No pics today. Pics tomorrow. Hopefully. :)

I guess that good knitting can make for boring blogging. "Still working on the shawl. No problems so far. One section down." All the interesting stuff to talk about comes in the planning phase and in the "ARGH! What did I do wrong and how am I going to fix it?" phases. With the EZ 100th Anniversary Camping Shawl, I had none of the latter. None. Zero, zip, nada. It's almost mind-boggling to me that I should get through a shawl without some sort of catastrophe: forgetting a crucial portion of a pattern, having my needles separate from the cables and losing a bunch of stitches, or just messing up badly and having to drop back to a lifeline in order to fix it. In the entire course of this pattern, the only problem I had was that when it was time to start the edging pattern, I realized I had two extra stitches on my needles. I could not for the life of me see where they came from, since the pattern before it had ended perfectly, and the eyelet row looked just fine. Since I didn't see any errors, I decided just to decrease an extra stitch at the beginning and end of the first edging pattern row--SSSK and K3tog. Easy-peasy, and it looks perfect. I finished it the morning after Christmas, at my parents' place. I blocked the shawl last night before dinner. Did you know that 105 T-pins are really not enough? Nope. Even if I'd used a blocking wire for the top edge (as I probably should have, but I didn't want to deal with sticking it through), I wouldn't have had quite enough pins to block out the edging in little rounded scallops. I ended up blocking each "wave" into three points instead. It kind of reminds me of part of a snowflake, somehow. Heh...camping in the winter! I was going to try to get pictures, but it's getting late in the day, and the light isn't as good as it could be anymore. I will attempt to get some good ones tomorrow, though, and will post them to Ravelry! Next up: Peacock Stole! And maybe after I go wedding gown shopping on January 5th, I will know whether I'd like to make a wedding shawl. Oh, yeah, that's right. I never actually mentioned here that I got engaged, did I? My boyfriend formally proposed a few nights before Halloween--just a week and a half after my last post here! I've joined the "With This String, I Thee Wed" group on Ravelry. Yay!

Next!

When I typed the subject line of this post, I imagined Hiro Protagonist in Snow Crash saying it after a deadly katana strike, because I'm a huge nerd. I've decided what to do with the yarns I bought at Stitches. I am indeed going to do one of the EZ 100th Anniversary shawls with the red Tosh Merino Light. I decided on the Camping half circle, because I find hearts annoying, and the Gull Wing wasn't quite as visually interesting. I've already started this one, in fact. I should finish the double paw print section on the ride home today. Size 8 needles feel a little clunky to me these days, but this is a fairly solid fingering weight yarn, and I think it'll be perfect for the gauge I want. With the teal Montreaux, I'm going to make the Peacock Feathers Stole. I paid more for the pattern than for any other pattern I've ever used, but it is SO beautiful, and SO perfect for this yarn...how could I resist? I started Camping instead of this one because I was lacking the size 3 needles needed for the Peacock Feathers. I thought about picking up some Addi Lace needles at Windsor Button, but missed their closing time on Saturday, and wouldn't be able to get back there until this weekend. I came to the decision that even if I did manage to get them right away, they'd probably be more expensive than a fixed Knitpicks Harmony needle (even with shipping), and since I know I love the Harmonies, I went and ordered one of those. When it gets here...I just might have to consider working on two projects at the same time! Zut alors! It's funny. Before I started knitting lace, I never wore shawls or wraps. Even when I was starting to knit one, I was a little worried that I wouldn't really want to wear it. Now, I can't imagine not having them as part of my wardrobe. They're versatile, pretty, and they add a fabulous accent to lots of different kinds of outfits. I love my shawls! I realized the other day that I've got quite a few of them now: Aeolian Multnomah Vernal Equinox Gail a.k.a. Nightsongs Wingspan Seascape Not a bad start!

