WIP Report

Last night, I finished my Limestone One-Skein shawl. I won't be able to block it until tomorrow at the earliest and maybe not until Saturday, but I feel good that it's done. 1 down, 10 to go! Not so bad for not even being halfway through the first month. I'm a finishing fiend! I haven't put my new blocking mats away once since I laid them out to block Evenstar, because I am just finishing projects left and right. It's a good feeling, although I also have a raging case of startitis that is keeping me from fully experiencing the triumph. I just have so many things I want to make, I'm going nuts. I have a three-day weekend coming up and I'm hoping to put the time to good use. I have some housecleaning that I really should do - in fact I'm on Amazon looking at new vacuum cleaners right now. I have been through 3 vacuum cleaners in the last 5 years, plus two handheld dirt devils. Thanks to the ridiculous number of yarn purchases I've made this month, though, I may have to wait until payday. Blech.

Part of the problem may be that it's so cold here, and now that I'm done with the limestone shawl, my two in-progress shawls, Fiori and Sevillano, are both lightweight silk. I feel the need for something more snuggly.

Well. maybe a status report on my WIPs will convince me to behave.

1. Sevilano

I love the pattern, I love the yarn. The finished project is going to be stunning. I'm not sure why I'm not quite feeling it right now. Not many people seem to be knitting it, and it is so much more fun to knit along with others. Maybe when the pattern is released to the public and more people can get their hands on it, it will get the attention it deserves. I have a feeling that it'll be just as engrossing as ever when I pick it up again - it's just a victim of the 'holy crap there are xx days till Christmas' frenzy.

2. Fiori di Sole

So beautiful, so springy. This one may just be suffering from a combination of seasonal issues and over-anticipation. I've wanted to knit Fiori for so long! I'm already impatient to check it off the list and I have barely gotten started!! I need to relax, not worry about getting it done, and just enjoy the process. The more it grows, and the more beautiful it gets, the more I will love it, and the faster it will go. It's going to be stunning, I just know it. It's a beautiful pattern and now that I've got the right yarn, it's going to be a work of art. If only it weren't so darn cold outside!

3. Simone

One day I am going to face the fact that I'm just not a sweater knitter. I see people on other blogs who crank out sweater after sweater in a matter of weeks, and you know what? I bet I could do it too. Compared to a lace shawl, sweaters are fast. But...I'm just not a sweater knitter. Still, this sweater will be lovely, soft, and warm when it's done, so I really should pick it back up again and keep moving.

4. Cotton Towel

Okay, this one is really just embarrassing. A simple little something I started just for fun, as an easy project. This picture is quite old, and the towel is much, much longer than shown. My plan was just to knit until the yarn ran out, and the reason I stopped carrying this around is that I was so close to that point that I thought I had better start the edging, and I needed my stitch dictionary to do that, so this is probably 95% finished. I vow to get it done this weekend. I don't think it'll take very long at all. I just have to, um...figure out where it is.

5. Follow the Leader Faroese

I think this one is destined for the frog pond. I just don't like it. Mostly, I don't like the yarn color. I did have some problems with the project itself, mostly due to inadequate attention. I thought this one would be an easy shawl I could just slog out and then give the resulting garment away, but I'm just not enjoying it, and now it's just sitting there making me feel guilty. I've been arguing with myself over it for ages. My options are to grit my teeth and finish it, or give up and use the yarn for something else. I don't really like either option. Maybe I can give the yarn to someone who will love it more. It's two skeins of Rio de la Plata sock yarn in Paris Rain, an exclusive colorway from Yarn Market. My hangup is, it really is an easy pattern and it would be a great charity peace - if I would just suck it up and finish. Sigh. Maybe I'll take this one with me to game night on Friday and try to get it rolling again. It's just plain garter stitch at this point except for the center panel. I'd love to go to my charity knitting group and actually have something to give them for a chance. Maybe if I really dedicate myself, I can make some progress.

