Leveling Out

Some days I wonder how I got so busy, and how I ended up with so much drama. The answer to this question is usually a greater interaction with people, which is a good thing, but I am an introvert at heart so I occasionally have to set limits on what I do so that I have time to recharge. Of course, I am awful at this, so generally speaking I end up with an overabundance of interaction for a period of time, followed by a period of hermitage. 

All of that is a rather long-winded intro to say that I am finding myself utterly relieved to finally be free of appointments and obligations, at least for a while. My church choir doesn't meet for the summer so that is about to end, my vacation is over, I have fulfilled all the craft obligations I had to other people, and I am more at my own disposal than I feel I have been in months. What did I do with my new found freedom?

I spun. At last. Spinning has gone by the wayside for quite some time, because I can't spin and knit at the same time (if anyone has figured out how to do this, please tell me your secret). Really, I can't spin and do anything at the same time, not even really hold a conversation. Maybe when I get better it will require less focus, but for now, I really have to pay attention to what I'm doing. I also have more trouble feeling the progress when I spin - it's not done until it's done and there really isn't any satisfactory progress indicator. So, when I'm stressed and feeling the futility in life in general, I tend to stay away from the wheel and gravitate more towards the knitting. I need the feeling of accomplishment.

I can say that I do absolutely love plying. Spinning singles is a long, slow slog which, while enjoyable, is work and takes forever. Plying, not so much. It requires less thought and attention and it goes so much quicker than spinning singles. I love it. It's the payoff at the end.

I subscribe to the Spunky Fiber Club and so every month I get a shipment of fiber in the mail. I love this. I love getting yarn and fiber in the mail so much that the SO has occasionally threatened to snitch some of my stash sometime when I am having a grumpy week and mail it to me. I have done nothing to discourage this idea.

However, because I have not been spinning I have quite a bit of fiber built up from the club, in addition to all the fiber I bought at MD Sheep and Wool and fiber I have received as gifts. The fiber stash has thoroughly outgrown the bin I was keeping it in and continues to enlarge every month, because even though I haven't been spinning nearly enough to justify maintaining my fiber club subscription, I just enjoy it so much I can't bring myself to cancel it.

I have decided, therefore, to participate in this year's Tour de Fleece. I'm hoping that I will be able to chew through some of the fiber I have accumulated and reclaim some of my fiber space - or at least, reassign it to yarn. I plan to spin as many fiber club bags as possible. Although 4 ounces of fiber doesn't really make a significant amount of yarn (especially if you are making 3-ply super bulky yarn, which is mostly what I have managed to accomplish so far), it is a comfortable amount to spin without getting bored. Also, see above statements regarding progress. I think I will be more motivated during the tour if I have the accomplishment of actually finishing stuff as I go.

Of course the tour doesn't start the first week in July (conveniently and inconveniently, it starts on the 3rd, which means I have the long weekend for the 4th to get a good start, but also means I will have to work around several forth of July activities that are happening that weekend) so in the meantime, I am spinning whatever I feel like spinning. First I finished off the yarn that was already on the wheel, which was a Spunky Club merino/bamboo mix in a colorway called Beach Day that I really loved when I received it. Loving it did not keep me dedicated to it, though, so I only spun up the first half and then it sat untended for a long long time. Last week I spun up the second half of it, let the singles rest overnight (I should have waited longer since the original bobbin had been sitting so long, but I'm impatient) and then I plied the two bobbins together. Often I have Navajo plied my spunky club fiber since I'm not a fan of barber pole yarns, but these fiber had such a watercolor effect to it that I thought it would be fine just to let the colors fall against each other as they would, since I felt it would all blend together prettily. I was really pleased with the result. I haven't actually checked the WPI but I'm pretty sure it's at least a worsted weight, and I have hopes that it might even be a little finer than worsted. It's by far the thinnest thing I've spun and one of the only yarns I've ended up with that I felt I would actually knit with. The only problem is, there are places where it is very underspun, where I made a mistake and got a really thick spot and it just doesn't have enough twist. As evenness goes, it's definitely an improvement over past mistakes, but it's still pretty textured. Even so, I love it, I feel like it shows progress, and that makes me happy.

The underspun-ness bothers me a bit, though, because I was already spinning on the smaller circle of the whorl. My Kiwi only has two ratios so if my yarn isn't getting enough twist, I will have to learn to hold onto it longer or treadle faster. Since I'm still learning anything that involves changing my spinning style makes me a little wary. Ashford does sell a lace flyer for the kiwi so that's a consideration also.