Stitches East: return from Yarnia

So, the Knitting Kumquat and I had our girly-knitter-geek date to Stitches East yesterday. As in previous years, we only went for one day, and just to peruse the market floor. I really hope that the event stays in its current location (Hartford Convention Center) for the foreseeable future, or that if it moves, it's closer to Boston. I'd be really sad not to be able to do this! And really, I couldn't justify the expense of going far away and staying in a hotel and taking the classes, as well as buying yarn! I managed to keep my purchases pretty modest. While I found myself tempted to buy yarn to make a sweater, I told myself this would be a stupid idea, because I haven't yet come up with a pattern. I don't know how much I'd need, and I don't want to fall in love with a pattern and realize that the yarn I'd bought didn't work well with it. But I did decide that I want to give the sweater another attempt. My old Samus cardigan never gets worn because I still haven't put the zipper in, and because the sleeves are so damn big. How did I do that, anyway? Ah well, I wasn't as good a knitter back then, really. While I've decided it's time for me to think about doing something Non-Lace-Shawl in nature, I haven't given up on my love of those beauties! In fact, the yarn I bought is going to be for lace shawls. Amazingly, this year, I did NOT get any variegated yarn! Both of the yarns I bought are hand-dyed, and have a nice sort of heathered or mottled effect, but they are single-color yarns. This will make finding patterns for them quite easy. This season, I have been madly in love with the colors of pumpkin orange, deep ruby red, and deep teal (though not too green a teal). I didn't get orange (though I'm thinking about an orange sweater!), but I got both of the other colors. I've always loved that color of red, but the idea of teal and red as a color combo struck me when I saw Amy Pond on Doctor Who looking like this:

Why yes, there ARE color combinations that an ivory-skinned redhead and an olive-skinned dark brunette can both wear! I went with a slightly darker version of each of the colors. The red is two skeins of Madeleinetosh Tosh Merino Light in "Tart." It's 100% superwash merino in fingering weight.

I got two skeins of that, and plan to use it to make a full-size semicircular shawl, possibly one of the Elizabeth Zimmerman 100th Anniversary shawls. The teal is one skein of Lisa Souza Montreaux in "Portsmouth." It's 70% superwash merino and 30% silk in laceweight. I plan to make some kind of a stole with it, I think.

I cannot WAIT to wear it over my red dress that I love so much, though it will be too cold for that until late spring, most likely. For the record, Lisa Souza has very, very reasonable prices! I don't think I saw any hand-dyed yarns at Stitches that were priced better than hers. I also bought a little mini moisturizing bar in a travel tin from the nice ladies at Bar-Maids. Their stuff has wonderful ingredients, feels lovely, and smells divine (though I got the one with no added scents so as not to conflict with perfume). I geeked for a bit about handmade beauty products with them, which was a nice variation on the yarn-geekery I did all day. All in all, the event seemed a little more subdued this year. It wasn't as loud, and I think more people were gone from the market floor earlier. We managed to get all the way through the vendors, and went back to make our purchases. Some trends I noticed: sparkly and beaded yarns are still quite big. I saw a lot of chunky yarns being sold, including "rug weight" yarns that were about half an inch in diameter! I did not see as many displayed FOs that used extensive and intricate colorwork, like I did a couple of years ago. There were a number of lace shawls, and I counted at least 4-5 Wingspan shawls. My Intolerable Cruelty skirt still attracted a lot of attention and compliments. I'm kind of surprised that it's a novelty to so many people. You'd never know it's been out on Knitty and then Ravelry for years, now! (For the record, I paired it with a cute black and white polkadot blouse and my Vernal Equinox shawl. Now I will remember this for next year, and plan something different then.) Notes for my own benefit: we figured out that last time, we had dinner at Dish Bar and Grill. It was next to the place that we tried first, last time AND this time: City Steam Brewery (I think that was it). Both times, the wait at City Steam was way too long. Dish was not so bad. Good food, good beer. We could make a reservation next time at one of those places if we wanted, I guess.

I feel like Daedelus.

My wings are almost ready! That is, I just bound off my Wingspan shawlette on the bus ride in to work today. Hooray! I'm looking forward to soaking and blocking it. I wonder if it will end up a bit bigger, because right now, it's really only wearable as a scarf, I think. The colors are awesome. I'll take pictures as soon as I can. On Sunday, I'm meeting up with a large bunch of people, and one of them is bringing a bunch of yarn that she wants to get rid of. Ooooh. Now, if she's selling it, I will probably not get anything that doesn't absolutely call to my deepest soul, because...YARNIA IS COMING. Also known as Stitches East. :) However, I may bring a couple skeins to swap. That blue-and-white mottled sock yarn I got from Fabric Place is not really doing it for me. Nor is that "Roses Are Red" colorway of lace yarn from Cherry Tree Hill that I got at a previous Yarnia. It's just not red enough or purple enough to make me happy. It's too in-between. Bleah. They should go to a loving home. :)

One more down!