6. Hat, scarf, glove set



This is not actually started yet, except for the hat, which I cast on last night so I would have some mindless knitting. This was a request from the boyfriend, who even bought me the yarn for it. I have made him a hat and scarf set, and a hat and handwarmer set, but he does not actually have a matching set that includes all 3 pieces. It seemed like a perfectly reasonable request to me (okay, let's be real - I get giddy when people ask for knitting, and buying me yarn is the surest way to guarantee I'll actually do it) so I agreed, provided he was willing to wait until after the Christmas knitting was done. Since the Christmas knitting is done, it's time to get busy on this most reasonable of requests. I had intended to start the scarf first but I couldn't find the right needles, so the hat is coming first instead. I'm using the tried and trusted Kim's Hats pattern from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, ribbed brim variation. His first hat was a rolled brim hat that was one of my first projects, knit flat and then seamed. I still consider it a wonder that the seam has not come apart after all this time, but there you go. It was knit out of Lion Brand Wool-Ease and I'm kind of embarrassed when he wears it now, since I am capable of so much better. The scarf that goes with it is a broken garter rib scarf. The reason for this is because I misunderstood the directions for the ribbed scarf I was actually trying to make. The second hat I made him was a 1x1 ribbed hat out of Noro that looks very fetching on him. It doesn't really have a brim, it just goes in 1x1 from top to bottom. It's very stretchy and fits him well, which is something of an accomplishment because his larger than average intelligence apparently requires a larger than average head - his is 26". I usually accommodate this by starting with the number of cast on stitches for the large size, and taking the difference between the medium and large sizes and adding that number of stitches to the large. This time, we're going with a ribbed brim hat that will be knit long enough that he can fold the ribbed part up to have a double layer over his ears.

The scarf will be plain garter stitch, but knit lengthwise - which is why I couldn't start it yesterday. I found my 16" 9's, but not my US9 interchangeable tips. I'm missing a bunch of cables too. I'm not a very organized or disciplined person, so they're probably scattered all over everywhere. I actually think the #9 tips are in my Simone sweater! More motivation.

For the hands, I will probably do another set of Urban Necessity gloves. Why fix it if it's not broken? I rarely knit patterns more than once, but I've made a ton of these gloves over the years. Same with the Kim's Hats, really, it's just my go-to pattern.


7. Socks

I always have a couple of socks on the go. I have two pair in progress right now, one for me and one for my big-footed honey. These don't count. Half the time I don't even put socks on my Ravelry project page. There will always be socks.

Burn, baby, burn

I blocked the Phoenix shawl this weekend and it's fabulous, possibly one of my favorite things I've ever made. I love it with (appropriately) the fire of a thousand suns. But I'm going to talk about that at the end of the post so I don't get carried away and forget all the other stuff.

Since I finished Phoenix I was really excited to cast on for Fiori. I got this far:



And decided the yarn wasn't working for me. I hated it. I hated everything about it. I was surprised because I usually like Valley Yarns, and I've knitted with the worsted weight colrain and loved it. I finally decided that it was probably a perfectly good yarn that was simply failing to live up to my vision for this particular project. This is entirely my own fault for not stopping to think about the qualities of the yarn and what I wanted out of the shawl. While colrain worsted had a very wooly feel, colrain lace feels more like a cotton blend (it's wool/tencel, and since tencel, like cotton, is a plant fiber, I don't understand why this was such a revelation to me. Failure to actually think about it, I guess. Anyway, I was very disappointed and I started looking at other yarns. I was looking at some of the wool/cashmere/alpaca blends and even some of the 100% merino yarns, which I usually shy away from just because I like some silk or plant fiber in the blend for strength. I wanted something lofty and lightweight for this shawl.

I was lamenting my troubles on the 11 in 2011 Raverly group when I remembered this:



It's Sundara yarn silk lace in Tulip, a colorway that she put out a couple of years ago as part of her Flowers From My Mother's Garden series. When I saw it, I wanted it for Hanami. David got it for me for my birthday, but because of the way Sundara was doing orders for this colorway I didn't get it until much later. What I expected was a mixture of ivory, white, and pink, and that does seem to be what most people got, based on the images in Ravelry. But, when you order art yarn from a hand dyer you have to expect a little variation, and what I got was mostly ivory and yellow, with just enough pale pink tint to give it a bit of a pink blush when viewed from an angle.

