Slacker.

I was vaguely aware that it had been A While since I’d posted anything here, but I only just realized that it had been nearly three weeks.  Probably there has been plenty to talk about, but I haven’t had the inclination to sit down and write about it.

Knitting has been a little stagnant.  I’ve been working almost exclusively on a laceweight shawl.  It looks like absolutely nothing right now.  Beyond boring.

(Do you like how I show you anyway?)  The pattern is Jeanne from Through the Loops.  I love the yarn that I’m using–a laceweight version of McClellan from Three Irish Girls, one of my most favoritest yarns ever.  Because the pattern calls for fingering weight yarn, I expect my large version of the shawl to turn out somewhat smaller than a large shawl.  I’m starting to suspect that I’m purling the yarn overs wrong, or maybe my needles are too small.  Something, because the other WIPs I’m beginning to see on Ravelry look much more open and lacey, even in their early, unblocked stages.  I don’t have the heart to frog it back, though, so I’m just hoping for the best and telling myself that I’m not making a mistake–I’m creatively interpreting the pattern.

The weather in DC has been amazing for the past few weeks, so a lot of my usual knitting time has been taken up by jogging, riding my bike, walking in to town with my husband, visiting farmers markets, walking along the canal, preparing fresh meals and doing all the things that gorgeous weather inspires me to do.

There were fireworks in Takoma Park with gaming friends on the 4th of July.   Its been a few years since we’ve made a point to see fireworks, and after Disney and the National Mall, it was nice to go back to a small town show.

There were stool races in the parking lot at the massage school while the offices were closed.

(I have lost all ability to take a photo that isn’t at least slightly blurry.  No idea what that’s about.)

Now, we’re getting ready for vacation, to Dublin and Rome.  We leave on Wednesday, so I’m busy trying to decide what knitting projects I want to bring with me.  Socks for the plane, for sure.  I’m thinking maybe something from Cookie’s sock book.  Possibly with some Bugga! from Sanguine Gryphon.

Yarn Babies!

Last Tuesday, two litters of yarn babies were sent my way from various parts of the country.  When they still hadn’t surfaced today, I called the post office (a much more difficult process than it should have been) and asked them to check for stray packages.  (That wasn’t so easy, either.)  They found them both, so I biked over this afternoon to rescue them.

They were not happy about being stuck in a bin in a warehouse for so long, but otherwise unharmed.  Now that they are home and have some sunshine, they’re all much happier.

These little guys are from Teacherfish’s swap on the BlankieMania Rav group.

They are all twenty yard mini-skeins of fingering weight yarn that will be turned into mitered squares for my sock yarn blankie.  I can’t wait to start playing with them.

There are also some bigger baby skeins.  Toddlers, even.  These are from Sniggle’s Three Irish Girls sample co-op.  They might not be as darling as the wee-teensy skeins, but look how pretty!

On the left are quarter skeins of Maeve and Alana on Elenya Alpaca (Mmmm, alpaca….) and on the left are quarter skeins of Cameron and Cian on Lindon.  A little eighth of a skein of Emer on Kells is in the middle.  I have no idea what these are going to be, but I’m excited to see the colors in person, and play with two bases I hadn’t seen before.

FO: Ulmus

I took the pins out of my Ulmus this afternoon, which means that my brother’s baby has my permission to make his or her appearance. I was starting to worry that I wasn’t going to be finished in time.

Here it is looking unblocked and unimpressive on my balcony.

And here it is happy and blocked on the lawn.

I made the medium size, and the main body turned into kind of a slog, but that’s probably because I had to keep ripping back and not any real fault of the patterns. It turned into TV knitting pretty quickly, and even the lace was simple enough and only needed a little attention.

The yarn is Kinsale, a wool/tencel blend from Three Irish Girls and it was really, really lovely. It has a slight sheen, isn’t at all splitty, and has perfect drape for a shawl. As a fun, added detail, tencel comes from wood pulp and that seemed oddly appropriate for my woodworking brother.

Its really a good thing that I would never wear anything in these colors, or I might be tempted to keep it for myself. As it is, I’m considering color options for when I do make one for myself, and queuing up other, more complicated, lace projects to try out.

