Sunday, June 28, 2015

Around and Around

Would you believe I only ended up bringing 2 knitting projects for the weekend? After I posted last I decided that I didn't really believe that my luggage would make my connections and in the interest  of having the dress I wanted to wear to my Saturday presentation and other such things, I opted to only bring what would fit in a carry on bag that I usually prefer for overnight trips.

My roommate C told me when she arrived she was concerned that she couldn't find the rest of my luggage.

But that means limiting my knitting and so I went with the giant gray shawl that I started at Amy's suggestion and a skein of Dream in Color Starry in the Tea Party colorway (wonderfully rich dark browns) that I'll start on a Gingko Biloba shawl as time permits.

Conferences of course being what they are, there's been less time to knit than planned but I'm most of the way through the 2nd skein on the project. I also wound another skein on the plane. I really need to get my skein winder set up at home again.  I like winding by hand but not this much.

This morning I moved the project to a 40" needle. It was doing okay on the 24" circular but I was noticing it start to get a bit tight and as I had some quiet time here in my room, it seemed like a good time to make the transition. You can see how the spiral is developing.



The pattern is the Vortex Shawl and it's very easily memorized, only a two row repeat. At the rate I'm going, which isn't very fast in reality, I think I'll be on skein 4 of 5 by the time I get home late Tuesday.

I have been rather disappointed with the put ups of the yarn. I'm using Louet Gems, which is a base I've liked for a long time. This batch is over five years old--but every single skein has at least one if not multiple places where one or both plies have been felted together and at least one knot. These are small skeins-- 285 yards and so it's annoying to know I'm going to have to have far more than the ten ends that I planned to need to weave in.

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

On the Verge

I have become convinced that I can knit 3 large shawls, finish a pair of socks, and knock out a hat in 5 days.

Can you tell I'm about to travel?

I'm headed out to San Francisco on Friday, the Philosopher remains behind at Chez Hedgehog with the felines. And while I'm woefully underprepared in the packing, getting a manicure, and most of the other things I need to arrange before flying out, I do have travel snacks and apparently now I have some idea what knitting I'm taking.

I realized last night that I'd not started planning my travel knitting--probably because I've had more travel than usual and thus the anticipation of being away doesn't have the novelty it usually does. But here will be two long days of flying (I have a 40 minute connection in LAX, who wants to bet Chicago weather doesn't let me get through that?).  And a conference to attend in the middle, though there I will be running about being Madame Chairwoman and trying to pin down an errant research partner. I know better than to truly believe that will give me much knitting time.

I can hope though, can't I?  My roommate C won't mind if I need her bed Monday night to block one of the two newly finished shawls (the other one blocking on my bed of course), right?

I say all of this as my travel knitting presently looks like this:


Yup, all still in skein format, haven't even wound it yet--though I'm nearly done with one of the little grey skeins.  

I also have my bin of needles in by my desk, that's the other challenge of the evening, figuring out what needles I need for which project and saying very loud prayers that the four patterns I've picked (yes, four) don't all actually need the same needles.  I'd at least like some variety on this trip.

What do you think, two shawls for the flight out?  Oh, and the sock that is still bouncing around my purse?

P.S. I have finished a hat and the Wollmeise scarf that I've been puttering away on, also some super sekrit knitting, but that all has to be blocked before it's ready for prime time.

Saturday, June 13, 2015

What Baby Blanket?

I'm being shamed by the baby blanket. The deadline (her baby shower) is fast approaching. Am I plugging away at it? Am I valiantly charging through skein after skein? Or am I ignoring the miles of garter stitch and sneaking around with a skein of Hat Box from Mrs. Crosby?




















Yup, I'm not surprised really at me either. Part of it is, of course, the unwieldiness of the baby blanket. It's big, I'm working with two colors right now and that's not something I like wrangling on the train. Other knitters' yardage may vary but for busy rush hour commutes, I do generally prefer something smaller. Knitting the striped shawl last month got kind of silly, and that wasn't changing colors on each row, as I'm doing presently on Block 9.

