Some and none

I made a fair bit of progress over the weekend but I haven't gotten much done since then. I haven't been sleeping well so my evenings have been spent staring zombie-like at nothing. Moving the needles is too much work - let alone following a chart or something like that.

I finished the tomato socks and packed them off to their recipient. I didn't wash them, I probably should have - but in the end I decided to let her try them on first. If they fit as they are, then she can wash them in cold water so they don't shrink too much. If they are a bit too big, she can wash them in hot water and shrink them up a bit. They really weren't that much work so I'm not really sure why I am so freaked about whether they fit or not. I haven't heard a word since I sent them home with the recipient's hubby to be gifted...kinda makes me nervous but we usually see them on Thursdays so here's hoping I will find out today. I just want to KNOW OMG.

I've worked some on Whispering Pines. Last night I started a new swatch for the mystery stole. I swatched previously on 4s and the fabric was more open than I prefered. This was actually a little odd for me - I'm a tight knitter so normally I end up starting with a needle size larger than the one recommended. I only got through one repeat, though, before I was just tired to do anymore. I think I like the 3 better, but we'll see when it's blocked. I did block the original swatch pretty severely, so it may be that I could just...not do that.

I am debating over knitting both sides of the stole at once. I'm not really keen on knitting them both at the same time (that is, doing one row of one and the same row of the other on one long needle), but I was thinking before, when I was using 4s, that I could work one side, cap the cable, and work the other side on a seperate cable. I would effectively be working each section twice in a row. Don't ask me why this is preferable to just doing the second side at the end, but somehow I'm sure it would be.

However, 4 is the smallest size of interchangeable needle put out by knitpicks. If I use the 3's, I'd have to buy another needle.

Decisions, decisions.

I'm also struggling with a last-minute bead substitution. One of the beads I ordered, the Montana matte, was the right blue but it didn't show up. I'm wondering if the Montana lustre ones would be the right blue but show up a little better. I thought I was happy with the old ivory beads but I kind of hate that I have not tried the blue ones. Again - decisions, decisions. If I order now they will not get here by tomorrow and tomorrow is when the first clue comes out so I would have to wait to cast on...I'm not sure if I can do that. Woe!

I'm also really, really tempted to buy one of Beadwrangler's beading kits. Not the bead crochet ones, but one of the actual beading kits, like maybe the floral thing or the vine wave kit. I'm trying really hard to be good, though, finances are really tight so I can't get too carried away.

The embossed stitch socks are going along nicely. One of the great things about this stitch pattern is that it's easy to count repeats, so I am doing a much better job at matching length on this sock than on previous socks. I counted 9 diamonds before the heel, and then I plan to count diamonds on the foot too so the socks will be even. I'm keeping an eye on my guage and it looks like my tension is the same on both socks. I had a mishap with the tomato socks, in that I ended up, again, with one longer than the other. I didn't realize it until I had kitchenered the toe and rather than try to pick it out - I just cut it off. The end of the toe, that is. It was kind of scary, but it worked. I picked out all the cut pieces until I got to the end of the yarn, frogged back to the beginning of the toe decreases, joined the skein back, added a few more plain rounds, and then re-kitchenered the toe.

I forgot to take a picture, either of the cut-and-frog or of the finished socks. I had stayed up kind of late by that time and I just didn't think of it.

Football season is picking up again so there will be much knitting while the SO watches sweaty men crash into each other. I'm at the heel of the embossed diamonds sock and I hope to get some progress made during the game tonight...if I can stay awake.

You might be a lace knitter if...

I think...I'm a lace knitter. I'm addicted. I ignore my other projects and make a beeline straight for the lace whenever I can. I knit on socks when I can't knit lace. I'm developing an aversion to needles larger than size 4. :oP

I'm thinking about getting some of the KnitPicks Harmony tips in the larger sizes. I've gotten used to using them for lace and I find when I go back to the metal ones that they kind of hurt now. This is both puzzling and annoying, since I have 2 sets of metal tips in just about every size and that's kind of a significant investment to just toss in a drawer and ignore. I'm hoping it's just that I'm trying to knit something in the round that is really two small for one circ. Maybe if I put it on two it won't be such a pain.

Anyway, I've finished Chart B and moved on to Chart C on the whispering pines shawl. I'm a little depressed because I am going to need more stitch markers, so I think I'm going to have to switch back to my rubber ring markers. This is depressing because I really love my soft look markers from Hide and Sheep. It pleases my poetic soul that the ones I'm using on this shawl are snowflake obsidian. I have two sets for a total of 12 markers, but I would kind of need a few dozen for the next sections where chart areas repeat like 16 times on each side. Sigh.