FOs: Bellatrix and Halfsies

In between working on my Ulmus (I’m 12 rows into the lace border), I finished two pairs of socks this week.  They seem like they’ve been on the needles forfreakingever, and it felt really nice to get them blocked.

Bellatrix (Rav link) was my first experience with Socks That Rock.  I understand why people love the yarn so much, but its just not my favorite.  I think I like a sock yarn that’s got a little more sproing and isn’t so tightly spun.

The color is Christmas Balls (I don’t see it), and they were knit on two size 1 circs.  I think if the pattern were any different, I would hate the way they pool, but I’m ok with it.  They are loud and crazy and ridiculous, and people seem to either instantly love or hate them.  I think they’re perfect for their intended recipient.

I can’t take full credit for these socks.  My friend Joye knit the one on the right.  Then, she decided she didn’t like the pink (I thought she was aware of that fact long before she started knitting the socks and am not really sure why she bought the yarn) and gave them to me to finish.  They were a little weird for me.  She gave me the needles she used–a set of 4 dpns in US 2.  I always knit my fingering weight socks on a 1, sometimes smaller, and this was pretty thin yarn, so using the 2s was weird, but our gauge matched, so I went with it.  For reasons I’ll never understand, I also stick with using just the 4 needles, when I always knit with 5.  Sets of 4 needles?  Kind of crappy to work with.  These were knit mostly on a wine tour of Williamsburg with our friends Cristina and Matt, and during our Call of Cthulhu game.  They’re too big for me, but they fit Cristina when I had her try them on, so they will go to her if we ever manage to get together again.

How to Spend a Sunny Weekend

Step I:  Marianne (superwash merino) spinner’s top from The Loopy Ewe.  Hand dyed by Kate of Yarn Love.

 

Step II:  (Please note the cat feet.  feline company is a crucial ingredient.)

 

Step III: About a half ounce of spun singles.

WIP: Ulmus

This is the shawl that never ends, and I’m starting to think that I’ve lost my mind.  I’ve been counting stitches for days now, anxiously waiting for the time when I can stop knitting the blasted slip stitch pattern (which is just simple enough that I manage to screw it up with regularity) and start the lace border.  Nevermind that I still don’t know which color I want to knit the border in.

Last night, I hit that magical place where I would begin the border for the small sized shawl.  The stitches, without much stretching or spreading, nearly filled my cable and needles.  I counted and double checked and made sure that I really was at a stopping point.

And then I kept knitting.  Four more repeats will give me the medium size, and while the small seems large enough to wrap a baby, a little bigger seems better, and four repeats isn’t really that much, in the scheme of things.

This morning, I’m really starting to question my decision.  The shawl is on the coffee table in a heap with the yarn and the pattern, staring at me, and I’m staring back, and I’m trying to remind myself that it will be worth it in the end.  That the only real reason I want to stop is because new projects are taunting me.

Although.  Its still not too late to turn back.  I only made it a few rows in to the first repeat before I called it a night….

Nothing to see here.

In the course of a week, I have been to a wedding, a baby shower and a funeral, and I am exhausted.  The result of attending, planning for, and working through those things is very little blogging but a great deal of knitting.  (Yes, Andrew, I did knit during your wedding.  I thought about it, and decided that you know me and would understand.)  The trouble is that knitting under duress or distraction tends to lead to a lack of attention.  That means that most of my knitting progress was frogged, and I’m pretty much back to where I started two weeks ago.

The baby sweater turned out lovely and was well received.  I wound up using the sentimental buttons, some slightly pearly white ones that probably came from one of my grandfather’s dress shirts.

I’ve since started an Ulmus shawl in a tencel/merino blend that will be a receiving blanket for that same baby if I manage to finish it in time.  Given that I’ve frogged the first half twice, I’m dubious.  This time seems to be coming along, though, and I’m using lifelines (always feels like cheating), so there may be hope yet.  I haven’t taken pictures because I’ve been wanting to have a decent amount of progress before I take them and I keep ripping back, but the colors are in the picture at the bottom of this page.