I didn't mind but I decided it wasn't right for Hanami (besides, I had been given some pink Schaefer Trenna in the meantime that I used instead) so I just sort of put it aside. I didn't forget about it, exactly, but I never quite decided what to do with it. But, I think it will be perfect for Fiori. Not quite as lofty as what I had in mind, but silk is so lightweight, and the color is so perfect, that I think it will make a beautiful spring shawl. I cast on with it and knit through chart A, and all was in harmony in my little knitting universe once again.

However, I didn't get very far on it, because I was obsessed with my cashmere Limestone One Skein shawl. The yarn is so scrumptious, and the project goes so quickly, that I just couldn't put it down. I was actually hoping to finish it by the end of the weekend, but I didn't quite make it. I'm working on the knitted-on edging, and I only made it to about the halfway point. I added another pattern repeat in to the main body, since I hadn't yet used up quite half of my yarn, but I failed to actually look at the edging first. It's not a one-to-one repeat so I'm going to have to fudge a little bit as I go around the corner. The pattern has directions for short rows to knit as you go around the point of the triangle, and I'm just going to have to start the short rows a couple rows sooner than directed to make it work out. That'll teach me to check the math next time.

I'm kind of disappointed I didn't finish. I figure I basically have to finish a shawl a month to make it to 11 in 2011, and how encouraging would it be to have the first shawl done and have the rest of the month to start on the next one? Besides, my yarn for Galadriel's Mirror came in and I can't stand it, I want to start that one so badly. Sigh. Well, it's taking me about 10 minutes per edge repeat and I think I have about 17 repeats to go so...you do the math. I don't think I'll have time to finish it tomorrow but I'm hoping by Tuesday I will be able to finish.

Part of me is anxious and frustrated about the way I have really crammed up my knitting schedule for the next too months. I know it's only knitting, it's a hobby and it's not supposed to be frustrating, and I can really just take things at my own pace if I feel like it. I will eventually get to the point where I acknowledge this is what I'm going to have to do. But I WANT to do it all now!!!

Just to make things even more complicated, I signed up for Stephanie Japel's online shawl design class which begins on Feb. 1. I'm all kinds of wigged out about it, which is so ridiculous it's funny. If it turns out that I am utterly hopeless at shawl design, who is going to know or care?? I need to come up with a theme or concept, though, because I definitely will like the shawl better if I have an inspiration for it.

And now...if I could have a drumroll please....













Phoenix Rising in Lorna's Laces Helen's Lace in colorway Maple Grove. Knit to spec except that I didn't pay attention to the beading instructions for the center panel, so my beads all fall a row below where they are supposed to be. I don't think it really matters. Final product comes out to about 7 feet wide and three feet down the spine. This shawl pleases me to the bottom of my artistic soul. It looks more like a field of erupting volcanoes than a phoenix to me, but I love it. The yarn is perfect, the pattern is great, the beads are almost impossible to see in the pictures, but they look like tiny little embers. My only regret is that it didn't occur to me to add some into the triangles before the edging. I should have added more. This shawl looks like Pele herself would wear it and I LOVE IT WITH THE FIRE OF A THOUSAND SUNS.

Eat your heart out, Katniss Everdeen.

Beginnings

Because, after all, what is yarn but a beginning? (You there, in the back, fussing about raising sheep and spinning and how yarn is not actually the beginning. Shut up. You're ruining my poetic comparison. It's the beginning for me.)

I got some gorgeous Christmas loot. There was apparently some sneakiness involved during our visit to Cloverhill for the Dragonfly Fibers trunk show.

Djinni Sock in Black Pearl



Love it. That makes 5 skeins of Djinni sock total in my stash. 2 skeins are slated to become Taygete, the next shawl in the 7 small shawls series, and one is in the process of becoming a pair of socks. I feel like I'm going to save the Black Pearl and Reluctant Dragon colorways for a shawl. Ooo, maybe I will look at them together. At the trunk show there was a gorgeous Clockwork made from two skeins of Djinni.

And...even better...1200 yards of Dragonfly Fibers Gaia Lace in Black Pearl. I can't tell you how many times I went back to this at the trunk show, and it was only a very limited budget and an iron determination to be good that let me walk away from it. I was absolutely delighted to open this gift!!