As it happens Techmuse sent me some fiber some time ago via a third party, and I finally picked it up from said third party this weekend. There was some purple fiber and some white fiber and this:



I squealed a little. They're just so cute! This looks like a sampler of naturally dyed fiber (cochineal, indigo, and another word that started with c that I can't remember which I assume gives you the yellow; the green is a combo of indigo and the other c word) and the bag says it is 4 ounces total, which means each puff of color is probably around 1 ounce. It just looked so happy there in its little bag, and I petted it all the way home (I was not driving) and put it on the wheel right away (I may have gained extra amusement from imagining tiny colored sheep wandering around a meadow). It's a BFL crossbreed, according to the label, and I really enjoy spinning BFL so I was extra excited. On the way home I pondered it and decided that I would spin each of these little colored samples in a row, and then spin some of the white fiber I received and then ply the colored together with the white. I didn't find a label for the white fiber but the staple length and crimp appeared to be similar to that of the colored fibers. The only problem with this is that I don't think I have a scale capable of weighing out four ounces of the white fiber. I have a tiny little scale I occasionally use for yarn but it's not nearly big enough for fleece. Maybe I can borrow the SO's kitchen scale.

Anyway, then I could conceivably find a white commercial yarn and stripe it with my handspun to make a scarf (similar to the famous noro 1x1 rib, 2x2 striped scarves) that would go from yellow to blue to red to green. If all went according to plan. Which is always a question, really.

I spun all of the yellow fiber:



And then some of the blue before I had to quit because my drafting hand and my back were wearing out. I wonder if a single treadle wheel is easier on one's back, since you can have one foot on the floor and conceivably not have to be slightly rocked back the way you do when you're treadling with both feet? I do find that spinning is a little tough on my back, which may have to do with my chair. I'm not sure what the ideal height for a spinning chair is. Right now I just use my dining room chairs.

In knitting news, I bought a subscription to Romi's Seven Small Shawls To Knit e-book and I have mostly completed the first shawl to be released, Merope:



Yarn is Shaeffer Audrey in colorway Nellie Bly, and I really got lucky with the pooling. Visually interesting and miraculously symmetrical! I still have to knit the edging. There are options in the pattern for either a knit-on border or a reverse stockinette icord and I haven't decided what I want to do yet. This was primarily my vacation knitting, since Evenstar is 100% silk (and also huge) and not really feasible as portable knitting. I have held off on Evenstar since I got back so I could go ahead and finish this project off. Speaking of my vacation, you are not supposed to take pictures at the Jamestown museum, but I could not resist just snapping an iphone pic of this display:



This looked so much like the tools I use today (especially the needles) that I really doubted the veracity of the display. I expected colonial knitting needles to look more rustic, somehow. I can only assume, however, that the museum knows what it's doing.

They were also selling "Intentional Spinning" in the book shop, which I found interesting. There was a drop-spindle class in Colonial Williamsburg as well, but schedule didn't permit me to go watch.

I hope to get Merope finished by the weekend, and then spend this weekend chugging on as much as the Evenstar edging as I can. I'd love it if I could finish that edging before the TdF starts. I love the project, but I'm ready to be finished with it!

I long to knit

This weekend was a generally low-yield knitting weekend. I'm sad. I would have liked to have done a lot more knitting, but I am trying to get some things checked off the to-do list, so the knitting has (once again) been somewhat pushed to the side.

I did get out of work a little early on Friday, though, and since I had a crappy week, I made a beeline for the yarn shop, where I discovered the wonder of stitch dictionaries.



I also discovered Cascade Pima Cotton in some gorgeously irresistible colors. I got a beautiful teal, which is what is shown here though the color is horrifically rendered. Here is the link to the color card instead. I think what I have is 3734, and I also got a skein of 3704 (I think). It's 220 yards per skein and it was $9 per skein and it is stunning, so even though I'm on a yarn diet I'm kinda sorta thinking about going back and getting more, especially because I really love the crescent slip stitch cotton shawl in the new issue of Interweave Knits. The yarn is soft and shiny and beautiful, and do you know what I'm making with it? A gym towel. Because you know what? The gym is about the least glamorous place ever and I think a soft hand-knitted towel in a beautiful color is a nice bit of luxury and sophistication to remind me that there is more to life than sweat and grime. Part of me feels a little guilty for putting such a beautiful product to such an ignoble use, but I'm telling that part to shut up. Besides, making the thing has whipped by. Anyway, I used my new stitch dictionary and I picked an edging and I picked a stitch pattern and off I went and it's beautiful. I can't remember what the edging was called but it uses the cluster stitch. The main pattern is the broken checkerboard pattern. I luff my new stitch dictionary.

