Quickies

1. What the HECK was I thinking, starting an adult-sized sweater in fingering-weight cotton on size 2 needles? What? The? Heck! I cast on for this thing a month ago, and I just got the back done. And I still have the sleeves to go! Must find out if I can do the sleeves in the round; might very well be possible. And then, of course, the assembly, knitting the neckband, etc. I see now why people grow to hate Lucky. I'll be lucky (get it?) if I finish this before I've gained or lost such significant amounts of weight that it will no longer fit.

2. Just in case you were curious about what pattern Mom picked from the Giant Swatch of DOOOM , it was the snowflake lace.

3. Measurin', calculatin', and ramblin' on Mom's lace jacket coming soon. Don't worry, you get to be with me every step of the way -- oh joy! I'm a bit nervous, designing, but I did do it once before with Dad's vest, so I think I'll be ok? Of course, this jacket will involve sleeves. Must read up on sleeve cap shaping.

4. Mystery Stole clue out today! And I still haven't finished the last clue! Slacker! And...I'm totally confused about Clue 5! YAY!

I'm tired....

Baaaaa!

Yes, I, too, have succumbed and joined the Mystery Stole 3 KAL . I haven't started knitting it yet, of course, but I'm excited to begin.

And also, a manifesto:

(Somebody hum "America the Beautiful." Or "O Canada." Or "Old McDonald.")

My dear readers, I have been remiss in blogging, and I feel that this must change. The blogosphere has suffered greatly without my adding regular knitting blather to its ranks. And we can't have thinning in the blogosphere, now, can we?

With this in mind, I would like to introduce to you A Format. A structure, if you will, for my future blog posts. This will allow you, dear readers, to count on several weekly posts from yours truly, as well as to allow you to skip material you may not find interesting.

So, the following format will henceforth be followed, unless there is a Good Reason not to:

1. WIP Mondays: this is self-explanatory. The status of my current projects will be discussed, with pictures when possible. The weekend will allow me to take pictures, so this is why WIP day is placed on Mondays.

1. Eye Candy Wednesdays: This will include, well, anything that I feel like showing you that is also aesthetically pleasing. It will usually pertain to knitting -- pretty yarn skeins or books, pictures of old FOs finally modeled by their recepients, etc. In particular, this will include the Cute Kid edition, with pictures of all the Cute Kids I knit for showing off their knits. But this may also include things like the botanical garden shots from my last post. Just anything pretty, because there's just not much blogging time during the week!

3. Free Speech Fridays: This can be anything -- anything craft-related, that is. FOs, future projects, stash-flashes (that didn't make it to Eye Candy Wednesday), book-coveting, more WIPs, whatever. If it's craft (and usually, craft = knitting in my case), it'll be here.

Of course, this doesn't mean that I'll never post on a Tuesday. But this is the format I'd like to try sticking to, just to discipline myself to blog and document my work. It's for my own good, really. Of course, there will also be Mondays when I just have nothing to show, or Fridays when I'm out of town. But, in general, this format will be observed.

Thank you for your attention.

In bloom

Just in time for my department's graduation party, I completed the Rona Lace shawl.

It may also be called my most favorite FO ever. It was wonderful to knit, and the constantly changing pattern kept me interested. In fact, one of the reasons I picked this pattern was that it combined various lace motifs. Y'all know how quickly I get bored. And this did not disappoint! I barely got the urge to knit something else at all, and, in fact, I had a very hard time putting it down!




The second reason I picked this particular pattern was that I thought that the flower motif would complement the bright, spring-green color of the yarn. See, I bought the yarn first -- an impulse buy. I apparently am completely incapable of resisting alpaca. It's just so soft! And the color was nice and springy (I bought this on my husband's birthday...in December). And it was on sale. So, yeah. In the end, I think that the pattern and yarn worked very, very nicely together.

Plus, the color of the yarn complements my favorite dress, which has embroidery of that exact shade of green in it. And, when folded in half, the shawl is the perfect size for me to wear, measuring a little over 5 feet in diameter, or just long enough to reach my hands and cover my whole back.



