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.

Failure to Launch

It's been like two weeks without a blog entry, all because I am a moron and can't ever remember that when posting by e-mail I am supposed to send to blogger.com instead of blogspot.com. Sigh. So I have this entry written that's all out of date now, and I'm not sure how to handle it. I guess I will just post what I had written before with minor edits to update things that are no longer accurate. So if you see something where the tense or date reference is whacky, it's probably because that text was old and I missed that it needed to be updated.
I finally did the bind-off on my Aeolian shawl last weekend a couple of weekends ago. I love the final product, it's beautiful. I'm thrilled with the color, I'm thrilled with the beads. I'm not thrilled with the bind-off. I used a larger needle, because - well, why wouldn't I? Unfortunately, I think I shouldn't have. I think the bind-off would actually look better if it was tighter, making a cleaner edge for the points. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure undoing the whole thing would put me in the looney bin so I'm going to have to live with it. I did end up just using a single strand for the bind-off. I sent the designer a message on Ravelry and she was kind enough to reply and tell me her reasoning for using the two strands, and as they weren't really structural reasons, I decided it wasn't worth the trouble to try and figure out a way to use the yarn doubled. The bind-off took me a couple of hours, it was a lot of stitches and it was very, very boring. I might have been able to get it done faster if I had just powered through it, but instead I kept getting distracted because it was SO DULL.
Then there was the blocking. I almost didn't have enough room. I block in the floor of my guest room which is probably the smallest room in the house, and I had to pin part of it out under the bed because there wasn't enough room on the open floor! I also ran out of pins towards the end of blocking, pinning out all those points on the flowers! I had to dig into my sewing box and get regular pins for a couple of points. They seemed to have worked okay. I checked this morning and saw no sign of rust, which was my main worry. I intended to unpin it that evening, but I haven't done it yet it took me a week to get around to it.

Anyway, I think the shawl is beautiful and I can't wait to wear it I wore it to church this past Sunday. I do think I'm going to have to sit with it and secure a few nupp loops that are loose (I didn't bother). This is why I haven't unpinned it yet. Once I do, I'll actually have to deal with all those little finishing aspects that are so much less fun than actual knitting (or I could just ignore it and decide to deal with it when it becomes a problem. I acknowledge that this is probably a bad plan).
I also finished the last pair of Olympic socks, which I can now reveal were Lothlorian socks from The Enchanted Sole. They really don't look very impressive when not actually on a foot, so I did some acrobatics to take pictures, but they're on the big camera so photos will have to wait. For now, I give you, crappy iphone pix. You can see the ladder stitches in between the tree trunks on the leg.

Once that was over with, I considered powering through Hanami to see if I could finish it off, but it goes so quickly that I decided to go ahead and start Evenstar instead. I think I could finish Hanami in a couple of good weekend days, maybe, and I was just too excited over the Evenstar project. Plus, Hanami is so fun and quick, I may need it as a sanity saver during the process of this mystery shawl. I'm about halfway more than halfway through Chart C.
I have actually had numerous difficulties with the Evenstar project, and I'm trying not to let it dampen my enthusiasm. First, there were my issues with color, mentioned in the previous post. Then, I started winding the yarn. I had read that winding silk lace on a ball winder is an invitation to disaster so I was like, okay, I give up, I'll wind it by hand. And I did. And it took hours. And it was a MESS. I was so depressed. I put the second skein on my swift and winder and - no problem at all. None. Worked just fine. Put an empty toilet paper roll in the center to keep it from disaster and I'm knitting from the outside in, so it was fine. I rewound the handwound skein on the ball winder and the end result was still kind of a mess, so I wound it AGAIN. I finally got a ball I could work with, but I'm a little concerned that all the rewinding (which did not go as smoothly as one would hope, due to the mess the original ball was in) had an effect on the integrity of the yarn.