I finished Gail/Nightsongs! I'd been close to the end. I got a few rows into the edge chart (as explained/modified by the link in the previous post I made), and realized that I wasn't certain I'd have enough yarn to finish. I really, REALLY didn't want to get halfway bound off and realize I was out of yarn. I decided to play it safe. I frogged back beyond the edge, and undid an entire pattern repeat, leaving only six. I then dove headfirst into the edge chart again. I ended up having plenty of yarn, with some left over. I don't know if it would have been enough for a whole pattern repeat, though...and a larger edge as a result of that extra repeat. I'm pretty sure I made the right choice. As a result, the shawl is slightly smaller than is easy for me to wear "shawl-style" (that is, center point in the back, other two wrapped around to the front and pinned). Still, it looks very cute with the center point in front. The colors are gorgeous. In spite of the dye left in my sink after soaking it, they're still vibrant and not at all muddied. Sweet! I still need to weave in ends, as I haven't had a chance to do so yet. Then it will be REALLY done. Next up is probably Wingspan. I'm looking forward to that, even if it isn't lace!

Just so I remember...

Finding myself baffled by the first edging row on Gail, I poked around on the MaweLucky Love group on Ravelry, looked at the FAQ for Gail, and stumbled on a project page whose notes explain very well what the person did, which looks like it fits in with the way I've been thinking of the pattern. Sweet. That project page is at this link.

OK, so I lied.

Or at least, I didn't follow through. No pics of my WIPs. Sorry about that! I am still making progress on Gail, though once again I had to rip back to a lifeline. When you bollocks it up when double YOs are involved, it can get complicated to fix. Anyway, I am now on my last repeat of the regular pattern before starting the edging chart. Hope I have enough yarn! I haven't done much work on the Beekeeper's Quilt in a while. That's fine--I'll bring it to Stones Rising (big Pagan festival I attend every year) at the end of the summer, and get some hexipuffs made then. That's a long car ride, after all. On Sunday morning, finding myself with a little extra time on my hands, I decided to reblock my Aeolian shawlette. It had been looking super-scrunched, and I was a little frustrated with the fact that I only had one shawl and one stole that I could easily wear as such, instead of just as scarves. (Shipwreck is just a bit too big to wear anywhere but around the house, though I still love it, so shut up with your "I told you so's.") I am SO THRILLED with the results. It's even bigger than it was when I first blocked it, and it looks lovely. I'm wearing it today. Here's a picture of what it looked like before, as in, after I first blocked it:

Keep in mind it shrunk back somewhat after that. Now, here it is after its reblocking, from the back:

If it's a little askew, blame the fact that I had to click the shutter button and then hurriedly position myself. :) What a difference, though, huh? I love my shawl so much! By the way, I bought goodies. :) I had a Groupon to the Fabric Place Basement in Natick, and used it to snag a ball of rainbow-colored Jawoll Magic Dégradé (think of Mini Mochi and Zauberball's cousin) and a skein of Done Roving sock yarn in a pretty blue-and-white colorway called Summer Skies. I'll use the former to make a Wingspan, and the latter to make a Haruni, I think! In other news, I was pleased today when I signed on to Ravelry and found a message from a fellow Raveler. She'd been having issues with the Bleeding Hearts pattern portion of Shipwreck, and wanted to thank me for the blog post I'd written about my own issues and how I figured out what to do. Apparently, it helped her get her mind around it. That makes me feel so good! I'm always happy when other people besides me can learn from my mistakes. :)

Still here, really!

I'm sorry to say that I went through a long period of not knitting at all recently. I had to rip my shawl (Gail, aka Nightsongs) back to a lifeline, and didn't want to do it. It wasn't so much the idea of the ripping back that bugged me, as I'd only done one and a half chart repeats, but the idea of picking those tiny stitches back up again from the dental floss. I finally did it, though, and am now feeling a lot more comfortable with the pattern. I've done almost three repeats of the chart now, and seem to be in "flying along" territory. I also went out and actually bought myself a skein of sock yarn--a very colorful mix by Kaffe Fasset. I decided that hexipuffs are the perfect vacation project for when I go away at the end of the summer, because I can work on them while talking to people and can easily pick them up and put them down without losing my place. I know I'm going to have to buy yarn just for this project, because I am tending to do more laceweight lace knitting than sockweight lately, and I am not going to have endless sock yarn odds and ends in the foreseeable future. I hope to post some pics of my WIPs soon--the shawl and some of my finished hexipuffs. That might make up for my being away so long!

