joked about reward-based motivation, he offered, and I am totally taking him up on it)

I finished Chart 5 this weekend, and I felt very accomplished to have gotten it done so quickly! I only did one row on chart 6, though. Sunday just turned out to be too busy for complicated knitting, so I cast on a scarf based on the Rustic Scarf in Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I say "based on" because I cast on the length of the scarf, but I used 175 stitches (171 seemed like such an odd number) and I am only using 2 colors, and alternating them every two rows so that I can just switch without having a trillion ends to weave in. Because, I have discovered, I loathe stripes, because I loathe both the counting of rows and the weaving of ends. I have also discovered that I am incapable of randomly striping things. Anyway, so there will be vertical black and green stripes. This scarf is for a friend who asked for one while the weather was cold. I made no promises, however, so I do not feel guilty for waiting. Well, I feel a little guilty, but not much. I'd have had it done sooner except that I was kind of on scarf overload and I couldn't settle on a pattern that wouldn't make me want to kill myself.

The yarn is Lamb's Pride bulky, and I have two concerns about it - one, it sheds, and two, it felts. I have decided to mitigate the second problem by offering lifetime maintenance. He can bring it back to me when it needs washing, and I shall wash it for him. The first problem, however, I'm a little worried about, and I don't know how to do anything about it. I am covered in fuzz when I work on this scarf.

But, I have been in need of a large, easy project, and this fits the bill nicely. I do not feel guilty about starting it since it is a gift.

I am finding that I have this problem with socks, that the easy parts do not go on for long enough, and I don't have enough needles to pull a Harlot and just cast on a new pair whenever I get to a part that is too hard for the moment's knitting. I am also considering going down a needle size for my socks. Right now I use a US 2, and while I do get guage - my socks are too big. I don't think I can cast on fewer stitches because then it won't go around my leg, so I am thinking that I can switch down a needle size and get a tighter fabric that will hold on to my foot a little better. I am a little annoyed that it has taken me three pairs of socks to come up with this solution.

I'm also annoyed with my color choices in socks to date. For one thing, my poetic soul is a complete sucker for a whimsical name/concept. I am a sucker for Yarn Market's impressionist yarns, for example. Only as I was two thirds of the way through my second Starry Night sock did I actually think to myself, "You know, I hate this yellow, and I always thought that was a pretty unattractive painting." The first pair of socks I made, with the Irises yarn, I refer to as "my clown barf socks."

The current pair in the Snowscapes yarn I actually like pretty well, but next up I have a skein of Casbah in Peacock and I am already wondering what on earth I was thinking (actually, I know what I was thinking, which was that the color I wanted was sold out and I picked another on the spur of the moment). I like most of the colors, but the gold part just freaks me right out. I'm planning on using Pink Lemon's Caledonian Mist pattern, because I think the little scallopy things could pass for the eyes on peacock feathers. Clearly, I need to stop making my pattern & yarn selections based on the whole poetic soul thing, and start opening my freaking eyes.

Now, I might be wrong, and once I get the Casbah knit up, I might really like it. But, either way - I'm going to try to be a little more careful in my color choices from now on, so that I do not feel like I am displaying my bad taste every time I knit a sock in public!

Finishings

I managed to get 2 things off my progress in process list this weekend:

1) Shedir


Look very pretty...but it is very big. The brim comes down over my eyes. I'm not sure what I am going to do with it yet.

2) Snug Harbor



It has become Lulu's bed when she sleeps on the bed. She also slept in it on the floor for a little while on Saturday, but there are many cushier beds around the house. I had planned to knit the bottom with both colors held double, but I miscalculated (rather spectacularly) where the bottom actually started so...yeah.

But they're done! This means I have 4 active WIPs (and two hibernating ones, but we will not discuss this). One is the beginner's triangle, one is the Bigfoot Shawl, one is the starry night socks, and the last is the BBS.

Yesterday I worked on the shawl some, even though I really should have finished the toes on the first BBS so that I could get started on the second. The pups and I are house-and-dog-sitting for a friend this week so there will be lots of knitting time (I hope).

I also selected, ordered, and received this in the past week:



Elann.com Pakucho Organic Cotton in Natural and I think Cafe (I can't remember off the top of my head). This is for an Organic Baby Wrapper for a friend who is having a baby in August. We don't know the sex of the baby yet and I didn't want to wait, so I just went with neutrals. The dark will be the main color and the light will make the contrast and, hopefully, the hat.

So pretty.

I had mail yesterday. It looked like this.



and this.



