The Results Are In!

I was so pleased to see several comments from knitters after last week's blog post.  It looks like we're going to do a knit-along, folks!  I'm very excited, as it's my first knit-along.  Details are still coming together, and in a day or two I will present the pattern we will be knitting, along with some yarn options.  Seems like we're all split down the middle on the whole sock/shawl debate, but no one is threatening to unleash the clothes moths on us if we pick one and not the other (knock on wood).  Yet another reason why I love knitters, we're all pretty happy and laid back, so long as you don't take our yarn away!  I shall determine what we will do by scientific method.  Are you familiar with the Flip-a-Coin Research Institute?  Just kidding (sort of). 

In other news, have you been by your lovely local yarn store lately?  If not, you have got to see this:



Yarns Etc did a little shuffling of their chi recently, busted out the feng shui manual and aligned their chakras in a most pleasing manner.  Seriously, have you seen how gorgeously the yarns are displayed there now?  For instance:

I had to mosey through and appreciate all the yarns in their new cubbies...heck, I appreciate the yarns every time I go, new cubbies or not!  In one such cubby, there was a new kid on the block: 



Some people think I'm an enabler...I just laugh and laugh....

This is Malabrigo Arroyo, which is a sport weight, superwash merino from Uruguay and it is hand-dyed in batches of only five (FIVE!) skeins...which would make a beautiful project, as colorful and unique as a stained glass window.  

I also have finished another project here on the home front. 

This is the Landscape Shawl from Evelyn Clark.  I've had pictures of it up on the blog before, and while right here it isn't looking its best, try as I might to make the camera do it justice (it looks like oatmeal hurl here), it does look very nice in person.  Each band of the shawl is done in a different stitch.  Garter, seed stitch, stockinette, moss, etc.  It also has a lovely picot edging along the sides of the shawl.  I sized it down a little bit, since my mother-in-law, who requested it, did not want it to be overly large. 

I still am chugging away on my Pi Shawl as well.  It is much, much more colorful, thanks to the rainbow Kauni Effektgarn I'm using.  You may need sunglasses for this next picture:

I'm very close to knitting on a border, and then I will be faced with a quandary.  What am I going to do with this shawl?  Not exactly working as a blanket, too scratchy for my baby daughter (sorry, Kauni, but you know it's true), not sure if a circle shawl is my thing...I was drawn in by the slowly changing colors that make Kauni so cool though.   I'm a simple creature...some days I'd call my friend and say, "I was on yellow-green earlier today and now I'm almost to purple!"  It's the little things in life, I guess. 

So, to finish up, please feel free to add your two (or ten) cents in about the upcoming knit-along!!  I'd love it if we could get a bunch of us together working on something, helping each other along!  Keep coming back, too, since the pattern and yarn will be up in the next day or two!  See you soon!

I'm Not Running The Show

It seems that this week has been one where I learn (repeatedly) that I am not the captain of my destiny...well, not as much as I would like.  Maybe I'm the assistant key grip or something. 

My first clue?  That would have been in the middle of my knitting crunch time.  I had five days to make two pairs of arm warmers for my son's preschool teachers.  They are fabulous ladies, and I was knitting them the uber-stylish Lovisa Arm Warmers, and I even had alllll the yarn I needed from my own stash.  I had oceans of time in which to knit these.  The first one was done by the evening, and I cast on the second one right away.  I was using two different brands of yarn, but they were both the same weight (their differing behavior when they got washed alarmed me briefly).  They also had what appeared to be the amount of wool required to knit the pattern.  I was going to rock this challenge.  But it was not to be so.  Oh no. 

The first arm warmer was fine, and then I had that lovely sinking sensation as I went through the second one.  You know what I mean?  At first you're like, "hmmm, seems like less than half a ball of yarn here.  Oh well, I'm sure I'll have enough."  and you knit on.  Then, you look again and say to yourself "Um, I think it's looking really thin there on that ball..." and you begin to worry, but you keep knitting.  Then you get to the point where it is SO obvious you were in knitting denial, there wasn't a snowflake's chance of making it through without cannibalizing the first arm warmer to finish the second one.  I also set about making some modifications to make the yarn stretch, as I only had one ball of this particular yarn (Jo Sharp DK Merino, in the shade "teal", partnered with Debbie Bliss Merino in a cream color). 

I finished the pair, and went to wash them.  The second they hit the water and I saw them side by side, the urge to whack my forehead repeatedly with the palm of my hand was almost more than I could bear.   My friends, since I had "modified" the second one, it was decidedly....well, look:

Waaah waaaah waaaaaaaaaaaah.

