AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

4 day shawl

I am part of the Loopy Ewe Dream in Color club. Or preorder. Sheri orders a whack of Dream in Color Yarn of the Month, and those of us on the preorder list get to decide whether or not we wanted the yarn or not. If we don't, it goes back into the inventory and someone not on the preorder list can buy it.

I didn't buy January's yarn (and I don't remember why), but February's yarn was awesome.

Starry - which is sock yarn with silver in it. In a glorious red and pink combo called Honeymoon. These yarns of the month come with the pattern, and as soon as I saw the pattern I loved it. I knew it had to be mine.

My yarn arrived Friday night. I unwrapped it and petted it for the evening.

Saturday, I wound it into a ball and started the lace portion of the shawl pattern.

Sunday, I finished the lace portion and picked up the stitches for the next section. I hosted a superb owl party and started the short rows.

Monday, I finished the short rows and started the ribbing.

Tuesday, I realized that I had fewer stitches than called for. I decreased away the 2 stitches to put me back in pattern (it is ribbing there and very flexible). I then knit, knit, knit. Late last night, I washed and blocked my shawl.

Wednesday. I am wearing it. It dried over night even when blocked double. It is awesome and sparkly and I love it. I almost want another skein, just so I can knit it again. Maybe a blue sparkly yarn.

I will be wearing it at the chocolate shop when I work there over Valentine's weekend (tomorrow, Friday and Monday). It will be awesome and festive and I will be happy and back to knitting on my rotation.

I'm wearing it today in pretty much the same way as the picture, but I have a shawl pin with me to wear it more as a shawl. It is great that way too, but when I'm sitting down (or working with chocolates) I don't need anything dangling down to get in the way.

I am always cold, so this is excellent. Of course, my only black shirts that are left (I guess I'm doing more laundry tonight) are either a turtleneck or a sleeveless black top. Thankfully I have a black shrug that I can wear.

It's a very knitterly day here.

Also, I found the macro function on our camera. I don't know if I have the skill to use it well, but I have made an attempt. I got 3 blurry pictures and 2 less blurry pictures. Of course, they looked almost the same, so I dumped one of them onto Flickr and am ignoring the other one. Even with a gorilla pod and a self timer I can shoot super blurry photos!

Now it is back to the rotation. This month it is mostly being divided between the Paper Dolls sweater and the February socks. Both are pretty far from being finished, so I have plenty to do.

and Iron Craft? Well, I couldn't find my yarn for my project idea for that until after I got this yarn in. I can only do one super project a week, and this week it was definitely shawl love.

Love. Not to be confused with Loi'e.

Also, love a project simple enough to work during an exciting hockey game!

Not quite Ivan Denisovitch

Today has been a relaxing day - I've really needed it. I'm about to enter the two weeks that encompasses Valentine's Day. I work at Au Chocolat for Thursday, Friday and Valentine's Day. Before those three days, I have a project that I want to finish at the office. 

Today was grocery shopping, pet supply shopping (we do it in big runs, so we won't need to rent another zip car for about 3-4 months), and ice cream. I prepped the bases for a chocolate ice cream, which will have crushed grasshoppers (the thin mint analog) mixed in, and blood orange sorbet. 

Then I pulled out my new yarn.

Yup, I'm still buying yarn. I'm still looking at a net decrease in my stash, which wouldn't be so nice sounding if it weren't for the fact that 2010 I went overboard. I was part of yarn clubs, won yarn in contests, and then still managed to spend most of my discretionary income on yarn. I have a ton of yarn to use this year, and I'm still part of a single yarn club. The Dream In Color club at the Loopy Ewe is less like a yarn club and more like a preorder. I get a notice every month about the Dream in Color yarn, and if I like it I pay for it. If I don't, then I remove it from my shopping cart and someone else has access to the yarn. 