I love how it looks worn. And it's warm without being at all stuffy or sweaty. I should know -- I wore it last night :)

Of course, the specs:

Pattern: Rona Lace Shawl by Anna Marie Jensen, distributed by Knit Picks
Yarn: Misti Alpaca laceweight, colorway Maize
Needles: Boye Needlemaster size 5
Crochet hook: Susan Bates size H (the pattern didn't specify, so I just picked the size that seemed closest to the size of the needles)
Notes: There are apparently mistakes in the pattern, but I didn't notice. There is an errata page, and this has been covered on the Lace Shawl KAL blog.

Because I just can't get enough, here are some detail shots:






It certainly looks nice blocked (though I couldn't, for the life of me, pin it into a nice circle, and I ruined the peaks on the edges), but it didn't look TOO bad before blocking, either, though a bit too ruffly:



And speaking of things blooming, my husband and I had a lovely date last weekend at the Chicago Botanical Gardens.





Beautiful, no?

And here's my handsome husband:

A conversation with my husband

Husband: So what round are you on with your shawl?

Dove: 135 of 153.

Husband: If you were dyslexic, you'd be done by now.

(I'm actually now on round 148! I am so, so close! Of course, the shawl in question is still Rona, my beloved.)

Finished shawl!

I'm sure y'all have been awaiting the nice pictures of my finished and fixed shawl with bated breaths.

Well, it's been in my freezer to kill off any potential moth larvae, but it's come out for 24 hours before being stuffed back in, so I decided it was high time for a photo opp.

Hanging on the fence (it's not pinned or anything, it's just resting on the woodgrain!):



Hanging on another part of the fence:



A detail:



Specs:

Pattern: Fir Cone Lace Shawl
Yarn: Knitpicks Shadow in Grape Jelly
Needles: Boye Needlemaster size 6
Finished size:pretty darn big -- 36 inches deep, 64 wide. It covers me from shoulders to butt, and I'm 5'8"
Time to complete: About 4 weeks of knitting, 6 months of being stumped, and a night and a morning of fixing
Lessons learned: Triangular shawls are knit so that what you knit as side edges actually form the top edge of the shawl. I also kinda learned darning. And getting rid of moths.

I am very happy with it now.

In other news, I just started a swatch for the Sweet Mary Jane cardigan, which means I've completed the little satchel that serves as the swatch. I just measured it, and am getting more stitches per inch than necessary, but since it's lace...it might just be due to how I stretched it. So I'm forging on.



The colors are Lost Lake and the leftover Grape Jelly (both Knitpicks Shadow). As you can see, I didn't turn my work inside out after being done with the top lacy part, so when the satchel is actually beribboned and filled, its top will hang inside out. Oops. I also need to get ribbon.

Head, meet desk

I am the stupidest knitter to ever pick up needles.

Well, maybe not that bad, but I am a knitter who had NO previous knowledge of how to construct a triangular knitting shawl.

See, it turns out that the side stitches form the TOP of the shawl, not the SIDES of it. The sides are formed by the last row, which is "bound off" by working an edging around it.

That would be why the shawl refused to stretch the way I tried to make it stretch. That would explain the weird shape.

I went and dug it out of the trash and pinned it out the right way (which I thought was the wrong way, but whatever way worked was fine by me at that point), and was ever-so-proud of myself when someone in Livejournal's knitting community told me that, duh, I got my sides mixed up.

Hence, my head got very intimately acquainted with my desk.

Anyway, here is the blocking shawl with the hole still in it:



And here is the hole after darning:



Overall, I do really like the shawl. I just hope I caught all the loose ends around the holes and tied them off, because, well, it'll come apart if I didn't. I'm also freezing my yarn, in case I have moths (eek!).

But, I am happy. The shawl is big and soft and light and fits beautifully. I'll have to post nice pictures of it soon.

FO: Mom's lace scarf

I finished and blocked it last night!

Whole thing, draped over that damn chair on my porch:



And a detail shot:



Yarn: Knitpicks Shadow in Jewels
Needles: US size 6
Pattern: Thistle Leaf Lace pattern from Barbara Walker's 2nd Treasury, with garter stitch borders
Start date: April 29th, 2006
Finish date: May 4th, 2006

This was my first completed project in lace-weight yarn, and my first experience blocking lace. It's also the gift for my mom for Mother's Day, and it's ready to be shipped on Monday!