Sadly, progress on Evenstar has been slow since the only real knitting time I had was Friday evening, and I spent it on the towel because I was too tired and brain dead to fiddle with lace and beads. Over the whole three day weekend I only got two additional repeats completed on the edging. This puts me at 13 repeats completed out of 54. Very depressing, especially since, based on last night's knitting, it takes me about an hour to do a repeat, so I basically have a full work week of knitting to do to finish off this piece. This makes me so sad. I really want it to be finished. I am looking longingly toward other projects. Not that my love for this project has diminished or languished at all, but, I'm only human, and the next project I plan to work on is a veritable sunburst of color after all. this. white. I'm still wondering if I will be able to see any blue at all when I finish and block this piece. If I look really hard I can identify the places where the color is pooling, but I can see only that it's a little darker in those places, not that it's blue. Oh well - it's beautiful anyway and nothing shows off a lace pattern like white. Right? Right. I at least like having the beads on the edging, though, the smokeyness of the beads gives it a bit more depth, I think, and takes it a little out of the 'wedding' look.





I'm going on vacation in two weeks and there's a lot I have to get done between now and then. I'm making some cards that friends have asked for that I'm trying to get off my plate (this is why I don't often do things on request, I get so stressed about it) and I have to get the house cleaned. One of my coworkers is coming to pupsit while I am out, and he is kind of a neat nick and I am...not. At all. So I want to get the place in order enough that he doesn't pass out when he walks in the door.

My friend requested a set of thank you cards and a set of thinking of you cards like these, which I had donated to the church fundraiser:



So I made those, and I had more base cards than I needed, so while I was at it I played around with some other things and made these:







The base cards are pink, though you can't really tell in those photos. Pink and black always look good together so these cards are really simple but still really pretty. I have some other things that I started that are partially done, but not finished yet. I really should just sit down and play with things more often. Usually when I'm working on a card it's for something or someone in particular, and I get kind of stressed out about it. Tossing things around, seeing if they work, changing it up if they don't, without feeling like I'm under pressure - that was pretty fun. I'll have to do that more often. I also really like having these pre-cut, pre-folded cards to work with rather than doing it myself. It just speeds the process up quite a bit.

I'm also working on some long cards my boss asked me to make. He likes to give savings bonds to his grandkids for their birthdays so he often asks if I will make up a card to present them in. That's on my agenda for tonight. That will check off the last "do for other people" thing on my list and I can move on to just getting the house clean.

I don't think I'm going to take Evenstar with me while I'm on vacation. It's too big and beads are a bit much to fiddle with for a car trip, so I will probably start my next lace project for that trip. Or I will work that cotton slip-stitch shawl I mentioned. That would be good, easy vacation knitting. I will also need to take something small and easy since we are going to an amusement park for part of the trip and there will be lots of standing in line. I will have to investigate possibilities for that, I think. Last time I went to an amusement park, I took a merino/tencel sock on the grounds that a plant fiber mix wouldn't be too hot. I do have a wool/tencel yarn at home, but I didn't actually like working with it very much when I last used it, so I'm not sure that's what I want to do. I'll have to give this some thought.

Ho hum

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oops I did it again

As I believe I have mentioned before, I usually post by e-mail. I foolishly sent my last post to @blogspot.com instead of @blogger.com. And I foolishly didn't save the draft, because I suffer from a chronic failure to learn.

So, here's a recap.

I bought beads. I went to Star's Beads and took the Phoenix Rising yarn with me, as well as a small sample of the Evenstar yarn. I came back with 3 possibilities for Phoenix rising, and the perfect beads for Evenstar. Except I need 3,000 beads for Evenstar, so what I really came back with was a small sample of the beads I wanted, which I then had to order.

Star's Beads is a cool place for jewelry makers. Her seed bead selection is a little smaller than Bead Obsessions and the tubes are smaller...but it's SO much easier to get to.