February's yarn was red and pink (mostly red) and sparkly. These yarns of the month also come with a pattern for automatic pattern support. Normally I don't make the patterns that come with the yarns. Even if I love them, I have other things I want to make. Not this time. The shawlette pattern that came with this month's yarn was gorgeous. It was exactly what I needed, so I made room in my rotation. I have put aside my February Socks (Aquaphobia - ravelry link), which are working up well, to see if I can shoehorn an entire project into this weekend. I want to wear this festive yarn with glorious color and Valentine's sparkle when I'm working at the chocolate shop on Thursday.

Including today, that gives me 5 days to wash and block.

I'm doomed.

wet wool

Ishbel is blocking behind me.  It's a good feeling seeing it there (even if it is completely unphotographable - a red shawl on a red blanket is not very eye catching).  I don't have enough pins to block out each point, and I could really use a set of blocking wires.  My top edge is not exactly straight.  The shawl takes up the entire top edge of the throw blanket, so I'm glad to have made the large size and gladder that I am not trying to block it any bigger.

Instead, I'm spending my morning playing Kingdom of Loathing (which I haven't consistently done in a while) and pulling together a small amount of sewing stuff to finish up the necklace today.  I am in prototype creation land, and am trying to come up with a sphere pattern that looks interesting, knits up large enough, that I can stuff some of the dog squeakers I have.  Instead, I appear to have created a mouse, currently sans ears, with a pocket for putting catnip in.  Not bad for never having made anything other than scarves without a pattern.

Tonight is baking night, and picking up fabric.  This weekend I start sewing costumes for the Mikado.  It's a good thing I am not currently in training for a half marathon, because I am totally eating into my running time.  It's only for a month or so, but it is a good feeling to help.

slice of pi

It's done.  Yup, EZ's Pi Shawl.  It's the first EZ piece I've made (which feels weird given I've been knitting for quite a while), and it was pretty, well, easy.  This is the result of two weeks and a bit of knitting and 2 skeins of Misti Alpaca lace weight.  I wanted to add beads to it, but part of the joy of this project was not needing anything while working it, especially not a crochet hook and a vial of beads.

I think the next EZ pattern I'll attempt is the refigured (for ladies) February Lady Sweater.  I really like Alison's version, and think I'll do this one sometime after finishing the Vortex Street Pullover.  It would be a nice treat to not have 6 pieces to sew up to finish a sweater!

finally photographed

I've been putting off the photography on this project for at least a month.  Definitely a project that I never felt like I'd finished without the photos.

Which project?

This one:
Yeah, the Swiss Cheese Scarf, which I started *mumble*mumble* in August 2007.  Woof.  This project isn't hard, but it does tend to get a little dull.  This is mostly garter stitch with bind offs and cast ons to make the holes.  The effect is really cool, but just feels unending.  At least for me.

This one is made with a single skein of Malabrigo lace weight.  I had originally intended to use the yarn for Kiri, but I never got very far with that idea.  I'm probably going to give this to my mom (who I don't think is reading this) for the holidays.  It's nice to have something done.

It's not the only thing I managed to have photographed this morning, but I figure to spread out the photo love!

With something that took me as long as this to get photographed and logged on the blog, it is a good thing I added some info to Ravelry.  Gosh, otherwise I wouldn't be able to tell you anything even about the yarn.  For example, this was knit on size 3 needles.  I didn't remember that at all!

I am currently working on the Vortex Street Pullover.  I'm just using stash woolease, but I'm already on the second sleeve.  I'm going to leave it at home while I travel, but I'm hoping that with a good amount of time over my vacation I'll manage to get through the bulk of the pattern (what am I saying, that is the bulk of the pattern!).  I'm trying to focus on this pretty much exclusively and plow through the finishing at the end.  I think what happens when a sweater needs finishing (especially picking up stitches and non-mattress stitch sewing) is that it gets put aside for the more exciting task of knitting something else.  Anything else. 

And back to the land of baking.  Wanna see the silliest looking Superman cake?  I'm sure I have done (or could do sillier) a weirder decorating job, but it would have taken a fair amount of effort.  I think the next time I make this cake I will use a picture and see if I can make a negative colored cake.  That would be really cool!