Beautiful Morning Baby Sweater

Springtime in DC means rain and lots of it, so this was the perfect project to get me through the cloudy days.  A simple garter yoke raglan for mostly mindless knitting, offset by the most cheerful colors ever in the world.  It still needs blocking and buttons, but I’m calling it finished.

The yarn is Kells Sport merino from Three Irish Girls in the colorway “Oh What a Beautiful Morning.”  (April Pick of the Knitter shipment.)  I had previously only used Kells for socks, but it has a gorgeous sheen and lovely drape, and I foresee  using it for more sweaters in the future.

I’m torn about the buttons.  On the one hand, I think it would be adorable with some tiny frogs or bluebirds or something.  Or even just plain matte yellow plastic buttons.  On the other hand, I have some simple white buttons that are the right size in my grandmother’s button box.  The sweater is for my brother’s baby, and using her old buttons just seems fitting.  I’m leaning towards sentimental over cute, but I guess we’ll see what happens.

Everything from the last post, only bigger.

My FLS is finished blocking, but it still needs buttons.  Its hard to think about buttons for a wool sweater because suddenly, it is 90 degrees in DC and the thought of touching a sweater strikes fear in my heart.

I’ve finished the neckline on Ms. Marigold and joined it into the round.  I hate, hate, hate the needles I’m using.  I’ve never been a huge fan, but after working with the Knit Picks circs, which have a reasonable cable, working with my old interchangeables feels like knitting with two needles connected by a tree trunk.  It is impossible to lay the vest out flat so that it looks like anything at all, but I did my best.  The stockinette does not loot at all even and pretty, partly because of the slightly uneven texture of the yarn and partly because of my frelling needles, but I’m pretty confident that it will smooth itself out after it has a nice soak.

And, I’ve finished spinning the January Wooly Wonders shipment from A Verb for Keeping Warm.  Its Falklands roving, and I would love to work with this fiber again.

The yarn weight still isn’t as consistent as I would like, but I’m getting there.  I think this is the most balanced yarn I’ve managed to make, which was exciting.  Its really easy for me to overtwist when I ply.

I love the colors in this yarn, and how they shift from greens to browns in a very organic way.  I don’t know what this wants to be, but it reminds me of a few guys I know, so I’m sure by this winter it will become something for one of them.  I’m not naming names because it might be a Christmas present, but if you want to put in a good word for yourself, now would be the time.

Progress

February Lady is blocking, and every time I walk past the dining room table, I get excited that I might get to wear it before the weather gets too warm.  Then, I remember that I still don’t have buttons.  I’m thinking that I need something silver, like maybe these or these or these.

I finished spinning some Falklands roving from A Verb for Keeping Warm that’s been sitting around half-spun since something like January.

I washed it last night, and its drying now.  I think its the most well balanced yarn I’ve spun yet, and its amazingly soft.  I’m marveling at how much it fluffed up when it met water.  I wasn’t aiming for any specific weight, but on the bobbin, it looked like a fingering to sport weight, and now its looking much more like a sport to worsted.  I love the colors, which aren’t super accurate in that photo.  They’re much less washed out, and there are more varied shades of green.  I think its destined to be a man’s garment, maybe a hat or scarf, but I have no idea who it belongs to.

And as soon as I cast off the February Lady, I started working on Ms. Marigold.  It looks like absolutely nothing right now.

The yarn is Deliciousness, a Stash Menagerie offering from Three Irish Girls.  Its alpaca, and amazingly soft, if a little sheddy.  Its supposed to be sport weight, but to me it seems closer to fingering, and its got a great handspun style texture to it.  The variations in thickness are making it knit up a little motley looking, but I’m hoping that a good soak will even the stockinette out.

The pattern called for a size 5 needle, but I had to go down to a 2 to get gauge.  I tried with a three and the swatch was nearly an inch too big.  Going down to a two made it about a half inch too small, so I’m going up a pattern size and hoping for the best.

I’m not head over heels in love with the project yet, but that could be because its following up the February Lady, which I enjoyed every second of.