It's gorgeous. Absolutely stunning, and so soft. 45% cashmere and 55% silk. Oh, let's have another shot, just for kicks.



I'm officially on the prowl for a pattern worthy of this goodness. Something night-themed would be awesome. Just the thought of being wrapped in all that soft gorgeousness....oh, sorry, where was I?

From my friend in Texas who sends me yarn every year from the Heritage festival, I received these:



Mmm, warm squishy worsted weight naturally dyed merino goodness. I'm just now noticing that the yellow in that photo is wrong...it's more peachy in real life. I have no idea what I'm going to do with these as yet, I will have to wait for a project to strike me. Historically the Heritage yarn has come in very generous skeins but I don't think there was any actual yardage listed - only the 4 oz notation. But I'm sure I can get a couple of cozy hats out of these at the very least!

One of my friends went to Spain on vacation and she brought me yarn from Barcelona, and some other yarn that was also made in Spain but she wasn't sure exactly where. She also bought me an absolutely soft, beautiful woven shawl. And I, of course, forgot to photograph any of it because it was in a separate bag from the other Christmas loot.

I also bought myself some things with Christmas money from grandma - a skein of Sanguine Gryphon Bugga in Arachne for the final installment of the 7 Small Shawls ebook (planning to knit #6 from stash), 3 skeins of Handmaiden Silk Twist in Silver for Galadriel's Mirror, and Unique Sheep Ling in the Mirkwood colorway for the In Dreams mystery knitalong. Those items haven't arrived yet - but that's got to put the cap on my spending for a good long while. That was a pretty major splurge, but between that, the stash, the Christmas loot - I really ought to be set on yarn for quite a while. My project list is already bigger than I can probably manage for the year and I now have yarns for just about everything, so I'll try to be good from here on out. It does not help me, however, that one of the group members on Ravelry just posted that Signature Needle Arts will be offering size 3 and 4 circulars starting January 18. Oh well. They will have time to work any kinks out by my birthday.

Before I close, I leave you with a funny story related to yesterday's post. I got my beads back and was working on Phoenix when I realized how few beads were left in the tube. I groaned, thinking I was in for yet another delay in finishing this shawl while I ordered more beads. Fortunately, I thought, the people over at Bobby Bead are wonderful and if I ordered right away I would probably get my order before I had time to run out.

Something about this thought triggered a memory, though. I ordered a bunch of beads in different colors some time ago when Bobby Bead was having a sale, and I remember looking at one of the tubes when they arrived and thinking, oh, that was the color I used for Phoenix, and how silly of me to order something I already had.

I went upstairs and sure enough, in my bead bin was a tube of size 8 Toho silver-lined smokey topaz. This is great because it means I can keep knitting with no fear of delay - but it also made me mad because if I had just remembered on Sunday that I had that tube, I might already be finished!!! There I was thinking that I couldn't work on it because I forgot the beads, and I had a whole tube of them upstairs. Argh!

Endings

After so much time away, which I spent very productively, I have so much to say that it might be too much for one blog post. I'll give it a shot and then we'll have a bonus post this week if I have more to say.

With no further ado, let us begin. First up is one you haven't seen before.



In an attempt not to get caught at Christmas with a half-finished shawl, I started this one way early. I needn't have worried - it was a surprisingly fast knit. The end result is a little shallow, I suppose, so that might be why it went more quickly than I expected. Right about when the rows start to get really tedius, you're done. As a result this one was done in August and I am horrible at keeping gifts secret, so it was a real effort not to even hint at this one. I couldn't even talk about it on Ravelry or put up a project page, as the recipient might have stumbled upon it.





This is one of those projects where I really had a specific effect in mind. I wanted an aspen-themed shawl, I wanted it to really look like aspen, and I wanted it to be the color of aspens in the fall, and I had very specific ideas about what that meant. I chose the Aspen Grove shawl (as opposed to the many, many other lovely aspen-themed shawls out there) because to me the stitch motif actually looks like a real aspen leaf. Moreso on the model than on my version, to be honest, but I think that has to do with the yarn I used. It's a very tightly spun silk from No Two Snowflakes, in a OOAK colorway called Opportunity Knocks. It's perfect for the shawl but I think because the stitch definition is so incredibly crisp, the shape of the leaf is a little less rounded than I would have preferred (might also have to do with my guage), but it's still very close. I paid close attention when I blocked to make sure I got them as rounded as possible.