I really, really want to buy some for the mystery shawl because...I could get blue ones to match. I'm such a loser. I do have a blue row counting bracelet and I would love to have matching stitch markers for it, and the fact that said markers would also match the color of my yarn is really making the temptation great. Add to that the fact that the markers are really fairly inexpensive and it's hard to resist. But, resist I must - I don't get paid for another week. -_-

Scheherazade got its first outing on Sunday. I may have been a little proud of myself.



I also finished the embossed stitch socks in the C*EYE*BER Fyber Periwinkle. I am in love with these socks.



Look at the way it striped on the heel. LOOK AT IT. Love, I tell you.



Equal time for the toe.



I've already cast on number two, but once I got through the cast on I switched over to the tomato socks so I could watch yesterday's gymnastics (missed it because Scheherazade and I went to see the Lion King at the Kennedy Center).



Saturday they showed the marathon, which - I'm sorry, but until you get to the end, it's just not that interesting. :oP So I swatched for MS4.



I added one more repeat than the swatch instructions called for so I could try all my bead options.



The bottom beads are an opaque Montana blue (whatever that means) and while it shows up okay on the picture, it gets lost on the actual swatch. The clear aquamarine ones barely show at all, all you can see is the gold lining, and not much of that.



That takes it down to the two white ones, one matte (top) and one pearly (second from top), and I think I'm going to go with the matte. The pearly are okay but I prefer the matte ones. The impression of the blue with the matte white is casual and flirty, and I'm good with that.

That settled, I worked on Whispering Pines. I got through chart A and I'm now halfway through chart B.

Snag

So I've been thinking that I would like to give the SO's mom a shawl pin with the shawl I am knitting...but I'll be darned if I can find a snowflake shawl pin anywhere! I did find one, but at $50 it definitely exceeded my budget, and I didn't even really like it that much.

Maybe I just need to be patient and hope that one will be easier to find later in the year. But, just in case, I've been looking into making one. I found a pendant charm that I liked at Artbeads and kilt and brooch pins at Fire Mountain Gems. I THINK I can do it for somewhere in the realm of $25, depending, as always, on how carried away I get.

My paycheck for the month is already spent so I am definitely in a holding pattern for now, but I'm definitely keeping the option in mind.

Overdoing it

My in-progress projects have ballooned. So, here's what I'm working on at the moment:

Whispering Pines




Embossed Stitch Sock


It's actually considerably larger than that, now, I've turned the heel and everything, and I thought I had a newer picture, but apparently not. Anyway, that's enough to get the idea, although I wish I could show off the stripes on the heel.

I needed something plain for Olympic knitting, so I cast on a pair of plain socks for the SO's mom, who has been hinting rather strongly that she would like some.



The SO is highly amused because I keep calling it the Tomato Sock. That's KnitPicks Essential in Tuscany Multi, but come on - tell me it doesn't scream TOMATO at you. This sock is also considerably longer than it was when this picture was taken, because I took the picture right at the start of last night's primetime Olympics coverage, and knitted all the way through. (well, not all the way, I finally moved upstairs at 11:30. I was brushing my teeth when the men out-touched France in the medley relay and I nearly spit all over the TV in my excitement)

I did not neglect my spinning.



...But I didn't spin any of that this weekend. That's what I've been spinning up until now. I went to WYIF on Sunday and picked up a couple of little 2 oz bags of fiber for fun. I was duly cautioned that the fibers I had chosen were maybe not the best for beginners, but I chose not to care.



Because it was pretty. And because I am impatient, I bought a spindle so I could play with it right away.



I couldn't get the penny in there, it was wound too tight.

Still waiting for my MS4 yarn to arrive, so that I can decide which of my beads to use:



I also have another set of soldier socks on the needles but they were in the car when I did the photo shoot, so we will have to leave that to the imagination.

Perseverance

The Tsock Tsarina's adventures in spinning have been driving me wild with envy lately. WILD. But, my last encounter with a drop spindle didn't really go so well. I stopped by With Yarn in Front on Sunday afternoon to grab some notions, and another lady was getting a demonstration of the Sonata spinning wheel. I shamelessly grafted myself on, because I'd never seen a spinning wheel in use and I was really interested. The lady let me give it a try, too. This has not reduced my envy any. The wheel looked so much easier than the drop spindle (I admit it, my first annoying experience has biased me considerably). I get why people say it takes more coordination because you have to regulate your feet and your hands at the same time (my feet were definitely peddling faster than my hands could draft), but to me, fumbling with the spindle is even more awkward (please note, I am a klutz and your mileage may vary).

When I got home I whined and moped and counted off to myself the things I needed more than a spinning wheel - like the rest of my bedroom furniture, a couple more lenses for the DSLR that my incredible friends got me for Christmas last year, an external flash, a comfortable knitting chair for the upstairs room and a small TV...but at the end I was still whining about wanting one. I knitted for a while but I couldn't stop thinking about the spinning, so - I went upstairs and got that accursed drop spindle out again.

