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.