I actually spent a lot of time thinking about whether I could possibly get a gradient effect in the shawl so that the trunks would be more white. I thought about using 3 colors and holding two strands together throughout, changing from two yellow strands to one yellow and white strand and then one white strand - but in the end, I just went with this yarn, which is much more variegated than you can see in the pictures. Then I thought about beading the tree trunks with white pearl seed beads, but after examining the chart I decided this would be too difficult and end up making the shawl too heavy.


(I'm not sure but I think this photograph is actually of the wrong side. You can see the pearl bumps in the leaves. Oops.)

The next thing I have to show is this:


That was my Christmas present from the SO - enough KnitPicks blocking mats to cover a 6x6 surface. Why on earth would anyone need so many blocking mats?

So that I could finally do this:





Though as you can see, my finished project fell far short of the 6' diameter the pattern instructed. Not surprising, I used the recommended needle size, and I'm a tight knitter by nature. Photographing white on grey turned out to be a little challenging, but I did my best.







Once my Christmas knitting was done my hands were not idle. I was determined to finish some projects before I got home, projects that I knew would take forever to finish if I just had an hour or two every night to work on them. First up was Bluebird with its 70 million repeats (not really, it was only 38, but it felt like a lot). Normally I avoid patterns with repeating motifs for this reason, I get bored very quickly and the project just drags out as I slog through the middle sections. So, I put my vacation time to good use and cranked on this as hard and fast as I could to get through it. Then I relaxed a bit as I knit through the other end. I was hoping to finish this by midnight on New Years, but I didn't quite make it. I was distracted by guests and board games, which are all integral NYE traditions for us, so though I had it in my lap the whole time, I did lose a lot of knitting time. By 1 a.m., I had made it to the last row. I chose not to do the bind off just then, though, since I didn't want to screw it up due to tiredness. This turned out to be a good decision as I nearly screwed it up in the afternoon.



Yesterday I rearranged my blocking mats and pinned it out.







I should probably be ashamed of how happy it makes me that I can now block without leaving the room with the TV.



The beads were so pretty that I wished I could have used more, but I couldn't figure out a logical placement that didn't use way too many more than I wanted to deal with.

I still have one loose end that's not quite tied up yet.



Once I had the middle section of Bluebird done, this monstor became my vacation knitting. After such a long break, it didn't feel like it was going nearly as slow as it had when I stopped, so that's good - although an eye on the clock shows that it is not, in fact, going any faster. Then, at the airport while working on the last repeat of the Edge chart, I started to worry that I was going to run out of yarn. You can see that ball doesn't have much left, and if you squeeze it it becomes truly frightening how little is left. I stopped, afraid I was going to run out and end up having to frog a whole repeat of Edge. I didn't have a scale with me (I was, in fact, sitting at the airport when I reached this conclusion) so I decided it was better to wait until I could weigh it. I did have a little winding incident when I wound this yarn and I knew I had a little miniskein left over from that, but I was sure it was going to be too tiny to matter.

On New Years Day, after I finished Bluebird, I picked Phoenix back up again and got out the scale. The yarn I had left weighed about 13 grams, and I was fretting myself to pieces. I went and got the little mini skein. When I took it out of the ziplock it was in, it was surprisingly fat. I went straight back to the scale.



Yes, I thought, now we're in business. Now instead of 'definitely not gonna make it' I was back up to 'might possibly, if I'm very lucky, make it.'

As of yesterday I still hadn't totally used up the original ball, and I'm into the ending rows now. There are 10 ending rows and I'm running at roughly a gram a row, or slightly less. I don't think these last rows get any bigger, so I think, maybe, I'm gonna be okay. I'm going to get another 2 rows out of the original ball, I think, which will leave 6 rows of the ending rows for that little 9 gram miniskein. That leaves me 3 grams for the bind off, which...will be really tight, honestly. I mean, if you figure that a normal row would take 1 gram, then I would like to think the bind off will take no more than twice the normal amount of yarn. But I'm not sure. And, to be honest, I'm using more like .8 grams per row, so maybe I will have a little leeway. I could leave out two rows of the ending chart and probably be no worse for it, but...I don't know. We'll see. I normally don't mind frogging when I need to, but I'm not sure I could handle frogging that many stitches if I get to the end and don't have enough. Stay tuned, people, this one will be a nail-biter. I was honestly hoping to finish yesterday, but I left my tube of beads at the SO's place at the NYE party so I had to stop once the ones I had in the bag ran out. At 40 minutes a row this is still going to take a while to complete, but if I don't have it done by this weekend I will cry.