Wanna see it big?  Click it, baby!

productivity

I feel like I crammed a lot into last week.  Three rehearsals, four classes at the gym, work and baking.  A lot of baking.  I got home from rehearsal on Thursday night to make my sort of annual Superman cake.  Now, only the first one bore any resemblance to the Man of Steel, because I've been too lazy for the more complicated frosting job.  Last year I didn't even have time for cake and just made a batch of fudge in the same pan.  This year Superman was blonde and tasted of lemon. 

Saturday I made sugar cookies which I sandwiched together with some of the blue lemonade frosting I made, and today I made cupcakes (and realized that unlike the last batch of muffins which stuck to the paper, this batch was going to stick to the pan without the papers) which I filled with a lemon curd-frosting mixture.

Of course, we're going on vacation starting on Thursday, so I think I'll be bringing cookies to the airport (cookies are like lunch, right?) along with my knitting.  I'll only be gone for a few days, so I'm only going to bring my latest socks.  It will have to do (we're only out of town for a couple of days, so I don't feel like I should bring an army of knitting).

I set my Pi Shawl to blocking this afternoon in between loads of laundry.  It is pinned out in something vaguely like a circle, drying on the floor.  It is about 48 inches in diameter, which should be plenty big enough for me.  I don't remember how big it is supposed to be with the original description from Knitter's Almanac, but I am pretty sure that if I feel that it is too small that I can block it out bigger.  It definitely has a bit more stretch left to it.

In yarn-related news, one of my friends (waves) got back from her vacation a few days earlier this week.  While she was out west, she visited an alpaca farm!

She brought me back two skeins of light sport weight alpaca in a gorgeous chocolate-y brown!  The farm's name is Switzer Land Farm and they have a website!  Of course, there is a link to the Estes Park Wool Market, which is tempting to go to (though probably not in 2009).  I haven't been to Colorado in what feels like forever, so it is definitely something to contemplate.  I loved the closeness to nature and the feeling of being out in the open when I was there (though I did admittedly still spend most of my time inside).

I have plans for the yarn.  It took about 2 days of search Ravelry off and on to come up with something that I think will do the yarn justice, though I haven't add the pattern to the queue (much less marked anything as either finished or put in the things I've started in the last couple of weeks). 

I need to put an order in for yarn this week for the holiday presents.  I'd like to start them in October at the latest.  It looks like the holiday wishlist is 2 pairs of socks and one scarf, which is 6 skeins of sock yarn given the patterns I've been looking at.  That will take a month or two of steady knitting, so I need to get cracking.  Nothing is less fun than having gift knitting become a chore by running up against the last minute.

easy as pi

(which is apparently not easy, because I wrote ip twice)

I started the pi shawl last night, when I was hanging out with friends.  Now, Emily Ocker and I are definitely not friends.  I must have started that shawl more than 10 times.  Now with a thicker yarn, maybe a smoother yarn, we could get together for some tea, or on a bad day a nice hard lemonade.  Lace weight alpaca?  Not so much.  So, I started this with the Magic 8 cast on.  10 stitches on the needles, decreased down to 9 before the first increase round.

And because I wasn't home very much yesterday, I completely failed to finish the toe of my socks.  Maybe today around pod stuffing and condo cleaning I'll finish that off, do another round of increases, figure out if I'm going to embellish the project in any way (I had bought 4 balls of the Misti Alpaca Lace for Serrano... so I have a fair amount of yardage to work with for the pi shawl). 

at home with the knitter's almanac

I've never really gotten into the Zimmermania.  It wasn't because I didn't want to or that I thought that Elizabeth Zimmerman had nothing to offer.  I just didn't know.  I saw the wonderful sweaters and socks that were made using her patterns and techniques and I knit a ridiculous amount of icord. 

I went to the local library on Monday, hoping to borrow Knitting Nature.  Alas, no Knitting Nature (and so I have to wait until my books are out of storage to make Vortex).  But squirreled away amongst the old and new knitting books was Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitters Almanac.  I took it out and finished it this morning.  I have seen some wonderful renditions of these projects: the February Lady Sweater, Brooklyn Tweed's Pi Shawl Blanket, and the hundreds of Baby Surprise Jackets (which isn't in the Knitters Almanac). 

