To the frog pond!!

So, at some point during the last decade (but possibly earlier; it's not on this blog or Rav that I can find), I started a shawl.

I think it's Berroco sock yarn of some sort?

Anyway, I picked it up again last week, and I did a few more rows. No pattern, or, rather, it's one I made up.

I took a good look at it today.

The stripes of it completely obscure the lace pattern. That's a problem.

It's also over six feet long, which is ridiculous - because blocking will put at LEAST another foot on it.

So I frogged it. One more UFO, done!

Halfway there....

I think I'm over the halfway mark on Red Skies at night:

Love the way it looks, have yet to get through either of the transition rows smoothly.

Saturday Night

Knitting & NASCAR. A nice way to end the summer.

Things started...

Another entrelac hat. The stockinette beanie was not working, so I unraveled it.

A Red Skies at Night scarf from my ball of Island Yarn Rivulet in Huntsman:

Things finished:

Yeah.

198 yds Times Two

So, I finished the shop model, and it looks great:

Then, I knit a modified one out of my first knittable quantity of handspun:

I have my own ball of Alumco now. Trying to decide if I want to knit a third one this week...!

198 yds - Day 3

Should finish chart one tonight. Woot!

198 yds of Heaven

... or, in this case, 215 yds of Araucanía Alumco. My ravellenics2016 entry for Shawl Sailing and a one-skein laurel.

Just 20 rows from the edging, and it goes quickly because it's meant to be small!

Catching up!

Okay, here are a few of the things that happened in July: 

Crocheted starfish for our Coral Reef Beach window display

A Danger Crafts tweeter

A tiny Cowichan-style sweater from a class with Beth Brown Reisel 

Another Virus Shawl (more on that later in the week)

Tex-Mex food & Pokémon GO

And the discovery of Star Wars jewelry at Kay's. (No, I don't have any. Yet.)

I started more projects, too, of course.

More on that later, as well.

Aleda Shawl

Better pic :) 

Aleda KAL - done!

Kelbourne Woolens did a Knitalong for the "Aleda" shawl that's in one of their books. I had one ball of TurtleMade Sparkle Sock from the Shenandoah Fiber Fest last fall, and it was a win!

I cast on May 1, and zoomed along until Thursday night.

Yep. Ran out of yarn with half a row and the bind off to go. (This is definitely a case of "losing a game of yarn chicken".)

Luckily, I picked up a nearly-the-same-green sparkly lace weight at Uniquities during this April's Metro Yarn Crawl.

It worked! It's blocking now, and the pattern is fun enough that I plan to start another June 1!

Cotton Cardi progress

Back & sides done, sleeves cast on, side seams done! 

New project - Cotton Cardi

Since it's almost Metro Yarn Crawl time, I figured I should start something with yarn I got last year. 

Gonna be: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/100-26-bolero-jacket-with-leaf-pattern (DROPS Design)

Hopefully, there's enough yarn if I play with needle sizes & cast ons!

More on the Circular Vest

I managed to get the center of the best to stay flat for a few more rounds:

I then carefully marked where the sleeves should go, made the openings with chain less foundation double-crochet (As fun as it sounds. Really.), and did a few more rows.

It wasn't even CLOSE to flat... so, basically everything I crocheted yesterday had to be frogged. 

Let me tell you this: Red Heart Boutique Unforgettable HATES to be frogged. It's basically single-spun acrylic MOHAIR. It took less time to frog than to crochet on the first place - but only just barely.

Anyway, today, I managed to get a good, flat middle circle all the way out to the arm holes.

Tomorrow, after the sleeves, it can begin to ruffle a bit. But for now, it is flat.

Finished objects!

Finished my Virus Shawl during the first quarter of the SuperBowl. 2 skeins Red Heart Boutique and a J hook.

Finished my Scoodie (Scoodie Workshop was also on Sunday) yesterday. Berocco Marmot, 4 balls (although half the black one is still with us) and a K hook; H for the ears.

New Year's Resolution: Blog!

OK, so, I have been knitting a lot. And stitching. And crocheting. So it's darned well time to start putting things on this blog. Turns out there's an app for that, and things I can do on my phone are much more likely to happen than those I cannot.

So, first finishes of 2016: Four of Melissa Poon's "Winter Warmers". The pattern is free on Ravelry. The fifth (first?) Warmer was my last project &!finish of 2015; it was done on size 19 US needles; the rest on size 35 (19 mm). 

I recommend this pattern if you need a quick gift; one takes me 2h of TV knitting now! 

Yes, I did two red ones. The one above is mine (the first one I did), it's a deeper red than the one below, which is my mom's.

Fall of Leaves

So, I do still actually finish things. I started this in May, put it down, and then finished it in about a week at the end of June. I absolutely love the way it came out!
Yarn: Done Roving Transitions, and about 1/3 ball of Shalimar Breathless
Needles: size 8 Signatures (which is why I needed the extra yarn, it's MUCH larger than the pattern expects it to be!)
Pattern: Fall of Leaves by The Knitting Vortex (available on Ravelry, free, here).



