Xmas Stash

Dear blog,

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone is having a good time, and got all their essential x-mass projects finished in time this year. Naturally I've been super busy visiting with my family and friends. I haven't seen any of them since January last year, so pretty much every waking moment has been spent trying to catch up. Nevertheless, knitting has still been progressing. I finished 1 whole skien on the surprise project and am about halfway done with my rosebud hat (coincidently, the first thing I've knit for myself since May.)

But thats a story for later posts. Today I want to talk about my haul.

Now, Christmas isn't about getting stuff, but I always seem to come out of the bargin with new stash, and that's not something I'm likely to complain about. Some of it I bought for myself - like the shelter I ordered a few months back - and some of it is gifts. Check it out :

First up, two skeins of brooklyn tweeds LOFT, one purple, one yellow. I've only knit a tiny little swatch, but I LOVE IT TO DEATH. It's wooly and springy and thick. It has more crunchiness and weight than other wools I've tried, and it somehow seems heavier despite being fingering weight and very fragile. Probably the only complaint about it is that it breaks if you so much as look at it the wrong way, but it's something I can definitely live with. The green on top is Classic Elite Yarns' LUSH. It's 50% angora and super squishy. It's an obnoxious spring green color that I think will be a nice change from my usual dark winter reds and blues ^__^ I'm thinking probably mittens or a smallish cowl is in this singles' future

Here's more loveliness. The Shelter is one of two skeins - I'm knitting the other up as a rosebud hat. For a yarn review, Ditto the LOFT yarn. The Manos... Never knit with it before. It's really soft and has an interesting texture that I'm dying to knit up in plain stockinette, probably with a garter boarder. The brown will probably be knit in stripes with the Manos. I've been a fan of ultra alpaca for awhile, and it can keep up with the Manos in the softness department while also being a little bit more firm and solid.

Lastly, these turbo lace circs in US1. I've heard rave reviews about these and can't wait to see how they hold up in comparisons to the knitpicks ones I've been using (supposedly they are nicer). I'm hoping to do socks and mitts and thing on them using the magic loop method.

Anyways. Thats my longish Christmas post, hopefully my next one will be an FO followed by more explicatives about gauge.

TTFN

THEO

Christmas Tree

Dear blog,

I've been feeling a little sick lately, and it's had rather unfortunate effects on my gauge. There's a noticeable place in my sock where my gauge suddenly looseness up significantly, so I've stopped knitting it until I feel better. Such a shame since I'm only an inch of foot and a toe away from finishing the first sock. I really want to be able to knit the bulk of the second sock on the plane when I go home for christmas.

In the meantime I give you WIP photos and a random Christmas Tree :

Until Next,

Cheers

FO : Swallowtail

Hey blog!

I really didn't think I'd make it. I've spent the last two weeks or so dreading finishing this, convinced that I was going to run out of yarn just at the bind-off row or something...

Which turned out to be a completely needless fear. Bound off last night and wove in all the ends!

This is my second time knitting the swallowtail, and I admit my first thought has been that this pattern is way harder to knit than I remember. I've had so much trouble dropping yarn overs, knitting them into the nupps, and (my least favorite ) missing a stitch in the p5tog's. But then I took a look at my old swallowtail on ravelry and remembered that it took me over a year to knit it and that I ripped it back and cast it on a grand total of three times. So the moral here is that I tend to romanticize my past knitting experiences.

I made a lot of mistakes in this Shawl that I simply didn't have the heart to correct. They aren't huge or anything, and it's unlikely they'd be noticed without a person being told to look for them. Of course, a knitter's critical eye would notice the variation in the pattern, but again, it's not horrible. I had 5-7 rows where my last 3 stitches consistently did not match up with the chart even though the rest of the shawl was fine, and I was constantly endding up with too few or too many stitches. I'm not sure how but eventually everything just worked out.

Pattern: Swallowtail

Yarn: Jojoland Cashmere (2 ply)

Needles : US4

Cast on : October 8

Bind off : November 12

A Loft Shelter

I interrupt your regular knitting post with a special stash Edition.

As you may know, brooklyntweed recently relased a new yarn collection: Loft

I have always wanted to try out his Shelter yarn, but I could never bring myself to do it. It's kind of expensive (You know, for a college student. Which I'm not anymore ),

and I always feel silly ordering a single skien of anything on-line, and I certainly didn't want to commit to any huge project, so I always just sort of let the desire sit there in the back of my mind.