Hand Maiden Casbah in Mineral and Earth, respectively. I was a happy camper. I started a Bigfoot shawl as soon as I could get it wound and the puppies fed.



I hope to be able to finish two shawls before my church friends leave on their missionary trip...at the end of the month. I realize this is both ambitious and unlikely, but I am going to try. I hope I will at least be able to finish one, and then have the second done when they get back.

Shedir Style

I started Shedir last night with Knit Picks Merino Style, the yarn I am considering for Eris. I like the yarn, it makes a soft fabric and does not split. I find that Swish is a little splitty and tends to snag if I am not careful. It seems like the plies untwist a little. I am not having that problem at all with Merino Style.

The hat is coming out a little bigger than I expected. Once I had finished casting on, the stitches fit comfortably around my 24 inch circular (My options needles do not have cables shorter than 24" so I usually use 2 circs for all my hats). The pattern calls for a 16 inch and says that the circumference of the fitted hat should be 17 inches. I'm not sure quite what to make of that. I am using needles a size larger than those recommended, but I always default to at least one size larger because I am quite a tight knitter.

I have decided not to worry about it. It is obvious to me that it will still fit my head at the size it currently is. I did kind of want to give it away to a friend of mine at church for her sister who has cancer. This friend had told me that her sister has trouble finding hats that fit because her head is kind of small, and I was hoping that the stretch in this hat would accommodate it. Oh well - I will finish it and then decide whether it is too big or not. I have also ordered supplies to knit Odessa, and I think that one will definitely fit her.

I wanted to knit Shedir both as a trial run on the yarn and for cable practice. I can see that the color I'm knitting with, Dusk, is far too dark for this kind of cable work. It is a beautiful color, but it will make for rather subtle cables. I have another color, Storm, that is more of a blue-green and somewhat lighter than the dusk. I will have to give that a try and see what I think.

Last night I got a few rows past the brim, so not bad for an evening's work. I plan to continue working on it tonight, and to also go ahead and cast on for my first pair of Big Black Socks for Socks for Soldiers, so that I have a pair ready to work on at choir practice tomorrow.

I ordered two balls of Cashsoft for the Odessa hat, figuring that that way I wouldn't risk running out. If I don't use the second skein, I can just make two! I ordered three different colors of beads since I wasn't entirely sure of the color of the yarn. You never can tell on the web. It was all I could do to hold back on buying yarn for scarves for two of my guy friends, but I really shouldn't spend any more money this month - I have already kind of gone overboard.

Onward and upward

I finally finished the Urban Necessity gloves, shipped them off to RG, and she loves the set and says it fits. I am extremely pleased. I have plenty of leftover yarn, so I am thinking of making her a scarf for her birthday or Christmas. Later. I love purple but I am tired of looking on it.

In the meantime I have started the Imperial Armwarmers. There is something funky with the black yarn. It is stiff and rough-feeling. I don't know if the issue is in the dye or what, but I'm glad I had knit with another color first. The yarn is Swish Superwash and it was great with UN, wonderfully soft and cozy, but this skein just isn't working for me. Even the grey I am using for the two-color work has a distinct difference in feel.

The two-color work is kind of killing me. I am worried that the floats are keeping the yarn from stretching as much as it will need to to go around the recipient's upper arms. I had her try them on when I saw her this past Friday and she said it was fine, but I still worry. I am knitting as loosely as I can, but for me...that is not terribly loose.

I hope the yarn will use some of its wierd feel when it is washed. I have almost three weeks before I see this person again, so I hope the armwarmers will be finished and washed by then. If possible I'd even like to finish the gloves for the other friend I will see at the same time. We will see how this plan goes. After this I am totally off gloves for a while. I will stick with mittens and wristwarmers like sane knitters.

My chocolate waffle scarf is going slowly since it is kind of a last-resort project. I knit it when I need something utterly mindless. I am anxious to get all my gifts knitted off so I can relax and knit something really fun for me, all for me!

Foiled

I have been looking hard at Eris. I have not had much of an urge to make sweaters up until now but I really like that one. I was thinking of knitting it in Knit Picks Wool of the Andes, so I ordered a couple of skeins in Lake Ice Heather, thinking I would use it to knit Shedir and that would give me a good idea of whether I liked it or not..

When it arrived and I picked it up I knew I would not be using it. Perhaps I am just spoiled with all of the super-soft fibers I have been knitting with lately. At any rate, the yarn definitely had a rough feel to it that I did not like...so no Wool of the Andes for me.