Blocked this sucker out pretty harshly to get the size I wanted (butt coverage is key):

Before

After

I think this is the best shot I have of the colors:


It was a fun knit; pretty challenging until I got the hang of it, and I love the result!

Deep Time Out

Sweaters, of course, are not the only thing that misbehaves. Shawls, do, too. This is my absolute 100% worst offender project EVER. It is made from the following AMAZINGLY WONDERFUL yarn:

"ESPRESSO-CRIMSON-GOLD PAINTBOX GRADIENT ON FOOT NOTES YARN: 15 mini-skeins of 30 yards each which transition from deep espresso through chocolate and rich blood reds before ending in bright gold. A total of 450 yards (4.25 ounces) of 80% Superwash merino, 20% nylon fingering-weight yarn."

Please see kimberbaldwindesigns.com for more amazing gradients!
I want to state clearly, and for the record, that this yarn is in NO WAY at fault for the resulting chain of disasters. The yarn soldiered on nobly, trying again and again to do what I wanted.

What I wanted was an optical illusion basketweave geometric design on a shawl. Should be pretty easy, as I've tried similar, and not completely killed myself doing it. This shawl, however, wasn't going to cooperate.

The first incarnation, I got to the third skein of the 15 (I started on the Espresso end) and realized that sockweight yarn on size 8 needles doesn't lend itself to hiding yarn tails very well. So I went through and spliced all 15 balls into one giant ball (Yeah.), and tried again. Things were going ok, then I missed a turn... one of the ends of a rectangle didn't happen, so I had to frog out a few rows. I tried to get it back, and it just wouldn't... so I frogged the whole thing.


This happened about once a month for an entire YEAR. Yes, year. I got the yarn at the 2014 MDS&W. I think I might have skipped a month or two in there somewhere, but I feel pretty confident that I tried to start this thing at least eight times and never got past the second color of the gradient!!

I recently (as in "just before the 2015 MDS&W") found the Knit Mate app (iOS only so far).


Made using the Knit Mate app, which is pretty cool!
I tried again, and it worked! It was going beautifully! And then I realized I'd only done HALF of the row... I did about 50 rows without the second half of the triangle shawl. I thought about saying "pfeh, that's fine!" and making it a bottum-up-from-the-point shawl, but. Darnit, I want the shawl I had envisioned!!

So I tried again. And again. I almost made it to the third color the last time, and then something was horribly wrong again. I'd forgotten a turn, so I dropped just the necessary stitches and tried to fix it, and it just wouldn't fix. Something was just OFF.

So, I frogged the whole thing, and wound up the yarn into a pleasant, pretty little cake.


Yep, those are Signatures. I have two sets, size 4 and 8.
I have since pulled out a ball of Done Roving Footlights Transitions, and I'm making a Fall of Leaves shawl, instead. It's going much, much better.

Advent Calendar Scarf 2012 - DONE!

So, FINALLY finished my 2012 Advent Calender Scarf. (No, I have not finished 2011 yet.) Thanks to the wonders of the panoramic photo feature on the iPhone, here's the whole thing in one shot:


I gravity-blocked it over the shower-curtain rod:


All told, it was a fun project, even if I "forgot" to work on it (or blog about it) for a few years.

How it all began:
I picked the Yarn, Neigborhood Fiber Co.'s Maisonette
Was 2 days behind on Day 11

Old Finished Things (sorta)

This was going to be a post a while ago. Long enough that I just found the draft. The item in question IS finished, and doesn't look remarkably different from the thing on the needles, except it's about 6' stretched out - and that's DOUBLED, remember. So loopy scarf-thing for summer, wherever it is. Can't find it to take a new pic, so you get this, which is the old post:

The Wolf and Phoenix cotton thread from... beginning of January...2013? Well, Kind Giver of Yarn gave me another ball, this time in organge (which, as she said, is really the color I tend to keep for myself). So I decided to get fancy and make a moebius Thing. Which didn't work AT ALL on the 24" needles I started with. I figured hey - really thin yarn, it should work, right?

WRONG.

Now, the day after I had the first disasterous cast-on attempt, my Mom and I went to Tuesday Morning. Tuesday Morning is a aftermarket-discount-overstock shop. If you know what you're looking for, you can get some real deals.

In addition to beads (lots!), the ones in my area frequently carry Kollage square needles - DPNs, circs, and straights. Now, the odds of there being a 40" size 3 circular needle when I went into the shop are pretty darned astronomical, since any of the good needles vanish promptly into the hands of Other People Who Are Not Me... but my luck was in that day, because a 40" size 3 circular was EXACTLY what I found!

The cast on went much better the second time around. I wanted an open net without that funky "here's the middle of the moebius!" line of stitches that most projects like this can develop if there's any sort of pattern involved. I figured out that doing the first half-row (to where the starting marker is on the cable instead of between the needles... um, if you moebius, you get that) in stockinette and then starting the ktog/yo-repeat-forever was the way to go. TOTALLY WORKED.

So, here it is a few days in:


(Yeah, I like my Owl sippy-cup yarn bowl, too. Can't justtify buying a sippy-cup, can justify it if it suddenly becomes Knitting Tools.)

Light, lacy and pretty, it will be perfect for summer... which is good, because that's when I'm likely to finish it!