Anyway, I got that problem solved, so that Sunday I cast on, and - MORE problems. The cast-on took me a couple of tries, no big deal. But knitting was a NIGHTMARE. Oh my goodness. That yarn clung to the needles for dear life and just would not slide along it. I was knitting on two circulars for the center, the same way I do socks, and I just couldn't believe the trouble I was having. I was nearly in tears at the thought that the whole project would be like that. I was using my nickle-plated KnitPicks needles, the slickest ones I owned! I really expected silk to be slippery, not sticky, but the stuff just wouldn't let go. It was killing my fingers trying to get it to move along the needle.
I finally figured out a couple of things I could do to get the stitches to slide, so by the end of the evening I was greatly relieved. I think this won't be so much of a problem once I am only working on one circular - one thing I found was that if I supported the weight of the second circular so it wasn't pulling on the stitches I was trying to slide, they moved much more easily. I was still having a little trouble getting the last couple of stitches on a given needle to go over the join, but I figured I could live with that until I could get onto a single needle.
I got home the following Monday night and got a paper cut taking some things out of my car. I didn't think anything about it until I got in the house and picked up my white silk laceweight shawl. Then I realized that the paper cut was oozing blood...which got on my shawl. I stared in horror, went and washed my hands, put pressure on the cut until it stopped bleeding, and went back to think about how to deal with the problem. It was only a couple of bright red dots on the yarn, but - I decided that it would be easiest just to start over. Fortunately, the second time around I didn't have as much trouble (due to the aforementioned lessons learned).
I'm working it on a single 16" circular now, and it is in fact making my life easier. I am a little annoyed that there are ladder stitches through my center from when I had it on the two circs, but I'm not going to worry too much about it. It won't bug anyone but me, and I'm hoping I can redistribute some of the slack with a crochet hook so that they're not so obvious. We'll see. I'm most of the way through the Clue 1 chart. Clue 3 came out this weekend. I'm hoping to put in some time this weekend so that I can try to catch up. I have 2 weeks before Clue 4 comes out, so hopefully I can get there. I finished Clue 3 last night so I am totally on schedule with everyone else now. This makes me proud. I will work on Hanami until Clue 4 is released.
I'm getting back some of my delight with the color. I'm still not sure it's going to come out as something I would wear, but the thought of giving it to my friend for her wedding is enough to keep me going anyway. The color IS there, however - it's elusive. When I flatten out the project to look at it in full light, it looks white, but while I'm working on it, so that it's hanging down and I'm looking at it obliquely and in the shadow of my hands, I can see some of the blue come into it. I think it really will be fascinating to see how it works up. It literally appears and disappears as I'm working. It's really awesome in its way. If I were intending to make something for a wedding, I would totally buy something from this collection. I guess my advice to prospective buyers is, if you wouldn't use white yarn for the project, then choose something else, but if you are okay with white yarn that has a little something extra, this is fantastic.
I also finished the pair of socks I was working on when the Olympics started.
These are made of Fly Designs/Angora Valley Fibers Blue Faced Leicester in colorway Blacklight. (I have total deja vu right now - have I posted this before? Maybe on twitter.)

And last but not least, I finally got back to spinning last week. Rather than finish half-spun merino bamboo blend that had been sitting around all this time I was on hiatus, I picked up something new and exciting from amongst the bags of Spunky Eclectic fiber that have been piling up as month after month has gone by without spinning. This was also a merino-bamboo blend dyed in a colorway called 'Beach.' I love it. I'm also having some success spinning it fairly fine. I plan to make a two-ply yarn this time rather than navajo plying, which I tend to do with my Spunky Eclectic fibers. I'm not a fan of barber pole yarn, and I'm not experienced enough yet to know how to maintain the color sequence without navajo plying. But, I love the way these colors blend together and I think I will just go with the two ply and see what I get. I've spun up about half (this photo was taken early in the process) so I'm hoping that this week I can spin the other half. I have some fears that the singles are too fine in some places and may break when I try to ply (or that some of the thicker areas don't have enough twist may break), but I'm going to just go with it and see what happens.