I loved reading it. 

She's sensible, but not too sensible.  Quirky without being impossible to follow.  It was almost like reading a letter from a friend.  You know all of the players, and it is just about catching up on the times.  If a useful technique or an interesting pattern are mentioned along the way so much the better.

So, I have a pair of virtually finished socks (and just before month end too), just need to kitchener one toe.  I have wanted to make a shawl for a while.  It's still a toss up between Hanami (I bought the pattern a couple of months ago) and the Biased Stole and the Pi Shawl.  Maybe I'll start more than one of them.  It's not like I don't have a ton of lace weight yarn.  (and with the socks, pictures on Saturday!)

The view outside my window

 A few days off and the world just throws you for a loop. 

Last week I bought yarn for my birthday (and gave away the lime green sock yarn to Miss G!).  Of course, buying yarn for my birthday was only supposed to be the yarn for the Butterscotch Cardigan (which I will probably start in a week or two) and the yarn to finish Vestish, but I decided that the Frog Camisole would never be finished if I continued with the cotton.  So, a frogging and a shopping I went.  Currently, I'm knitting it with a combination of the Kureyon sock yarn (thick and thin sock yarn is very odd) and leftover Trekking (I had 40 grams leftover from a pair of socks!).  The original gauge for the pattern produces a garment about 29 inches around (just mathing here) for a 35 inch bust.  I figure my rejiggered numbers should work just fine for my measurements.

But this isn't really about knitting.  Lately, my hubby and I have been taking pictures outside our windows.  We live slightly below grade, so many a morning is punctuated with cries of "Bunny!"  We have a regular bunny visitor and slightly less regular kitties who talk to our cat through the window.  We also have plants.  I want to do Norma's Garden-a-long, but I don't really have a place with light.  Occasionally I will say rules be damned and toss something out the window (usually it is trying to grow anyway).  And because photographing my knitting is much harder than taking random pictures out the window...

Our regular visitor taunts Saru-chan.  She is by nearly every day (or at least every morning I'm looking out the window).  Thankfully our cat is not like some I've heard of - she doesn't stare out the window with her mouth partway open and little bits of drool.  Thank goodness.  I am not sure I would be photographing her then.

The bunny was all over the area around our condo that morning, with my hubby and I looking at her from roon to room. 

We do have some things growing outside our windows... I'd need an expert to tell me, but I think this is an onion. If so, then I put it outside a number of months ago when I decided that three inches of green shoots meant it wasn't food anymore.  Can anyone tell me?

Of course, I am having a few issues with my image insertion with the newer Typepad interface (I'm just not used to it being so slow), so this image is currently stuck at its tiny size.  The top of the plant is a small bulb-like area covered with a large number of small white flowers.  If the powers of knitbloggers aren't enough, then I'll start with wikipedia and the sites like Burpee for the rest of my info!

c'est fini!

Last week was a pretty productive knitting week for me.  I finished (including those pesky ends to weave in and blocking).

The first thing I finished was Convertible. 

Convertible was a pretty easy knit, not really worth the piquant rating.  Every wrong side row is purled, so it is pretty easy to keep track of the patterned rows.  I didn't make any modifications other than yarn.  The yarn I used (Unger Angelspun) is a mohair blend. 

More specifics?

Skeins needed: Just under 3

Time to knit: Just under a month (April 28-May 22).  It was taking me about two hours a repeat (from buttonhole to buttonhole).  Each repeat felt like it was taking forever after the novelty of the lace pattern wore off, so I'm glad it is done. I'm pretty sure I'll make another one at some point, though I want to make it in the bamboo yarn it called for.  I haven't seen it on the Blue Moon site though.  Did they stop making it (the pattern is about two years old)?

Oh, and completely needed to take a picture of this in my gym clothes.  I promise that they're clean!

For amanda j: button picture?

Vintage mother of pearl buttons.  They really play well off of the colors in the yarn, which was what I was looking for.  Something timeless.

There were other buttons I could have used, but they were hugely oblong bulky shank buttons.  Fine for another project, but not for lace.