Oooh, weird, a new look for Blogger!

OK, I'm not sure exactly how I feel about this new interface, but here we go. Since finishing my Shipwreck shawl, I've mostly been making hexipuffs for the Beekeeper's Quilt. I started getting a little tired of them after the first nine, so I decided to switch to something else. Before I could pick up a new shawl, I decided that I needed a kerchief. This thought came to me while I was trying to plant seeds, and my hair kept falling in my eyes and trying to drag in the dirt of the seedling tray. Um. Yeah. Better tie that stuff back. I didn't own a bandana, but I thought, "hey, I can do that!" I picked the Naturally Caron Spa yarn (acrylic and bamboo) that I got in a freebie offer, because the light weight, the softness, and the cheerful lemon yellow color seemed perfect for my purposes. I started looking for a pattern on Ravelry, but wasn't really happy with any of the ones I saw. Rather than continue to pore over the search results, I said, "fuck it, I'm casting on and making a damn kerchief." So I did. I did a bottom up triangle, starting in stockinette stitch and switching to a nice mesh/eyelet pattern for the main part, finishing in more stockinette. I braided a couple of ties, and hey presto! The Little Ray of Sunshine Kerchief was born!

Then I started Gail, aka Nightsongs. I had to start a few times, due to my own inattention and those pesky double YOs. I am kind of smugly pleased to find out that my instincts were right: if you're going to purl twice into the double YO on the next row, you DO have to Pf&b rather than just P2. :) I haven't worked a complex pattern in a while. This will take some re-adjustment!

The end, and the beginning, of big projects

Yesterday was the day.

I bound off my Shipwreck shawl on Friday afternoon. On Saturday evening, I soaked the shawl, then put together nine 24" interlocking rubber mats on the basement floor, and pinned it out. I followed the directions that told me to pin the center medallion, but to simply spread out the mesh. Yesterday, I took out the pins.

It. Is. BEAUTIFUL.

I'm so thrilled. I really want to be able to photograph it, but it's been so grey and gloomy that I wouldn't be able to take any pictures that would do it justice. Hopefully, the sun will come back out this afternoon, and I can take a few shots when I get home. I also want to be able to wear it, but given the size of it, it's not the kind of thing you can easily wear under a coat. When it gets warmer again, it'll be perfect on its own.

This thing took me from before Thanksgiving until after the Spring Equinox. It's a little overwhelming to think that it's done.

Yesterday, I also started something new. This will also be a very long project--much longer than the Shipwreck. On the other hand, it will be FULL of little bits of instant hexagonal gratification. Yes, that's right: I've started the Beekeeper's Quilt! It looks like a great way of using up bits of leftover sock yarn. I'm almost done with my first hexipuff (using the Honeybee Skinny Bugga that I used for the Shipwreck). I like the fact that I can just whip up one of these in very little time, and that I don't need to carry the whole thing around with me at any given time: just my working yarn and the current hexipuff on the needles. I estimate that this may take several years, especially if I ONLY use leftover yarn, and don't buy skeins just for this. It's nice to know that I'll have something easy to do between projects, though, for the foreseeable future!

Sooooo close!

Wow. I am now on Row 157 of my Shipwreck! This is the very last pattern row. When I finish it, the next round is doubling every stitch (K, YO repeat to end). Then it's time to bind off. How many stitches am I going to have to bind off, you ask? 1160. Eeep.

I'm glad I have my spiffy new blocking tiles! I'll be putting them to good use soon. I think I may also consider re-blocking the two shawls I knit in Dream in Color Stardust (Aeolian and Multnomah), because they seem to have shrunk up a bit since their original blocking. That will be AFTER blocking my Shipwreck, naturally.

Gosh. It won't be long before I'm faced with the question of, "what next?" Some ideas:

* Start Gail/Nightsongs with the skein of Sea Silk I bought this winter
* Start talking to my mom more in-depth about what she wants in a shawl, so I can start planning what I'm going to make her (though it might be a while before I start actually knitting that)
* Start the Beekeeper's Quilt with some of my leftover sock yarn

I might do #2 and #3 at the same time. The Beekeeper's Quilt will be easy to do just a bit of it and then go do a "real" project (as opposed to an "in-between-projects" project. I suppose another thing I ought to do is take some damn PICTURES of my Shipwreck, to show it off in all its golden-brown glory. :)

By the way, if you're reading my blog but haven't checked out my projects yet (and I doubt many people are actually reading this), I have recently posted pictures of my sweet little Mémère wearing the big worsted Multnomah I made her for Christmas. It was her birthday a couple weeks ago, and while I was too sick to go see her, I asked my parents to take a picture. My dad took three great ones. She's so cute! Go look at the pictures!