Disappointment

No medal for me. It became fairly obvious when pair no. 1 took me most of a week that I was proooobably not going to make it. However, I thought I could probably get 3 pairs done and I would be happy with that. I told myself, well, it's kind of like getting the silver. But, I didn't even get three pairs done. I made up some ground on pair no. 2. I used my favorite Handmaiden Casbah, which I enjoy knitting with (the fabric it makes is like velvet), and which is a heavier fingering weight yarn. I got one entire sock done almost entirely in one day, and then I spent the evenings the rest of the week doing the second one.

It was my third pair that really killed me, though. If I had just done a plain top-down stockinette sock, I might have made it, but a certain someone's birthday is coming up and I needed a gift, so I picked a pattern I thought she would like. This was a toe-up pattern, which we all know I've had issues with in the past, but I discovered Judy's Magic Cast-On, which circumvented all of the problems I'd been having getting out of the gate with Toe-Ups.

I'm not entirely sure why this pair took so long but it did. I thought I would rip through it until I got to the cable pattern on the leg, but whereas I got an entire cuff-down sock done on a weekend day, it took me most of a day to even get to the chart on the first sock of this third pair. Then I had trouble with the chart. Most of it wasn't a big deal - I copied the chart and enlarged it because it was teeny in the book, but my copy didn't carry over the shading that indicates whether I was supposed to knit both stitches of my cable or knit one and then the other. Once I realized that I went back and highlighted. Then there were just random places where things didn't look right - what had been a line of knits suddenly had a purl, or something. I spent a lot of time second-guessing those moments. This would really not have happened if I hadn't gotten so confused on two instructions:

1) When the chart says to bind off a stitch, am I knitting that stitch and pulling the previous stitch over it, or am I knitting to one past that stitch and then slipping the marked stitch over? If my chart says ABCDE where B is the place that I'm supposed to bind off a stitch, then which stitch actually gets slipped over? B or C?

2) Working chart elements that go across the first and last stitch of the round confuses me. I'm never sure whether I'm supposed to unknit the last stitch of the previous round, (just ignoring whatever was on the chart for the last stitch of that round) or whether I'm supposed to just knit past the first stitch of the round and then work the element that goes across. Then what do I do at the beginning of the next round? Just skip that stitch?

Some of that took me some time to work out. I actually threw the sock on the floor at one point I was so aggravated. I don't get that frustrated with knitting very often.

So when the closing ceremonies came, I was only halfway through the foot of the second sock, and I'm only just now getting to the leg chart again.

Even though I did not medal, though, I really pushed my limits, and I got gifts to two friends to whom I had long ago promised socks, so that made me happy. And, despite the troubles with pair no. 3, which I will discuss further in a minute, I am proud of myself for finally conquering the toe-up madness. I don't think I will be a convert anytime soon, though. Toe-up socks require too much planning ahead.

Oddly enough when discussing cuff-down vs. toe-up with the SO he said exactly the opposite. His point is valid - when you're working toe-up you don't have to figure out what pattern you want to use until the end. But, I was thinking in the opposite direction. See, socks are my mindless project. Toe-up socks start with something that requires attention. You have to increase around the toe until you have enough stitches. Then you have to be careful about measuring the foot as you go, and then you turn the heel and then you get to the leg and THEN they become mindless.

I don't plan my mindless knitting far enough ahead of time to live with that. When I want mindless knitting I want to pick it up and just start. I have to count to cast on and then it's mindless ribbing followed by whatever simple pattern I have picked out. I've got the heel flap and turn down pat so I don't even really have to put too much thought into those pieces. Then I have to wait until I'm somewhere I can concentrate to pick up gusset stitches and get through the decreases (although I've gotten to the point that with the help of markers I can be at least moderately distracted during decrease times and still not mess up - usually), and then I have to worry about measuring the foot and decreasing for the toe.