Note to self:  When you modify one, you must modify the other one.  It does not make me feel too good about my brain power that I was as surprised as I was when I looked at them side by side in the soapy sink water.  And guess what?  I still ran out of blue yarn!!!  More modifications to come, obviously.   

I did have some measure of success with the Lovisa Arm Warmer pattern, however:

This was made with some Berroco merino/silk blend I had laying around, and I found a fantastic couple of buttons to finish it out.

I love these so much I think it will be painful to part with them come Christmas. 

Another sign I was not running the universe came about two days ago:

It's sort of hard to see what's going on there, so I took a better shot.  Here:



That is a bajillion gallons of water streaming up from under the road near our home, creating a lot of scrambling for pots and buckets to fill up before all the water was shut off.  In my house, and everyone else in the neighborhood.  For almost 36 hours.  With two kids.  Oh yeah, definitely was not feeling in control there.  But look, here is another finished project:

This is the Hurricane Hat, which made me be able to hold my own at a party where there was some serious Secret Santa action going on.  Made from gorgeous Malabrigo in the much-loved color Azul Profundo. 

I'm cranking out the knits, still psyching myself up for the Steek-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named, not to mention a shawl or two, a scarf or two, and another hurricane hat as well as yet another two batches of arm warmers. 

I (most likely) am not going to get everything done on my to-do list in time for Christmas, but I am sure going to enjoy it, especially since I have lots of knits to work on, running water, and this:

Have a very merry!

Mish mash.

Uuuuuuuuugh I cannot take it anymore.

I have to confess something.  I can't keep doing this anymore.  It is sucking my will to live.  I'm starting to break out in hives every time I think about doing it. 

And by "it", I mean the Farmer's Market Cardigan that I've been knitting on since the Nixon Administration. 

In the past week, I haven't done a single thing with it.  I have it shoved in a large plastic bag (I love those huge gallon-sized plastic bags.  Perfect for knits.) and it's been left completely alone.  In my head, however, I've shamed myself so thoroughly that, if thinking about a project was knitting on a project, I'd have finished the dang thing and cast on for another one in laceweight yarn.  Oy vey.

My relationship to this knit is not going well.  If I had a personal relationship with this much hostile resentment simmering in it, we'd be having "the talk".  You know, the one where you start out trying to be all "it's not you, it's me" and "I need some time alone to work on myself" and end up yelling about toilet seats and mothers and "why don't you clean up after yourself, you gerbil-faced buffoon??!?" Yeah.  That's how I feel about it right now.


Angry baby is angry.

So.  Since I am the master of my knitting destiny (stop that laughing), I am making a decision based on desperation what I am capable of living with, combined with my desire to be done right frickin' now the amount of time I'm willing to designate to this project.  The finishing work on this cardigan is getting abridged.  Big time.  I'm skipping the pockets, and doing a different shawl collar treatment, one that doesn't require me to do arithmetic on the cables to make it look right (I swear it's got arithmetic on the cabling for the shawl collar!).  I'm also renaming it.  This will become the I'm About To... Cardigan.  Think I should sell the pattern on Ravelry? 

I've been knitting, not just thinking about knitting, this week.

  These are birthday socks for my mom.  (Hope you aren't looking, Mom, since I haven't gotten them to you, yet!)  You know about Noro sock yarn, right?  Gorgeous colors that drift ever-so-subtly from one rich shade to the next...and never a chance of making a perfectly identical pair of socks.  I tried, really I tried.  The one sock looks like I punted a squid, though.  Just a little inky on the toes.

These are "Picky Pants", in a gorgeous shade of Malabrigo ("Lettuce").  Sorry for the crap picture.  I love these pants so much...I just have to finish off the I-cord drawstring for the waistline of the pants and it will be good to go.

I also cast on for a second pair of Picky Pants, in Azul Profundo.  I keep going around the house, hoping to use the word profundo in a sentence, because it just sounds cool.  Profundo, eh?

Muy profundo, ci.  I have profundo feelings about the Malabrigo.  I like pizza profundo, it's supposed to rain-o  profundo today...ok, I will stop.

It's been rather chaotic around here the past few days as well, unfortunately.  We have had a bit of a cold making the rounds on the children, and that has reeeeallly cut into my knitting/sleeping/lazing about time.  I will hopefully have better news to report next time!  See you then!