Since I was stuck, I did what any knitter would do - I started a new project. I was hoping to cast on Fiori di Sole, but it turns out that all my size 4 needles are in use. I'm honestly not sure how this is possible, I have 3 or 4 sets and I can only account for two. There is one set of wood tips in my needle binder, but I have such a preference for the metal ones that I thought I might as well just wait until Phoenix is done and I can reclaim those needles.

Instead I started this.



The Limestone One-Skein shawl in delicious fingering cashmere from Zen Yarn Garden, in a color that reminds me of rasberry sherbert. So light, so soft, so gorgeous. My new love. But I'm sticking to my guns on finishing Phoenix. I'm so close. That will be my first priority until it's over.

I plan to cast on for Fiori, and that will leave me with one really intensive, demanding project (Sevillano), one more relaxed lace project (Fiori) and one pretty easy fingering lace project (Limestone). I consider this an acceptable status for WIPs.

I also finished (and gifted) the Esplanade hat I was working on, so that's off the needles, leaving me with just shawls, a couple of pairs of socks, and the one sweater (Simone from French Girl Knits) as active WIPS. We do not speak of the non-active WIPS.

The rest of what I had to say involves Christmas loot and this is already a pretty picture-heavy post, so I think we'll save that for a bonus post.

Merry Christmas from Chiron Beta Prime

The clock is ticking down and I'm knitting like a fiend. I finished these to stick in my mom's stockings:





Leafprints mitts in Great Northern Yarns Cashmere/Mink DK. I have to say I wasn't impressed with this yarn in the ball, but the fabric it creates is soft and silky. I'm not sure I'll buy it again, though - even though the minks are supposedly not harmed in the gathering of the fur for the yarn, it just gives me the heeby jeebies a bit. We'll see. On the up side, I may have enough yarn left to make some for myself.

I'm still working on these for my brother:



I've actually gotten quite a bit farther than shown on the second glove - I'm almost ready to put the thumb stitches on holders. I hope I can finish these tomorrow, but it will depend on how many family activities I have to participate in. I know of at least one shopping trip I have to be part of because I need some things.

I made my brother a pair of very simple ribbed mitts a couple of years ago, no fingers, just a hole for the thumb, the really easy ones that take one skein of yarn and an evening to make from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. He was pretty unimpressed, all I got was a mumbled ‘thanks’ and I kind of put the endeavor down as a failure. But, I found one of the mitts on the washer a month or so ago (he lives in my basement) and I thought, well, if he is washing them, maybe he is wearing them, and maybe it would be worth making him a pair of fingerless gloves. I've made these for a couple other people who really like them, so I'm hopeful. if I get the same ‘you are weird and I don’t get why you do this’ face I got last time, I will know I really am a sucker. I got enough yarn to make him a hat, too, but I don't know if it'll be done by Christmas. It might be tight on the gloves as it is.

I brought a ton of WIPs with me on this trip, but because I've been working on the two projects above I haven't gotten very far. I'm past the halfway point on my Bluebird shawl and I've done a fair amount of work on the Esplanade hat I have on the needles. I really want to finish these two and my Phoenix shawl by the time I get home. That might be a bit of a stretch but I'm going to try. I discovered last year that vacation is a great time to power through projects that would otherwise seem to stretch on forever, since I have more time to sit and work on things. I can power through pieces with a million repeats (Bluebird) or really long rows (Phoenix) because I have more long, dedicated blocks of time. But, we've been moving around so much up till now that it really hasn't been feasible anyway. Thanks to plane delays and all the stuff leading up to the trip, I was really exhausted when we got here, and today is the first day I really felt remotely like myself again. I'm hoping things will be looking up now that there's no more traveling to do until it's time to come home.