It's just a personal preference thing, I guess. And at least part of my feelings come from frustration with having to learn a new way to do things when I'm perfectly satisfied with the old way. But, now I know that I CAN do a toe-up sock and so I'm not limited in my pattern choices. It's good to push your boundaries.

Unfortunately I am really unhappy with this pair of socks. For one thing, it has some pretty obvious ladder stitches going all the way up. I never have a problem with ladder stitches!! Also, the foot looks HUGE. I swear I measured it a hundred times and it comes out the way it is supposed to for that size, but it looks HUMONGOUS. I'm really worried about fit. Also, I think my guage is different between the first sock (where I was racing for gold) and the second sock (without Olympic pressure).

On top of that, I'm worried the leg will be too narrow. This pattern is not given in multiple sizes and the pattern has only two repeats for round, so adding another one would have made it 90 stitches instead of 60, which is just rediculous.

I'm hoping that a good wash will even out the tension a little and ease up the ladder stitches somewhat. I'm thinking maybe that happened because the yarn is a bamboo blend with more drape than I usually work with. The only other time I've had ladder stitches this bad was on the mitts I made out of the cashmere/silk blend, so it may be that my knitting style requires yarn with some bounce to keep that from happening. I may have to move stitches around on the needle to avoid them when using drapey yarns in the future (although to be honest, I've lost the ball band from this yarn and I didn't remember it was bamboo until I was well into the sock). I'm still not done with the second sock - I expect to finish either tomorrow evening or sometime on Saturday. I'm dying to get back to my lace. I knit a couple of rows of Hanami every couple of evenings just to keep from going insane.

Also disappointing - I received my yarn yesterday for the Evenstar knitalong, and I'm just not quite happy with the color. I have no one but myself and the internet to blame for this, I think. I knew I was taking a risk. If you'll recall, I was interested in the Blue Moon Spirits Collection. It says right there that these colors are as diluted as possible. Well, they are not kidding. I ordered the Jengu colorway and y'all, it's really white. You can see the blue in the skein, sort of dusted on there, exactly the way I'm sure it was intended to be. Very very subtle. To my mind...maybe a little too subtle. It really looks white to me. I started winding the skein, because what it looks like in a ball is always a much better indicator of how it will look in the final project, I think. It's still really white. It's white with a faint blue sheen. I think some of this is the silk - because it is so shiny and reflects so much of the light, maybe the white is overwhelming the blue more than originally intended. I knew this was a risk when I ordered the yarn, it was something that I really waffled over and I came really close to e-mailing and asking them to send me a picture of the color in the silk so I could see what it looked like, but I finally just said, "the hell with it" and ordered. So, I can't really blame this on anyone else (which is my way of saying, if any of the ladies from BMFA should somehow stumble upon this, I think the best of you and your company and I understand and blame no one for the hazards of internet shopping). I could return the unwound skein if I really wanted to, but--well, I'm kind of lazy.

I'm really torn about what to do here. I could get different yarn, maybe save this for another occasion, or I could go ahead and use it and see how it looks knit up. It could actually have a really cool effect, I don't know, especially because this is a circular shawl so the color will likely be more concentrated in the center and more diluted toward the outside, as the rows get longer.

Wearability is another concern...I'm not sure how often I would wear a mostly-white shawl. This is, to be honest, always a bit of a secondary concern for me. I would happily knit something I would never wear just for the pleasure of doing it. But it is something I try to think about at least a little bit. (Though, let's face it - there aren't that many people who are going to understand the awesomeness of a hand-knit Lord of the Rings themed shawl anyway. Mostly I just don't want to walk around looking like I'm ready for a wedding at any moment.)

I did take a look at the beads I ordered alongside it. I got several different varieties of blue beads, and now I'm not really sure any of them are exactly right for this shawl, but they gave me an idea of what I WOULD like, and there are one or two possibilities that I think I like okay. Ideally I would love to cross these with these. I love the dyed rainbow beads, but I think the tone of the blue in them is not quite right. We'll see - I don't need those till the edging so I don't have to make a decision any time soon.