By dinner time I was a grouchy, aggravated mess. We went out to dinner wtih the SO's parents, and we came back, and I gave it a try again. It went better. I worked on it some last night, and it went better. I stopped and wound off what was on the spindle because I couldn't keep it spinning any more. That gave me a little hope since I could see a big difference from what I started with. I got out my copy of Start Spinning, put a leader on the spindle, took a deep breath, and went at it again. What I'm getting is definitely novelty yarn, but it does, in fact, at least vaguely resemble yarn. Drafting is still difficult for me but I am STARTING to get the hang of drafting it out without actually breaking it. I can't do it while the spindle is turning, though, I have to predraft quite a bit and park & draft to the extreme. But, I have hope that Baby's Third Handspun will look better than Baby's Second (if you will recall, I accidentally left Baby's First Handspun at the store, and honestly...while the scrapbooker in me weeps - I still have my first swatch of knitting - I'm just as happy not to have to look at it).

I am resolved to keep spinning a little each day before I pick up the knitting; when I get frustrated, I will quit, so as not to give the SO the false impression that spinning should be discouraged at all costs. I still have a lot of fiber left from the stuff that was included in the class I took, and when that's done I have some really beautiful teal wool that I bought in my initial spinning excitement (how sad is it, that even when I can clearly see that I REALLY SUCK at something, I can't resist buying the pretties?), so I have enough material to keep me going for a while.

I do kind of want another spindle, though, a pretty one (preferably one that spins a little longer than the one I have). When I get close to the end of my class wool, I may buy a pretty one to spin the teal stuff with (is that asking for trouble, to get used to one spindle and then get a completely different one? I don't know. Also, do you think I am addicted to parenthetical statements much?).

A Thousand Words

...but still no pictures. I'm sorry!!!

I did a lot of shopping this week. I have been very good about not buying more yarn, but I had excuses to fall down and I fell hard.

Purchase the first: Sweet Lace in Snow Squall for the Whispering Pines triangle shawl.

Purchase the second: Fiddlesticks Knitting Zephyr Laceweight Wool Silk in Marine

Purchase the third: Lots of beads

Purchase the first is for a Christmas present. Purchase the second and third are for Mystery Shawl 4. Since I didn't have the yarn in person and I wasn't looking at beads in person, I ordered several options for beads, figuring that beads are inexpensive and that I would likely end up using them for something eventually. Also, I am indecisive.

I wanted a silk blend for the mystery stole because the instructions say stitch definition will be important, so I wanted something with a little sheen. I chose Marine because Scheherazade is burgandy, the Moonlight Sonata shawl I am working on is dark dark navy, and I have some green Lacey Lamb in the stash that I plan to use for an Icarus shawl, so I figured Marine was a color category I hadn't gotten yet. I really wavered between picking Marine or Pewter, though - to me, Pewter would have been a safe choice because I could have worn it with a lot and I could have picked any color bead. However, picking a color bead would have made it wearable with less, and I couldn't find any silver or metalic type beads that I was really happy with. But, really, the kicker is that safe is boring and I didn't want to be bored.

I really could have gone about this whole process better, I know - the knitalong doesn't even start for a month and I had plenty of time to mull it over, pick a yarn, wait for it to arrive, find a local bead shop, try out combos, etc - but, half the fun of a mystery stole is the uncertainty, and a) if you're going to gamble, why not gamble big? b) Might as well go with your first instinct because thinking it over too hard really can't do you that much good when you're working with limited instructions anyway.

Now my only problem is finding a size 13 crochet hook for the beads. My LYS didn't have one even close to that size, and the smallest Michael's had was a size 10 (and, having looked at it, I'm kind of freaked out to think that's too big).

I am aware, at this point, that I am kind of spiraling into WIP hell - I get nervous when I have too many things on the needles for too long. I don't think there's anything wrong with having multiple projects, but there is some kind of malfunction in my brain that puts me in an absolute panic if I have a bunch of things going on for too long. There's a little timer in my brain that starts running when I hit a certain number of projects, and if I haven't checked off some boxes before it runs out, I start to freak and it's not pretty.

One consolation is that I'm not finished shopping yet. One of my friends has requested, for Christmas, a pair of fingerless mitts for use in her office. I'm thinking I'm going to do the Orchid Lace mits from knitspot for her in a really decadent yarn. I'm looking at a silk-cashmere blend that I think would be perfect, if only I could get it in a color I think would suit her. The mitts take so little yarn I can afford to splurge on something nice for her - especially since it will come out of my Christmas fund so it doesn't count as being bad.

Now I just have to wait for my purchases to arrive...that's always the hardest part. I plan to use this time to try and get some stuff off my needles so that I don't feel too overwhelmed when I get ready to start the Christmas shawl and the mystery stole.