The problem with brick and mortar craft stores, and it is a problem I have observed universally amongst scrapbook stars, yarn stores, bead stores, whatever - is that you can only carry so much stuff. A store owner has to be selective about what he or she carries because they have only so much space and so much inventory money. So, they have to choose what to focus on - what they like and what they think will sell. And, if your main audience is jewelry makers and not knitters, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to take up a huge amount of space with no. 8 seed beads on the off chance that a snillion knitters will come through and buy you out.

I generally go shopping in one of two states. I either know exactly what I want, or I have no clue. In either case, selection is very important to me, and I often get frustrated because there is something CLOSE to what I want, but it's just not quite right.

Of course, the risk of shopping on the internet is that you won't get what you want (see previous issues with Evenstar yarn color). When I bead shop on the internet I end up ordering six or eight colors to see what they look like, and they might come and none of them be what I want and I have to start over again.

The purpose of this long-winded tangent is to say that I am really thrilled I went to the store because found the perfect beads for Evenstar, because I never would have selected them over the internet. They are Toho size 8 beads in Ceylon Smoke. They are sort of a pearlized grey with a hint of blue that really picks up and brings out the blue in the yarn. It's not quite got the glitz that I sort of wanted, but I think it's a much better fit than the sparkle I had planned. I'm excited. Artbeads was the only store online I could find that actually carried the color (usually I have success with BobbyBeads

I'm really pleased as well with the possibilities I brought back for Phoenix. I'll need to swatch to pick the one I want. One is gold with a pink tint, and two are a couple different shades of bronze.

I finished Brandywine. I haven't really been in love with this project, which was disappointing to me because I loved all the pictures I was seeing of finished Brandywines. I decided my yarn selection was off. I didn't like the color, and because Schaeffer Ann contains mohair it was pretty fuzzy. Now that I've finished it and blocked it out, though, I've changed my mind and it's beautiful. From a distance and taken as a whole, the colors mix and look much better than I expected, and it puts me in mind of a grove of trees changing at the beginning of fall.

I spent last night making card pieces. I have been distracted from my paper crafting by all the knitting, but I'm still making stuff to donate to the church for the deadline this Saturday, and since I really don't have time to finish any more knitting before then, I thought I would donate some handmade cards. I dragged all my stuff out and just experimented with different stamps and coloring techniques. I was trying to get as many items done as possible so I didn't use techniques that took a lot of time - no coloring with my copics, or anything like that. I used my color dusters a lot, and my versamark pad and chalks. I just kind of fussed around with things and I got some really neat outcomes. Tonight I plan to put the pieces together into actual cards.

One of my church friends invited me to her charity knitting group, and that was fun. They're making washcloths this summer to donate to SERVE, so I've been working on some of those. Right now I'm basically just making garter stitch squares. They are perfect hockey knitting. I can cast on before the game starts and finish right around when it ends. Sadly the Capitals are out of the playoffs now, but I've gotten at least four washcloths made in the last week or so. I will have to switch it up a bit and do something fancier than garter stitch eventually, but for now I'm just enjoying the mindless comfort. They're nice for knitting while reading, too.

Last summer the group was knitting bandages for lepers. This intrigued me so I googled it and got the guidelines. So now I have a bandage on the needles too, for another quick, mindless, and fairly comfortable project. I am well-equipped for any future trips to the movies now. I'll just grab a washcloth or the bandage. To tell the truth I find the bandage knitting surprisingly gratifying. Since it's only three or four inches wide it grows very quickly, even though the crochet cotton used to make it is pretty fine. I like knitting with fine yarns so that doesn't bother me at all.

So that's all the news that's fit to print, and hopefully I will have pictures for the next post.

Oopsie

It appears I messed up some of the html in my previous post, which cut out a chunk of text. I've now fixed it. I didn't notice it when I checked the post the first time because the sentences happened to be cut in such a way that they actually almost made sense, so it didn't jump out of me. Apologies and please enjoy the corrected post!

All aboard the Slowpoke Express. You know, when you're ready. No rush.

I have not much at all to report despite the length of time since my last blog post. My job is deadline-oriented, so every once in a while I lose the rest of my life while I try to meet a deadline, and that's been the case for the past few weeks. I had more than one deadline to meet and I really didn't have time for much else. I have been plugging along at a snail's pace on my existing projects - a pair of plain socks (remember those self-striping Olympic socks? I had two skeins by accident, so I'm making a second pair), the Brandywine shawl, and the somewhat neglected Evenstar.