I went back and looked at the other colors I'd been considering, and I honestly didn't get that excited. Cloudy with a Chance was the runner up, but I swear they've changed their picture and it doesn't look at all like what I would want.

Right now, I'm leaning on going with what I have and seeing how it all works out. If worst comes to worst and I think I won't wear whatever I have at the end, I have a friend who just got engaged who is one of the few people who could probably actually appreciate this shawl. It would hurt to give it up but it would make an awesome wedding present. I can always knit another one, right?

I signed up for the Fellowship pattern collection. I'm not certain I will knit all of them, but I'm pretty intrigued and I also love the idea of just randomly getting a pattern in my inbox every couple of months. Argonath and Darrowdelf are on my definitely-plan-to-knit-eventually list, and although colorwork makes me a little crazy, I might just have to knit the Tom Bombadil hat when it comes out. I have high hopes for the Mithril vest, as well, although I'm a leeeeeetle skeptical of how wearable a laceweight vest will really be. I think it will depend on the length of the finished pattern. I'm thinking some Casbah DK would make a great Legolas kerchief, too.

Oops

It seems I goofed last week and the blog post I wrote never actually got published, and I didn't notice it until this weekend. So, um, here's an update on all the things you never actually saw before.

1. Olympic Knitting

I'm desperately behind for my goal. Naturally, last week instead of having most of my evenings at home, I ended up having plans for most of the week, which significantly cut into my knitting time. I also got kind of a slow start, I think - the sense of urgency I needed wasn't quite there the first weekend and I kept putting the sock down to rest my hands or concentrate on something else for a moment. Basically, it took me a week to complete the first pair of socks. This past Saturday I wasn't feeling well, I had a headache and just generally felt icky and I ended up sleeping for most of the day, which of course meant lots of lost knitting time. I tried to make up for it on Sunday and completed the first sock of the second pair. I've got the cuff done and I'm working on the leg for the second pair of socks, but honestly, I'm feeling like if I make 3 pairs at this point I will think I did well. Of course, now in addition to all the time issues I have, I'm being slowed by physical concerns. I have a permanent red stripe on the finger I tension the yarn around, so I've taken to wearing a band aid over that finger when I am going to be knitting for a long stretch just to avoid getting sore. But, my right hand and my left pinky are really starting to complain. My left pinky does nothing except curl around the base of my left needle to hold it steady, but apparently keeping it in that position for extended time periods is causing it to cramp up a little. I have had problems with tendonitis in my right hand and wrist before, so I don't want to get into a position where I've really aggravated it. So we'll just kind of play it by ear, I guess. I'd like to run the race through to the end, but I'd also like to be able to knit afterwards!

2. Evenstar Knitalong

I was shopping Haiti charity patterns on Ravelry and came up with the Evenstar mystery shawl. I'm a huge Lord of the Rings fan so I was kind of hooked. There are tons of LotR patterns out there but it's rare to find one that (I think) really pays homage to the books, so I was excited for this one (even though it's going off the pendant from the movie. I was not a fan of the movies - in fact after the first one I refused to watch the rest - but I am willing to go along with their interpretations of the jewelry/swords/items from the books). Of course, I can't start it until the Olympics are over, and in fact I would like to finish Hanami before I go racing off to this one, but I am signed up and receiving the clues. I've also already benefited from some of the discussions on the Ravelry group already, so I don't mind being behind.