Well, what else am I going to do while I'm sick?

Argh. I thought I'd escaped the Ick that's going around. My boyfriend's been sick with a bad cold/flu type thing for a week, and I hadn't had any symptoms until just last night. I had to go to work today, unfortunately, but I left by lunchtime. I've spent a large part of the afternoon knitting, on and off. I've been making good progress lately. Although I'm still doing the same somewhat mind-numbing mesh, I've got a big push these days to really move on it. I think I'm getting that, "I want the finished product!" feeling. I may stay home tomorrow, too, so we'll see how far along I can get.

Wanton's got a brand new bag!

Oh frabjous day! Calloo, callay! At long last, I have a new knitting bag!

I've had a few knitting bags in my time. The first two bags I used, I lost. Left them on trains or subways or wherever, and they never reappeared. I don't think I ever lost any seriously important projects in them, fortunately, but still, it sucked. Then I got a bag sometime in 2004 or very early 2005, which stuck around. It was made of thick, soft, lined fabric with a pretty botanical pattern on the top half. It had no closure and no real compartment except an open pocket inside. I brought it everywhere. I shoved it into other bags or suitcases during travel, sometimes. At other times, I packed it with way more stuff than it could really hold. It got wet. It got dirty. It was washed. It got dirty again. Bits started to unravel or tear. Recently, it had gotten to the point where I was actually embarrassed about carrying it around with me because it was such a wreck. I did some research, and decided that The Bag For Me would be a Swift, by Tom Binh. Go ahead, Google it--you can read all the details there. Suffice it to say, the thing appears to be SO sturdy, and looks SO polished, that I fell in love at first sight. It took a few months, though, for the color I wanted to come back into stock. As soon as I saw that it had been restocked, I ordered one. This time of year is not long after I get Christmas and birthday present money from my parents, and I'm due to get my tax refund any time now, so it's the perfect time of year for "damn, I NEEDED that!" purchases. The Swift came in today. So, friends, I have gone from the bag-lady bag:



to the Cadillac of knitting bags:



Now, how stylin' is that? I put my WIP and associated accessories into it, and retired my old bag to the trash. I'm so excited to knit from the Swift on the bus home today! I just recently had to do a major fix of some of the mesh on my Shipwreck (some dropped stitches and no lifeline--required a lot of patience, but wasn't TOO hard), and I just added a whole bunch of beads last night and did the Russian join this morning, so I'm going full speed ahead again.

Exciting new purchases!

Every year, as a holiday present, my wonderful manager gives me a gift certificate to Windsor Button. Since my boyfriend is working this weekend, and I had no reason to rush home after work last night, I decided to spend it! I pored over the various fingering and laceweight yarns there, and settled on a skein of Handmaiden Sea Silk. Now, the $25 gift certificate didn't cover the price of the yarn, but it DID bring it down to $14, which is a damned cheap price to pay for a skein of such luscious, gorgeous stuff. The colorway is a mix of oranges and reddish purples that might sound incongruous, but it works beautifully, and the colors are VERY me. I'm thrilled to have it. I'm pretty sure I'll end up doing a Swallowtail shawl, since a lot of people have done one of those with a single skein of the Sea Silk, and they all look lovely.

Right now, though, I'm still slogging through the mesh portion of my Shipwreck. I'm about halfway through with that section, and I estimate it'll probably take me a couple of months to finish because it is SO DAMN SLOW. Those beads, oy. But man, they are beautiful. This shawl will be a work of art once it's done and blocked.

Speaking of blocking, about a week ago or so, I saw interlocking foam floor mats at Christmas Tree Shops at four 24-inch tiles to the pack for $10. I snatched up a couple packs today. Now I'll have a surface big enough to block my Shipwreck! Or, you know, a Doctor Who scarf. Or an afghan. Sheesh. Anyway, they don't take up much room when they're stacked up. This is the kind of thing that's really only interesting to knitters, isn't it?

Well, I've had enough of running errands and slogging through snow for one day. I think it's getting on time to treat myself to a manhattan and plop in front of the TV with some knitting. Later, people.