Ravelry to the rescue - I went and looked at the people who have knit Eris to see what yarns they were using. A lot of people were using Elann Peruvian Wool but I am worried about that having the same problem of Wool of the Andes since it is the same type of wool. One person was using Knit Picks Merino Style, which is listed on their website as a DK weight yarn (Eris recommends worsted or aran). However, the listed gauge matches the gauge required for Eris. I have ordered a couple skeins to try it out. We will see if I like this one better. I ordered Storm and Dusk. I am leaning towards Storm, but we will see how it looks in person. I am a little concerned because I have seen some reviews that it pills badly, but I will wait and see for myself. I did consider using Swish Superwash, which I have been using for other projects and like very much for softness, but it doesn't generally look all that crisp knitted up, especially once it has been washed. I really plan to take my time on this project and think it through before I start, because I know I would be so disappointed if it didn't work out.

I am a Sock Knitter!

I have finished my first real sock out of real sock yarn! I have not photographed it as I finished it at 1 a.m., but here is the yarn:



Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in the Yarnmarket exclusive colorway Irises (based, supposedly, on this painting).

It looks beautiful on the skein, doesn't it? You would never know it knits up like something your kid threw up the day after the circus. Yes, I am afraid I do not like the finished product at all colorwise...but it's my first sock! And it fits! No baggy heels or droopy leg...no guage problems...it looks great! I did the Garter Rib from Sensational Knitted Socks. In retrospect, I should have stopped and chosen another pattern when I saw that I did not like how this one was knitting up, since the stockinette portions of the sock do not look all that bad.

Out of the three Lorna's Laces colorways I purchased (all from Yarnmarket's Impressionist Collection because I am a sucker for the word "exclusive" and also maybe a little bit for being able to say that my socks are based on art), this was the one I liked the least even on the skein, so I figured if I screwed up I would not be to heartbroken. I'm sure if I had used the ones I really liked I would have made a mess in a hurry.

What I'm really looking forward to...is this one:



Based on Van Goph's Starry Night (do I even have to link that one? I didn't think so). The yellow has a bit of greenish that worries me a tad, but the deep blue is so pretty...I hope it will knit up nicely. I'm seriously considering doing that sock in plain stockinette just so I can enjoy the colors. We'll see how it looks when I get started.

And then, on the calmer end of the spectrum, there is this:



Snowscapes. I will have to link the picture in a bit; a quick search did not find it for me and I can't remember the name of the artist. I hope that I will like this one; I love the Artyarns version of this colorway but the LL has more actual color in it. We will see. Either way, I am excited to see what I can make from these.

And they are for me, all for me, AHAHAHA!

Seriously, I owe myself some knitted stuff and I am so busy knitting for other people that I have finished basicallly nothing for myself other than the baggy pedicure socks and my one clown-barf sock. I do have some KnitPicks Essential sock yarn that I will use to make socks for other people, but these three? These three are MINE.

Edit: I forgot to gloat...I had a little falling down and purchased two colors of Fleece Artist Suri Blue, Ruby and Stone. I am hoping I can use this to make some of the shawls from Wrapped in Comfort. Swatches will tell I suppose!

Low-yield Weekend

This weekend was so busy that I had hardly any time to knit. I put a little over a round on the Witterings Hat on Friday, and then didn't pick up the needles until Sunday, when I worked on my cape. I got about two inches done on it, which was nice. However, I think the fact that I have ripped out the heel on my pedicure sock for the third...no, I think it's actually the fourth time. Last time was the third, wasn't it? I don't remember anymore. Anyway, I ripped it out again. It was too long, it didn't fall in the right spot on my heel - I just wasn't happy with it. I haven't been able to touch the thing since.

Instead, I knit a swatch from KnitPicks Essential in Riverbed Multi. I was unreasonably pleased that my guage came out to exactly 8 sts to the inch on #2 needles. I like exactitude. Of course, we'll see how exact it is after it's been washed.

I got my friend's measurements for the Urban Necessity pattern, so I am pleased that I can start that soon too. I do think I will swatch this one as well, too. I hate taking the time to swatch because I would rather just get on with the project, but...better safe than sorry in this case, I think, since she is not here to try it on in progress.

I wound a ball of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock that I also plan to swatch and wash. I have enough for a pair of socks each in the YarnMarket exclusive colorways Irises, Snowscapes, and Starry Nights. I actually gasped when I saw the Starry Night yarn. I am not really a fan of Van Goph in general or that painting specifically, but the yarn is so beautiful!

Knitter's Block

I'm stuck and frustrated. Not on any particular project - on ALL of them, it seems like.

