Behaving

I located the little towel from my last post and finished it.



It's the broken checkerboard pattern from the Vogue Knitting lace stitchionary with the daisy chain edging from the same book.



When I saw how much yarn I had left I was tempted to continue knitting it, but I just finished out the repeat I was on, added the edging, and put the rest of the yarn aside. I might have enough to make a small washcloth to go with it. But I feel better being able to mark this project as completed!

I finished Taygete. That's shawl #3 for 11 in 2011! It needs blocking, which I didn't get around to this weekend, but it's done done done.







Sorry, my fingernail polish clashes with the shawl terribly, doesn't it! It's not that neon in person, I promise, and it's more hot pink than orange (the polish, not the shawl, though the shawl is also not orange).

I moaned about the picot border but it was actually kind of fun, and it's easy to see your progress, which I like. Plus there are lots of little small goals to achieve - okay, I've made it to the center point! Okay, I've made it to the next corner! All that's left is the top edge! I left my safety pin markers in the center stitch on both the point and the long edge, so I was able to note when I passed the halfway mark of the top edge as well. It took me The Devil Wears Prada to get the first two sides done and then I finished the third while watching some episodes of Big Cat Diary. Love that show - if you have Netflix it's available on Instant Play.

I have been very faithful to David's scarf as my lunch and travel knitting, so progress is being made there too.



It's about 3 feet long and stalled, since I left it somewhere on Thursday and will have to go back for it.

I spent most of my knitting time working on the long neglected Fiori.



I am unreasonably amused by the egg crate texture on the back of the shawl right now.



Hee hee.

I'm halfway through my fourth repeat of Chart E. The pattern calls for 5 repeats, but I think I'm going to stop at 4. I like my shawls generously sized but the photos I have seen of completed Fiori's make me think I will be perfectly fine with 4 repeats. I'm also using less yarn than the pattern calls for, so that gives me extra incentive to stop early. I almost never knit things to the smaller options - given the choice between shawlette and shawl I feel like a wuss if I don't go for shawl - but I'm going to grit my teeth and make an exception this time. I'm hoping I can finish the last half of this repeat tonight so that I can go on to the next one and hopefully have something more interesting to show this time.

I feel quite virtuous, having stuck to my commitment to get some WIPs off the list before casting on for the sixteen million other things I want to knit. Once Fiori is finished I think I will be justified in casting on for Spanish Moss, which I would really like to get moving on before the April pattern comes out!!

The one thing I have not made any progress on, however, is my Sea Turtle Shawl design. I worked out the charts for the triangle patterns several weeks ago but I just haven't wanted to knit it. I've been a little frustrated with the yarn I had and so I haven't done my triangular swatch.

But, WEBS had a sale on Jaggerspun Zephyr this week and I got this.



It's, um...orange. The label says copper, but yeah - I pointed it out to David while it was lying on the ottoman amongst a pile of other yarn and he said, "The orange one?"

I keep telling myself this is okay because a) if you really screw with your camera filters sand is almost orange, right? okay, in the desert, not in the ocean, which is where turtles live, BUT IT'S STILL SAND OKAY b) Zephyr is a really common yarn that isn't hard to find and can be found at an economical price, so if I put the pattern out for sale eventually as I hope to do, people will not go crazy looking for this yarn c) it was on sale so I was able to get enough that I can comfortably swatch the yarn AND knit the shawl without worrying about running out of yarn.

But it is not really okay. I don't like it for this shawl (although I think it would make a great Tibetan Clouds shawl, so it won't go to waste at all). I AM going to use it to swatch, though, so I can decide if I like Zephyr for this project, and if I do I will look at maybe Mushroom or Suede instead.

It may be a little silly to fret this much about it, but I don't want to hate knitting the design because I don't care for the color, so I'd rather do what it takes to make sure I like it.

The non-lace items on my WIP list haven't gotten much love, I'm afraid, and they're all kind of a long way from completion so I don't have as much 'finish it up' motivation. I do think I need to find them all and put them where I can get to them easily so I can work on them when the mood strikes me. I have the Umaro blanket next to my bed and I'm working a row or two on it in the evenings, after I go upstairs but before I really settle down to sleep. I bet if I really put my mind to it I could finish the Simone sweater in a couple of weeks of faithful knitting, but that would mean putting down the lace. DON'T TAKE MY LACE NOOO. Besides...the weather is warming up and I probably won't get to wear it this year at this point. No need to hurry.

I still have Galadriel's mirror sitting here, barely started, and I'm undecided as to what to do about that. Should that be my priority when I finish Fiori? Or should I go ahead and get started on the In Dreams mystery shawl? I'm now three very heavily beaded clues behind. I've been looking at spoiler pictures and they're all absolutely stunning (you can check out Pink Lemon Knits, she's working on one) but oi...the beads.

Really, these two are not mutually exclusive, one being beaded and laceweight and the other one being nonbeaded and fingering weight, so I'm comfortable working both of them at once. I'll have Spanish Moss as my nonbeaded easy peasy laceweight shawl and between the three of them I should have my lace knitting bases covered, but not overwhelmed.

Of course, there is Asterope, the next installment in the 7 Small Shawls book, but those have been such fun, speedy knits, I'm not really worried about it. When it comes out I will drop everything I'm working on like a hot rock, knit merrily through it with the rest of the Rominettes on the Rav board, and then go back to what I was doing as if nothing happened.