The Brandywine shawl has proven much more difficult for me to do than I expected. I'm not entirely sure why - the pattern is not really difficult. It's a little fiddly in the beginning, but nothing really mind-bending. I'm still not really in love with the colorway I've chosen, although several others have expressed that they like it, so I have hope that someone will want it. But you know what really aggravates me? REALLY REALLY aggravates me? It's got a lace border, and some thought is required for the border, it's not something that's mindless. And then there's the garter stitch field in the middle. Lace border. Garter stitch middle. GUESS WHERE I MESSED UP.

Apparently I need to go back to knitting kindergarten, because garter stitch is clearly too much for me. I think what is happening is that I get cranking along and accidentally knit into the stitch below the stitch I want. Sometimes I notice - sometimes I don't. I've already fixed this same mistake in several different places, but there is one spot that I thought was fixed that clearly isn't, and it is waaaaaaaaaaay down the shawl. I can ladder stockinette all day long but laddering garter stitch is a little harder. Sadly, I don't think I'm the type of person who can just ignore this problem. To me, it's just really freaking obvious. The very regularity of garter stitch makes the problem stand out. I could maybe block it into some semblance of correctness - but I would rather just fix it. The real question is, will I make a bigger mess trying to fix it? I don't think it matters. I think I'm going to be fixing it no matter what, because I am just that way.

I got a little bogged down in Evenstar clue 4, because it's 4 rows that you repeat 6 times, and it involves twisted stitches. Well, we all know I have difficulty repeating the same pattern multiple times, and the twisted stitches and twisted decreases made things a little tough at first. After I got the first two repeats done I put it down for a bit to work on other things, and now I've picked it back up and the rows don't seem nearly as difficult as they did, so I'm doing much better. I have one more repeat to go. This means I will stay about one clue behind. Clue 6 is to be released this Friday, I think, and I think that's the last clue for the body and the edging will be next. I still haven't picked out beads for the edging. I need to do that, but I can't decide if I should do something mostly clear and sparkly, or if I should use something with actual blue in it. I mean, if the shawl's going to be pretty much white, I might as well go with it and just give it a little sparkle without adding color, but if the blue is going to be visible - I don't know. I'm still pondering this one.

This past Monday was my birthday and we took a trip down to Hunt Country Yarns to celebrate. I came home with two skeins of Lorna's Laces Helen's Lace and a beautiful shawl pin. I have Plans for these yarns. Well, actually, I have Plans for one of these yarns. I picked out two colorways, one called Maple that just begged to be made into something with a flame theme, and one that is blues and blue-greens and very very oceany.

I'm going to use the Maple skein to make the Phoenix Rising shawl from Sivia Harding.

The other skein...I'm not so sure of. I wanted to do something ocean-themed and my first thought was the Mystic Waters shawl, but I'm not sure that's right. It's designed to celebrate water in all forms, and I think I want something more specifically ocean - something more undulating and less geometric. I thought of the Creatures of the Reef shawl, but that's not really what I want either. I'm thinking...I'm thinking...I'm CONSIDERING...maybe...possibly...I might need to...design my own? Woo, that's a scary thought. It frightens me even to write it. But it is a thought I'm having.

I also bought for myself some Elsebeth Lavold Baby Llama that was on sale at LittleKnits, because that is the yarn used to make the Simone sweater in French Girl Knits, which I have loved from the moment I laid eyes on it. I wavered for some time between Linen and Venetian Red, and finally decided to be daring and get the red. I prefer dark colors to bright, so I often avoid red - it wears me out a bit to look at it. However...I look really good in red. So I try not to dismiss it out of hand.

That will be my last yarn purchase for a while, I think - I have enough yarn to knit at least four sweaters and four or five lace shawls, so I think I had better buckle down and try to keep the spending under control. Thus...I will not be going to MD Sheep and Wool this year, I think. Woe. But I still have everything I bought last year sitting upstairs virtually untouched, so...I can live without (sob).

And that, dear readers, is pretty much all the news that's fit to print. Very boring, I know. No progress, no pics, no nothing...I apologize. I will try to be more interesting next time.

Blog? What blog?

Ugh, I've gotten busy. This month is kind of packed. There was Easter, and my birthday is coming up and the festivities are spread over a couple of weeks because of availability issues in my various groups of people. I have major deadlines at work this month, too.