And I was really charmed with the hem on the hat that I knit for TLE Academy slipped stitches project. The whole frais pattern was simple yet interesting and I really wanted to see how it would handle multicolor yarn. While there is clearly method to the pattern, it varies enough that I think it should break up any an all pooling. Mrs. C --shown here in the Toucan colorway--doesn't seem like it'd be too prone to pooling but this should break all of that up.

Once I finish this hat (cast on two days ago and I'm through the brim and an inch into the body, I love how fast hats go) my intention is to try the pattern with a skein of BMFA Lightweight in the Room Without a Roof colorway.

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Of course, I really must finish the baby blanket before I get too much more on the needles. (Pay no attention to the other new project sitting by the bed.)

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Sock Show Thursday: Rows Stack Up

Slowly, steadily, if one keeps hauling a sock project around and knitting a few rows here and there, a sock appears.

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The color is totally off in that picture, here's a better one of the correct color that I showed you previously:

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I finished the first sock on Saturday at the eye doctor where to my surprise my prescription hasn't changed! So I just ordered contacts, which should be in sometime during the next week. The Philosopher finds it odd that I still wear hard lenses, but I've gotten used to them and now soft contacts just seem strange to me. They can rip and get grit embedded in them so much more easily. Bleah.

Anyway, knitting. The sock continues apace. I'm not making them sized for me, though intended recipient isn't determined yet. They'll probably go with their neon green siblings through a blue rinse before being appropriately homed.  I've started on sock 2 but not made a huge amount of progress.  Too many other things rolling along. But if the second follows the pattern of the first...






Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Memory Yarn

Some yarn is purchased with a project in mind, other yarn is about the destination where you got it.

I never showed you the yarn I bought in Florida, did I?

Philosopher and I found the one yarn store fairly close to Chez Philosoparents, which is called Raging Wool.  It's a little hard to find, the sign outside--as memory serves--just said "Yarn."  It was a nice shop and I rummaged around for a while. They carried the yarns of Rhichard Devrieze, who used to work for Koigu-- and you can tell. The colors feel very familiar and of course are lovely.

I ended up with some Frolicking Feet yarn from Done Roving.

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and also a Zauberball that the Philosopher requested as a triangle eventually for him. I'm on a triangle break.

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Then a couple of weeks ago I went with my goddaughter and her parents up to Wisconsin for a celebration of the Norwegian Constitution Day.  Amongst the beautiful quilt display and incredibly squeaky curds, we found a store that specialized in felted objects. They had some beautiful spinning wheels and a small rack of handspun.

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I'm planning on a small cowl/neckwarmer thingy, but we'll see what happens to it once I get back to it. For now it's decorating the stash beautifully and reminding me of a fun weekend.







Monday, June 1, 2015

More Things in Progress

Now that I'm just focusing on Stash Dash, I feel a little more free to knit on whatever I want, rather than feeling slightly guilty for working on non-Loopy Academy Things.  There were various points on each of the projects where they became not-great for travel (weaving in ends, loud metal dpns) and so socks and other projects have continued apace.

I must must must get back to working on P's baby blanket. She's due in just over 2 months and I'm sure there will be a baby shower before then. Currently the blanket looks like this: 

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I've got four more blocks to go plus an applied i-cord edging?  Mostly, this needs me to spend 20 minutes solidly casting on the next section and then it will start going much more quickly. Also, actually working on it should help immensely, it's been seriously ignored the past few weeks.  I wonder if it's too big and clumsy for my flight to Minneapolis on Thursday...

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Remember when I asked for ideas of what to knit my Wollmeise into? I didn't entirely toss them aside, promise and I have even cast one on.

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This is Spice Route in Amazonas (first picture is better in terms of color). It's doing a weird stripy thing but it's coming along nicely. I'm at about 5', some of which I know I'll lose to blocking. I'll probably do about 7' of scarf.  From the weight, I'm not quite halfway through the skein yet.

Socks are still floating around as well, more on those later in the week.


A Redo

 I started this pair of socks on New Years Eve just before 2020. I finished them in May 2020 , amidst a lot of optimism about what I'd a...