In other news, I've gotten alot of progress done on the shawl, which now measures 2 ft down the center line. I want it to be just short of 3 ft, and then I'll cast off and do the border. I'm guessing that 3 ft down the center means that it'll be about 6 feet in wingspan. We're going out of town tonight, so I'll be in the car for 12 hours this weekend, and guess what's coming with me.

Yarn porn, progress, and an FO (!)

Today was Christmas, people. The mail carrier showed up with 5 packages! Four were the Husband's Amazon book orders, and the last -- and biggest -- was my Knitpicks yarn!

This is what it looked like:



The brown stuff was 15 balls of Main Line, and the rest was sock yarn:


On the left: two balls of Essential in Navy, with two balls of Simple Stripes Snapdragon to make Fair Isle socks from KnitPicks. Then come two balls of Essential in Grass. Two balls of Sock Garden in Daffodil, and two skeins of Sock Memories in Grandma. I've never worked with Garden or Memories, but they feel so soft. Main Line feels quite wonderful, too, and I hope it gives nice fabric.

I provided the links for what I'm going to make with this yarn earlier, so I'm not gonna do it again.

Anyway, I've made quite a bit of progress on Trellis:



This is the completed fronts and most of one sleeve. I'm still maintaining central symmetry and reversing cables, and I'm doing the same on the sleeves. It's such a quick knit! Each front took maybe an hour-ninety minutes. Unfortunately, it's coming out a bit small. Blocking will stretch it, and it is a stretchy fabric, but it might not fit my niece. Which is ok, because my brother and his wife have another on the way, and it's a pretty unisex sweater!

Moving on.

I started a lacy scarf for my mom for Mother's Day. That means I need to have the sucker knit, finished, blocked, and sent by next Wednesday. Yes, I'm insane, and yes, I'm looking into other gifts.


It's the thistle leaf pattern from Barbara Walker's Second Treasury. Have I mentioned how much I love that book? I love that book. The yarn is Knitpicks Shadow in Jewels, and I love Shadow yarn.

And finally, sort of a FO:



It's a little baggie/clutch made with my handpainted yarn. It still needs buttons, but it's pretty darn completed otherwise. I didn't count on the seed stitch border to spread out quite so much, but, whatever. The stitch pattern is from the Second Treasury, of course. Basically, it's going to be a little baggie to carry tampons in, so that instead of pulling out tampons and carrying them to the bathroom in hopes that no one sees, I can pull out a cute little bag and carry THAT to the bathroom, and hope that no one stops me to ask, "Did you make this? Lemme see!"

In progress: shawl, baby sweater, and teddy bear

So as not to bore you all with text posts, I'm showing some in-progress pics of my other current projects.

By the way, by "current projects" I mean things already on the hook or needles that I have worked on in the last month, or haven't touched in a while but need to get done ASAP.

First off, I finally decided that the three hanks of KnitPicks Shadow will become a shawl rather than the Sweet Mary Jane cardigan. I love traditional-looking triangular shawls, so I chose the Fir Cone Lace shawl. Here's the progress so far (I cast on Saturday, but messed up and frogged and restarted Sunday. It's going quickly!)



I love Shadow. It's so soft, and the color is very vibrant. It also feels like a pretty sturdy yarn! It's my first shawl, and my first project in lace-weight yarn. It feels funny to use yarn so fine with needles so big (size 6).

Secondly, my mom is going to visit my brother, his wife, and my beautiful baby niece in a couple of weeks, so I'm sending along gifts.

The first is a pullover made in KnitPicks Simple Stripes sock yarn, following this pattern. I started it before Christmas, but then Christmas knitting took precedence and work was halted. It goes fast, though, and the front is almost done, so I should have it finished by the end of the week. By the way, the colorway is Autumn.



Finally, since everyone in my family prefers my knit toys to all my other projects, and since my niece has gotten a kick out of the toys I've made her so far, I'm working on another one. It's the Sleepy Bear in Rabbit Suit from Debbie Bliss's Teddy Bears. I took this to Utah with me and managed to knit all the parts.

In case you're wondering what a knit teddy bear looks like before assembly, here ya go:



As you can see, I still have alot of work to do. And I hate seaming. Hopefully it comes out cute enough to make it all worthwhile!

The yarn I used for it was Caron Simply Soft (the pink for the suit) and Bernat Satin (the bear's body).

I am also almost done with the second Thuja. I need to stop and unravel the scarf to have enough yarn to finish it, though!