I've been asked to donate some knitted items to my church for an event on May 1, so I have been working on stuff for that. This has really cut into my Evenstar knitting time, which is disappointing, but it's not that big of a deal if I get behind (so I keep telling myself) and it's for a good cause. I've knit a couple of hats (well, I've knit one and I'm 90% through the other) and I've got supplies for some beaded ornament covers. I also started a Brandywine shawl out of Schaeffer Anne, but I'm not sure I'm happy with it. I'm going to work a little farther and if I'm still not liking it - well, I don't see the point in torturing myself by knitting a project I hate, so if I don't like it I will frog it and save the yarn for something else. The colors just aren't working up in a way that I like. I have another skein of Anne in greens that I think would be really pretty, but I was saving it for socks for me. But...I may just break down and use it. We'll see. I'm actually not sure I would like Anne on my feet anyway, it's not the softest yarn I've worked with and I have really spoiled myself with supersoft yarns up until now. I wish more people carried Schaeffer Heather - it has a much nicer feel.

I finished Hanami. That was a great knit, so much fun and it went by so quickly once I got started. I really like the yarn, too, Schaeffer Trenna from Little Knits. Sadly LK looks a little low on stock. Oh well, I've already spent way too much money on yarn this month, and it's only the fifth.

I'm really pleased at how Evenstar is working up. I really like it. At the risk of stating the obvious, you're always taking a risk with mystery knits. You never know if you're going to like it or not. Happily, the designer's aesthetic seems pretty in sync with mine, and I'm loving both the design itself and the thought that went into it. The area of the design I'm in now has lines of twisted stitches in it with purl stitches on either side, and I had my doubts - I thought, why put such an architectural element in a lace design? But as it's working up I think I see where she's going with it and I love it. These twisted stitch lines make rays out from the center star design. Very cool...if something of a pain to knit.

There have been a lot of errata coming with the shawl, so I have taken to waiting a few days after each clue is released to begin it. Since Friday nights are not generally ideal brain-intensive knitting time for me anyway, this has worked out well.

I'm looking at other projects, though, that I may want to knit next. I have one pattern in mind that I want to try to get a jump on Christmas knitting. I ordered yarn for it this weekend.

I'm also looking hard at the Heere Be Dragones shawl. I really want to knit this, but I am also really intimidated by it. Now, in my experience most knitting is not that difficult if you break it down into its component pieces. Work step by step and try not to worry too much about the whole, and it's really not that complicated. It's a metaphor for life, really - focus on the step you're taking right now, and trust God's design to put those individual pieces together into something beautiful. Don't worry about the big picture, just follow directions and it will come out all right in the end.

However, even though there's not that much that's difficult to knit, there are things that are tedious and annoying to knit. That's my fear - that I will get into it and be so frustrated by the fiddlyness of it (and the size - the thing is HUGE) that I won't enjoy the knitting of it.

The other issue is...I'm really taken with the idea of knitting it in one of Blue Moon's Raven Clan colorways. Can you imagine a black dragon with shimmers of color throughout? So awesome. Blue Moon offers a couple of laceweight options, one that is entirely wool and two that are entirely silk. I don't like to work with 100% wool laceweight yarns, they are usually rather delicate and, since I am not a delicate person, I am forever in terror of ruining the finish product. But, we all remember how much difficulty I have had with the 100% silk I am working with now. I'm hesitant to take on a design that involves heavy stitch manipulation in 100% silk (not to mention picking up stitches for the border, which sounds like a complete nightmare to me no matter what yarn you attempt it in. Wool-silk blends like Jaggerspun Zephyr and Schaeffer Trenna are my preferred yarn choices. Maybe I will surf etsy and see if I can find an indie dyer with something similar. I really like Thraven or Rauen as a possible color concept...Maaaaybe Corvid.

I could go with a slightly heavier weight yarn and try their wool-tencel blends in fingering weight, but the shawl is already so huge I kind of hate to increase the size any. Plus, I will worry about having enough yarn.

What I may do, and what a smart person would do, would be to finish Evenstar and then use the leftovers to swatch with the funky stitches in the pattern to see whether I can manipulate the stitches the way I need to in the silk. It's the horizontal stitch that worries me. If I can make that one work, I think I can make the others happen too. Picking up stitches along the edge still might kill me, but pfft - that's at the END of the project. I can worry about that later.

You there, in the back - stop laughing.