Merry Christmas and thank you to all my readers. May your holidays be warm, cozy, and drama-free.

Knitting and Not Knitting

Well, the first Christmas hurdle is jumped. This weekend was pretty thoroughly chaotic. There was knitting, and there was...not knitting. I sing in my church choir, and we had rehearsal and then the performance of our Christmas concert. That was Big Item No. 1 on my Christmas worry list, so at least I can cross that one off now.

Also in the not knitting category:



I do not come from a baking family, but I have been adopted into one, and every year the SO's family has a giant Christmas cookie bake. I don't really participate in the baking but I'm sure my assistance in cookie selection and quality control are still very much appreciated.

While supervising said baking I finished the socks I was working on for my coworker and put a little more length on the white snowflake scarf (OF DOOM). It probably could still stand to be a little longer, but I'm tired of it, so I went ahead and knit the second snowflake panel to finish it off last night.



I used a stretchy lace bind off and I'm not sure it was the right choice. I just can't seem to reach a happy medium with bind offs. They're either too loose and messy looking or too tight. This one is a bit loose (you can't tell in the picture because I artistically tucked the corners in so it doesn't show) but the scarf does need to be blocked a little wider than it currently is, so I'm hoping that'll take away some of the loose edging. I really just can't win with scarves, the bind off end and the cast on end just don't ever match for me.

I also finished the last of the gifts I have not disclosed here - or so I thought. Then I realized that I was going to have a ton of yarn leftover and (somewhat reluctantly) started another piece. I don't think I'm going to worry too much about getting this one done by Christmas, though. It's a bonus, so the recipient will get it when the recipient gets it.

This will leave me with only 'optional' Christmas knitting left - little extras I had planned for some of my less knit-appreciative family. Oh, and the weaving in of ends. Looooots of ends to weave in. I didn't do it as I went along, and well. Looooots of ends to weave in. Boo.

We got our first snow for the year yesterday morning:



Not very impressive, but enough to make me smile. More is supposedly coming this week, but I'm very concerned about it because I have a plane to catch this weekend. Last year we flew out right after the big blizzard and we were delayed in the airport for hours thanks to all the previous flights that had been cancelled. Hope we won't get stuck again this year! Also, I think my two coworkers that have done most of the work for the Christmas party planning may leap off a building if the party gets cancelled due to snow for the second year in a row.

Already Overbooked

Whenever I don't have time to knit, or if I'm stuck knitting something really plain, I do a lot of looking at knitting and daydreaming about knitting, and I've come to the realization that 2011 is going to be kind of packed on the knitting front. I have SO many things I want to knit! This is not unusual, I always have a ton of things I want to knit. I actually don't use my ravelry queue very much because my queue is so fluid - some projects I knit right away, some are on my list for ages before I get to them. I generally use my 'favorites' button to keep track of patterns I'm interested in so I can revisit them later.

But, this year things are a little different. I've become a little more active in the social aspect of Ravelry, and I've now got a list of projects with corresponding knitalongs that give me a little bit more of a timeline. With that in mind...holy cow my time is filling up fast!!

So here's a list of things I'm looking at knitting so far in 2011

1., 2., and 3. - Romi's Seven Small Shawls
Knitting through these ebook patterns with the Romi group on Ravelry has been a ton of fun, and I plan to knit along right through to the end. All three designs should be finished by the new year, but they won't be through test knitting and ready for release until January at least. I don't know Romi's exact plans but I expect (and hope) she will give us some time between releases. We run knitalongs on the Romi group for each Romi project and I think if she released all three of them at once the rest of the mods and I might go a little crazy.

5. and 6. Romi's Pins and Lace Club

Romi's Pins and Lace patterns ship in January and April (perfect for my birthday!!), and I haven't even finished the pattern from October of this year!! I feel behind already. Sevillano is gorgeous, though, and is number one on my to-knit list when I get back from Christmas. If I'm lucky I'll be able to bust a move and get it mostly finished before the new one ships. Totally doable, right? Right?? (really this should probably be 5, 6, 7, and 8, but I can't remember when the other two installments ship, and thinking about it is overwhelming me a little...so we'll just not worry about those other two for the time being, hmm??)

