Miscellany

I seem to be totally incapable of project monogamy, fortunately that's considered completely acceptable among knitters. No one seems to find it too inappropriate that I bounce from project to project, although they might just be too polite to mention it.

The Big Purple Shawl, also known as what I'll be wearing to Northwestern Football Game Tailgates the instant it gets finished, is coming along nicely.  I have just over a skein left to go. If I actually gave it some serious knitting time, it would, of course, get done much faster. I'm doubtful that this will occur before October and the first homegame is Saturday, but there will certainly be other opportunities.



I have made some progress on the Philosopher's Belt. The challenge with that is needing to crochet yarn, then knit, then wonder if I've made any progress, then crochet yarn, then knit... Even though it's only 9 stitches per row, it seems to be taking forever. AudioGirl suggested running a quick single crochet along the edge once I'm done to keep it from stretching--which was a great idea. I just have to get it done and blocked.





And finally, I introduce to you the first of the Bunny Nuggets.  When the Philosopher had said he wanted to learn to knit, it was with the intention of making amigurumi for friends having offspring. As I don't crochet, this meant we were knitting and that meant Rebecca Danger. I liked the idea of a Bunny Nugget to start things off.

Now, Rebecca's a fan of Magic Loop. This is all well and good if you know how to do it. For those of us who taught ourselves via video about 30 seconds before teaching the Philosopher, it was just a touch of spontaneous learning.  I'm still not convinced to give up my beloved DPNs (even after they stabbed me) but I can at least get through the technique as needed.



My nugget is the smaller red one. That's just a smidge of leftover sock yarn from the socks that I knit during the last winter olympics.  We were going through my leftovers hatbox and I kept pulling out skeins and saying "Oh, this is from this event, this I was knitting during that, this is from another trip...."  I think it might have been a little intimidating for someone who was trying to pick out yarn to knit into a small stuffed animal.

The Philosopher made the larger nugget. That's Filatura Lanarota Chaco that I bought at Smiley's in New York. AudioGirl knit me a cowl out of it at one point.  I've still got a few skeins of the purple around here.

I opted for I-cord ears rather than the DPN ears I think she recommended?  The pattern is well written and we made it through in one afternoon/evening.

Shrug off the Bichon

Last fall, M had requested a shrug for my canine nephew.  He tends to wear mostly shades of dark blue and she had a pattern in mind--Cables and Bits from Knitty . I agreed that it would be a worthy undertaking and, since she's family by choice if not blood, set out. Yarn was picked out, the pattern was printed.....

And then time passed without anything happening. I keep having projects seriously stall out. It's frustrating and clutters up the living room excessively as I keep searching for something else to knit.  Something new, something shiny. I rearranged things on Ravelry the other day, moving things into hibernation and realized that I really only have about 4 projects that are in rotation and aren't just lurking in various places around the apartment. I keep telling myself I'll get them out and work on them. Soon. Very soon. Really. No, I don't believe me either.

But packing for a recent trip to Atlanta to see dog and M, I threw the yarn and the DPNs into the bag. Granted, I didn't pack the straights, stitch markers, or circulars that I needed but hey...who doesn't feel like improvising and frantically needing to shove stitches together every 3 minutes whilst knitting...

It was 80 degrees and I could sit outside on a bench surrounding a large magnolia tree in M's backyard and knit. Dog refused to come and hang out--he needed to supervise his mother and ensure that she wasn't having a potential snack without him but I could be alone with the various insects that kept dropping out of the tree or climbing up my legs. The tiny little green inchworm that I discovered on the v-neck of my t-shirt was  probably the most interesting.

The shrug took about three days of knitting time. It would have gone much faster if I'd had straights and circulars with me. I didn't do the "bits" part of it because I'm not really a fan of bobbles and I think a male dog doesn't really need them. Plain ribbing was equally handsome.

Strawberry Chocolate Progression...

A few months back I saw the Yarn Harlot talking about cotton. That in and of itself caught my eye, as she's a self-proclaimed not-really-a-cotton knitter. I'm increasingly less so, wool is so much more forgiving and alpaca is far more squishy. Still, I was fascinated with the color progression shown in the skein and clicked over to Wolles Yarn Creations.

Color changing cotton is all she does and it's lovely! There are a lot of variety of shades and you can request custom blends.  Most of her blends come in two skeins --a light to dark and dark to light with the same shades. I threw her store feed into Google Reader (my new favorite way to follow Etsy store owners) and waited for something to catch my eye.

What came up was the Strawberry Chocolate. I have a friend who lives the pink and brown combination. As she's a beach bunny, cotton would probably be perfect for her for a small shawl. It'll be far more washable and usable than wool would. It's four ply and 480 yards.

Having successfully gotten through the Old Man of Storr, I thought that might be another simple but lovely shawl that I could knit without having to pay too much attention. This became my computer knitting.

The majority of Old Man of Storr is garter with increases, so I was waiting for the color changes to make things interesting . The plies aren't twisted together and that is a little creative. I'm using wooden needles with a blunter tip and, for me, has helped me fight the splittiness but it's still a challenge.


First we began with bubblegum pink. There wasn't too much of this, so that went pretty quickly.

Then I got to the first change. I wondered how she had done it, it was so intriguing to me, I was trying to determine what dying process could possibly have been used to create this gradual color progression. And then I reached it.

The first knot! The slow shifts in color are made by cutting a single ply and replacing it with a new color.  It will mean a lot of teeny little ends to weave in but as they are only single ply ends, it's not too much of a hassle.

I've progressed through two color changes now and am on two strands of red, two of pink, about ready to change to three of red, one of pink.  While you can see the shifts in person, the camera shows them far more clearly than the naked eye does...





Not sure how quickly I'll get it done. As memory serves I don't have that much more to go on the garter increases on the body.  Something like 20 rows last I counted. But at the moment my hands are fully cramping from delayed moving syndrome and I'm not entirely sure where I packed the project. I think it's in the giant hedgehog floor pillow.