Meanwhile, my sister innocently suggested that we should try to do the butterfly mitts as a private knit-a-long while I'm visiting during Christmas break, and I've been wracking my brain for a suitable fingering weight yarn.

As if in answer to my question, Loft was released the beginning of this month. I took it as a sign from god and ordered 1 skien each of the colors plume and hayloft for my mitts, and then I ordered two skeins of thistle In Shelter to knit a matching hat. I hope the Thistle and Plume colors are close enough for them to resemble a set, since the new colors (i.e Plume ) are not available in the worsted weigh yarn. (Yet.)

I know the obvious solution would have been to just knit the mitts with the thistle, but I'm convinced it would have highlighted the wrong colors in the hayloft and thrown off the whole look I'm going for so..... Yeup. I don't have to be logical. Deal with it.

Anyway, I'm really am excited about this yarn, and I want to keep that excitement new and fresh right up until I start swatching and cast on for my project, and for that reason I went ahead and had the yarn shipped to my parents house. That way it'll be there waiting when I arrive, and I wont be tempted to start early. My sister has agreed to inform me when the yarn arrives, and she may even knit a small swatch and send me pictures.... We'll see.

In the meantime, I'm happily knitting away on Chart 4 of swallowtail. (Thats a lie. I've seriously done something wrong and am missing 3 stitches and cant figure out where they went. But I'm sure it'll be really obvious next time I pull it out.)

I also haven't touched the vampire boyfriend socks this week, mostly because I've been sick and super stressed out with school. But I have a four-day weekend coming up due to Veterans day, so I'm sure I'll make a dent in the knitting then :)

WIP Weak

Hey blog,

I"m still working on my two main projects: Swallow tail, and the Vampire boyfriend sock. Knitting is a little slow because lately I've been sleeping through my lunch breaks rather than knitting during them, and you'd be surprised what a dent that puts in my progress!

Anyway, I thought you deserved some WIP pictures :

The Vampire Boyfriend socks:

Almost done with the main part of the leg and ready to start on the heel-flap. I must say I'm getting an indecent amount of entertainment from all these cables!

And the color is all-wrong in this washed-out photo. Trust me. It's a deeply manly shade of green in real life :)

Swallowtail :

I'm one row from finishing chart 3 A &B, and let me tell you, these nupps ( I love nupps) slow down the whole knitting thing considerably. I don't remember them being this cumbersome before, especially on the WS rows when I'm doing P5tog. UGhh. It's so hard not to accidently get the YO's in there too.

But I love the pattern, I know the Nupps will be worth it in the end, and oh yeah, It's Cashmere so there :P

Anyway, I'm off to go do HW/Read a good book/Knit some thing. I'll let you know how that goes.

FO : Phoenix Shawl

Dear blog,

I have been holding out on this post, hoping to snag some better FO pictures. But I realize it's already been nearly a month since I finished the Phoenix shawl, and I'm inching towards the half-way point on my next project, so here it is :

Pheonix Shawl

Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy, color 'Raspberry Blaze"

Cast on US6, knit the lace using US8 and then back to the 6's for the stockinette portion.

Cast On Sep 14 and Cast off Oct 3rd.

This project was super easy. Smooth sailing, no mistakes to speak of, Gorgeous, fun, rhythmic. Hmm. It got considerably bigger after blocking, I LOVE the way the yarn knit up and it drapes beautifully. It's going to be awfully hard to give away. It's so tempting to just keep it, which is definitely proof of a job well done. Don't be surprised if you see me re-visiting this pattern in the future.

Really wish I could have gotten better pictures because these really pale in comparison to the real thing.

My Boyfriend Sucks

Dear blog.

On friday morning I cast on a pair of socks. The pattern : My Vampire Boyfriend. I've had my eye on this pattern for a while. I love cables, I'm learning to love socks, and I adore Vampires. I'm re-watching Buffy again (I know, I know. ) And I really wanted to cast these on and knit them while watching it, as an obvious tribute to Spike. However, there is a second Vamp I'd like to dedicate them to: Being Human's Mitchell.

The socks are green in his honor.

He does classic dark and moody with style. <3

When I first cast these on, I was a little afraid that they'd be a bit too fiddly for me. I love cables, but I'm not a complete fan of the DPN's as of yet, especially the tiny size 0's I'm using. But Within hours I was hooked, and now that I've finished (and blocked) the Phoenix Shawl and have cast on another Swallowtail.... It's going to be hard to pull myself away from these, that's all I'm saying.