7. The Light and Dark Lace Club by The Yarnarian and Zen Yarn Garden

Y'all, I love mystery knits. Don't ask me why. On the surface, it's completely crazy. Why would I spend good knitting time working on a product that I may not even like in the end?? Yet the surprise is so much fun. I love it. And the trick, I've found, is to pick mystery knitalongs from designers whose work you like in the past.

Now, having said that, I have never actually knit any patterns from this designer and I'm not that familiar with her work. But I AM familiar with Roxanne of Zen Yarn Garden's fabulous yarns, and I couldn't resist this idea. I stay away from clubs in general because there's too much commitment involved, but this bi-monthly club is pay as you go, if you want to - you don't have to purchase every club package and you don't have to pay for multiple months up front. And $26 strikes me as a very reasonable price for a fun surprise showing up in my mailbox in February, one of the dreariest of months. The yarn will be mailed in February and the pattern will come in installments after that. This was a little Christmas present to myself. I picked the pussywillow colorway.

8. Galadriel's Mirror from Sunflower Designs (from the designer of Evenstar)

Remember what I said about finding a designer whose work speaks to you? Susan's work speaks to me, and I LOVE this pattern. But, I have to find the right yarn for it. It uses a fingering weight, and I have plenty of fingering weight yarn, but none in sufficient quantities for this piece and none in a color that I find sufficient. Based on the book's description of the mirror, , I'm thinking I would like a silver yarn with a hint of blueand I'm thinking a silk blend would be great for a little added shimmer. OH. What about Hand Maiden Silk Twist?? Ooooooooh. I must think on this. Maybe in Silver or Stardust. I'll have to come back to this idea. Knitty-Noddy has it in Salt Spray, that would be pretty awesome too...They only have two, though, I would need three. Anyway, no knitalong for this one, so I don't have to worry about keeping up with anybody - meaning this one will probably get knit later in the year, towards the summer or fall.

9. Two Towers Mystery Knitalong - In Dreams from Sunflower Designs

Evenstar was the mystery knitalong for the Fellowship of the Ring, and Susan has just announced Galadriel's Crown, the mystery knitalong for the Two Towers Collection. I'm not sure I'm going to buy the whole collection this time around, but I definitely plan to participate in the mystery knitalong again. This one will be designed for Unique Sheep Gradiance colorways, which I've wanted to try, so that will be exciting. Unique Sheep has several LOtR themed colorways, too, so I might have to try one of those - but we'll see what speaks to me. I have very specific color associations with various locations and characters in LOtR (also they have neither a Lothlorien or a Galadriel colorway at this time, so I figure I have free reign). I'm kind of thinking maybe Lemon Drop - I associate golds much more strongly with Galadriel and Lothlorien than greens. But, I'm not sure I would wear yellow all that much, either. Maybe Moonlight in the Garden? Decisions decisions. I'll have to do some Ravelry searches and see how these colorways knit up, I think.

10. Limestone One Skein Triangle Shawl

I have a skein of fingering weight cashmere just waiting to become this shawl. Again, no scheduled knitalong for this one, so it'll be a floating project. I do kind of like to have one fingering weight shawl on the needles for when I need a break from the really fine lacework, and I think this one will be perfect. Also, cashmere.

11. Bitterroot by Romi

I've loved this design ever since it was released in Knitty, but I haven't made it yet, and I'd really like to.

12. Fiori di Sole by Romi

I was planning to do this over the holidays, but since I've ended up with so many other projects I don't know if I'll have the chance!! I still want to do it, but I'm not sure when it will happen. This is a big shawl and it's perfect vacation knitting but I think it might drive me a little crazy to only work on in small pieces. Clearly, I just need to plan another vacation so I can knit it.

13. Midsummer Night's Dream

This one has been on my to-knit list forever, but I refuse to knit it until I find the perfect yarn, and I haven't yet.

I could add more to this list but I think this is really quite sufficient, don't you?? Designers, I understand you need to make a living and the only way for you to do that is to design as fast as the mills can churn out graph paper, but do you think you could maybe tone it down just a leeeeetle bit so I can keep up???