Recommended yarn is Blue Moon Silk Thread 2, which is kind of expensive, but in browsing around I became enamored of their Spirits Collection. In the Post That Wasn't I talked about several options I was considering. Then I started to doubt whether the Spirit collection was really what I should do, and I spent a long time debating Cloudy With a Chance from their watercolor line. I was going back and forth in my head - I liked the ethereal quality of the Spirits but I felt the lightness would be more suited to a Galadriel theme than an Arwen thing, the morning vs. the evening (as Gimli put it). However, in the end, I went with Jengu from the Spirits Collection. Lace has more impact in lighter colors, and I just really loved the concept behind the collection. My artistic justification is that I'm focusing more on the 'starlight' concept than the 'night' concept. (Why yes, I do think about this too much, why do you ask?)

Then I got to shop for beads, which I both love and hate, because a) I have not the yarn in hand and am going off an internet picture - and internet picture of it in wool, also, which is probably going to be very different from the way it will look in silk b) I have not the beads in hand, and can only look at pictures. I ended up ordering a small amount of four or five colors that I think will work, and when I have the yarn and the beads both in hand I can make a decision and order the full 3000 required for the pattern. (eek!)

Best of all, this is part of a whole series and there will be at least two more mystery shawls eventually. I'm excited! The swatch chart looks a little challenging but there was an excellent discussion thread on it that simplified things greatly, so I'm really looking forward to this piece.

One issue I do have, though, is needles. The project is a circular shawl and calls for size 3's; I usually use 4's for lace and I'm hoping that swatching will reveal that 4's are fine for this too. I'm still a pretty tight knitter, though not as supertight (I don't think) as I used to be. The reason I care is because KnitPicks interchangeables only go down to size 4 - if I need 3's I will have to buy some different length needles. I think I have two 24" size 3's and one 16" and that's it. I will need a couple more lengths to do this shawl. I really would rather just use 4's so I can just change to a different cable whenever it feels necessary. We'll see - swatching shall tell. The other thing I'm a little concerned about is winding the yarn. There were links on the Ravelry group to several different suggestions regarding winding silk lace, which I'm glad I read, because I would have just tossed it on my ball winder without a second thought. Apparently, this is not a good idea. Fortunately, Techmuse gave me a dohicky she found somewhere that I really love - it is a basically a spike with a flat bottom so that you can put (for example) a cone of yarn over the spike and the whole contraption swivels on the base, so even if you are knitting from the outside of the yarn cake (or if you are knitting from a cone) it's not hard at all to get the yarn off.

The other thing I thought about was maybe winding it (by hand, sigh) onto a spare bobbin from my spinning wheel and then sticking the bobbin on my lazy kate and knitting from there.

3. Aeolian Shawl

In the Post That Wasn't, I said that I finished the Aeolian Shawl except for the bind-off. I had an issue with the bind-off because the instructions say to use a double strand of yarn for the bind off. I'm knitting from a cone and I can't get to the other end of the yarn, so I wasn't sure how I was going to deal with this. I didn't want to just disregard the instructions without finding out why the instructions directed it that way. I sent the designer a message on Ravelry and she very kindly sent me an answer back. The double-stranded bind-off is traditional for Estonian lace and she said it's also supposed to help with rolling, and to give the edging flowers a bit more weight and pop. So, I think I could bind-off with a single strand and be fine. It bugs me to do it, though, the point about emphasizing the edge is well taken and I'd rather do it that way. However, I have no good way of doing this. I could estimate what I need for the bind-off, pull it off the cone, cut the yarn and do it with a double strand, but I have nooooooo idea how much yarn the bind-off will take. I could cut the yarn now, go to my ball winder and wind off half of what's left on the cone, but I hate to have that cut edge right at the bind-off. So, I still have some decisions to make, but it can wait until after the closing ceremonies.

4. Post Olympic Plans

I really want to get back to my long-neglected spinning wheel once the Olympics are over. I abandoned it last fall for deadline knitting and only after the Olympics are over will I finally be able to give up knitting time to spin. I have a ton of fiber in my craft room waiting for me, thanks to my purchases at MD Sheep and Wool and my Spunky Eclectic subscription. I really need to start making some progress or I am going to run out of room to put it all!! Though, I may have to give myself some time after the Olympics to let my twist hand recover.