1. Pedicure socks - I am going to run out of yarn. I have resigned myself to this fact, and ordered another skein, fully aware that it probably won't be the same dyelot. I don't care. They're pedicure socks. They're a treat, and something I'm doing more for fun than because it will be useful. However, this means I will have to frog the heel for the second time. The first time I messed up and lost my place, and decided it would be less confusing just to rip it back and start over. The second time I am doing it because I had stopped the leg part at three inches instead of five, because I was afraid of running out of yarn. Now that I know there is no way I will get two socks out of the one skein, I can do it right. So, rather than have a pair that are two inches shorter than ideal and have a bunch of leftover yarn, I'm frogging the heel. I have accepted it, I tell myself I am okay with it...but I am not in a hurry to DO it.

2. Homespun Cape. I'm just frustrated at my inability to count on this one. It hasn't really done anything wrong, other than shed all over me. The shedding does bother me, though, and it's really quite warm out. My room is roasting in the evenings despite the fan running full blast. I can't handle sheddy alpaca until it cools off some.

3. Witterings Hat. It hurts my hands. :oP And I just don't have a fire under me for this project at the moment, for some reason. But mostly it's the hand hurting. I can't work on this every day for a week without having a claw on the end of my right arm at the end of it all.

3. Charity hat. Acrylic.

4. In my infinite brilliance I picked up a couple of skeins of Lionbrand Homespun thinking I would make a quick scarf for charity. I loathe it with the fire of a thousand suns. Considering just calling it a loss and putting all my acrylic in the church garage sale. I was okay before I knew what I was doing. Now I can't stand it anymore. Arylic, thou art dead to me.

Still waiting on measurements for Urban Necessity; she mailed them to me yesterday so hopefully I should get it in the next couple of days. Maybe this will bring meaning to my life again, I don't know.

I also have new yarn arriving...of course when I went to order more of the Paris Rain, I couldn't just do that. I ordered enough Snowscapes to make my mom a pair of pedicure socks to go in her Christmas stocking, and some Lorna's Laces to try out.

I really want to try making a real sock, but the math is kind of scary for me. What if they don't fit? What if they shrink? And most of all...I don't WANNA knit a guage swatch. Do I HAVE to?? (Yes, yes, I know...the answer is without question a yes...but I still don't wanna.)

I may end up getting Getting Started Knitting Socks. I've heard it's good from multiple sources now...I wonder if the B&N down the street has it?

Yummy colors

The Paris Rain socks are so pretty...right now they are half grey-brown and half green-blue. I've made it through the inch of ribbing and started on the stockinette last night. Ah, the beauty and quickness of those simple round and rounds! I can't wait to see what they will look like.

I have read about things like flashing and pooling and puddling, and have made up my mind not to care if that happens on this pair. I do worry about running out of yarn before the pair is complete, but I am hoping that is just paranoia.

Paranoia caused by the number of times recently I have run out of yarn!!

Well. We'll see. I have decided not to bother casting on both socks at once (which may be a mistake given the afforementioned worry about running out of yarn) because I am lazy and I was having too much fun with the first one.

Scarf is at 42 inches. I am literally inching along on this thing. I may have to wash it before I give it to BG. My aunt is visiting; she is a smoker carries this smell around with her and leaves it on everything she touches. As BG is not a smoker I don't think he will appreciate having his scarf tainted with eau de nicotine.

Also, I want to make totally sure of how the thing behaves in the wash before I give it to him.

Yarn for Urban Necessity is on the way...and I am kind of kicking myself for not ordering enough to make a scarf as well. I have a thing about complete sets. I'm already contemplating how I could make this darn scarf pattern into a matching hat. Because after just over 3 feet I am not sick enough of this stitch pattern yet. I'm telling you, it's a curse. If you get a hat from me, you know your next two gift giving holidays will consist of a pair of gloves and a scarf. I am obsessed with like sets.

After this relative visit is over, I hope to get my craft room set up, including my camera and tripod so that I can start adding pictures to this blog. It feels all naked without any.

Delivery!

Woo hoo, my yarn has departed the Warehouse of Sitting Around for Three Days, which means it should be delivered this afternoon. Phew!! This yarn is for a scarf for BG's birthday so I was really anxious for it to get here. I SHOULD have plenty of time to get it done (his birthday is on the 23rd), but every little bit helps when you're on a deadline.

It's this scarf in Swish DK, nutmeg and moss.

I wish their picture was a little better (though the expression on the model's face is kind of hysterical) so I could see how the colors go, but the two colors they used are so similar that it's hard to tell. I hope it will look okay with yarns that use more of a contrast.