With a bit of luck and good weather, I should have FO photos of the Phoenix before the weekend is out. Until then, Cheers ^__~

A piece of cake

Or I should say, a clever deception. A present from Sixer came in the mail today. She had me throughly convinced that she was sending me cake mix for my birthday, so imagine my surprise and delight when this came in the mail!

They say it's necessary to have a swift in order to use these things.......

And when the instructions say "don't try to do it yourself, get a friend to help if you don't have one" it's probably safe to assume that they know what their talking about, and deciding to 'see if you can figure it out' as something to 'keep my hands busy' while making appointments on the phone is probably not the best of ideas. But whatever. No matter the method or the duration, what matters is the end product:

I've always been kind of envious of everyone else's pretty yarn cakes, looks like I'm one of the cool kids now XD

A String Fling

Dear blog,

I was wandering around michaels crafts store yesterday, drooling over all the halloween craft stuff and, more importantly, picking up some extra yarn to finish up my Ravenclaw scarf, when I noticed the bins of Sugar N Cream. I must admit, they caught my eye. Their so small and dainty, and they have the most delightful selection of colors. I was tempted, and even though I knew I had no interest in completing a project with them (I've never liked them much, on a whole ), even though I knew I couldn't commit even to a scarf or a small hat, I bought some. After all, I thought, what's the harm in some innocent fun, right? And then, because I was also eyeing a certain crochet pattern book, Tabby bought that for me as a birthday present, and now, what am I supposed to do with myself?

I'm not actually committing to anything from this book yet - I still have to finish all these lace shawls I'm working on, but there are only three patterns in here that I hate. All the others I can see myself crocheting, and there are one or two that I want to drop everything for and start RIGHT NOW. So in preparation, I'm re-learning the basic stitches. I'm finding the hardest part right now to be keeping my tension the same for each row. ^^;; And of course, I'm getting no end of pleasure from the fact that it's not knitting, and it's not red.

In other news. Only two rows to the end of the main lace chart for the Peacock shawl, after that it's just rows of mostly plain knitting.

Raising from the ashes

Dear blog,

I recently cast on for the peacock shawlette, and that's going well for now. No I haven't finished the sunshine shawl yet, there's been a snag with the lace edging that has set me back, and frankly I'm not even sure what I did wrong, much less how to fix it.

Knitting in general has moved to the back burner recently, I had a huge test this past week, and I've just been studying like crazy. I feel like I'm already behind on the new unit and we just started it!

definitely starting to feel the edges of panic over all this deadline knitting too. Starting to have dreams about hats and gloves!

On a more upbeat note, went to the northern california renfair this week. It was awesome, of course. Got a huge kick out of seeing Royale hare there, with all their roving and spinning wheels and everything. Looking forward to the day when I have space to keep a spinning wheel in!

Cheers

Theo

A little spin at the fair

In order to distract from the fact that I remain 6 rows away from the end of the sunshine shawl, I'd like to show you this :

They had a county fair this weekend, and Friday was free admittance for Military types so I Went with a bunch of friends ^^;; All I was really looking for was some fresh squeezed lemonade and funnel cake, but what I got was a whole room full of women on spinning wheels (not pictured) with a bunch of hand-spun yarn and hand-spun knitted garments. It was amazing, and across from that room was the natural dyes garden. Made my day.

Anyways, there's a spinning workshop this weekend, and I think I might go. So, fingers crossed.

Cheers

Wishful WIPS 2

Dear Blog,

My next pattern is a pair of color work mittens, but before I get into that, I feel like I should explain a little. My last run-in with color work knitting was with the Rose mittens. It's a really cute pattern that I loved to death, and when I started it everything was great: my gauge was on-spot, it wasn't tedious like I'd feared... but halfway through the glove my gauge changed drastically. So much so that I couldn't fit the glove on, and I've been a little skittish around color work projects ever since. But this pattern? This one would be worth it :

Flutter Butterfly mittens by Mimi Hill. These things are so perfect...so awesome... I must admit I feel a little dizzy when I look at them. And I imagine myself knitting them in so many different color combinations......

I know they'd be the perfect motivation to give color-knitting another go, I love a good challenge, and can you imagine wearing something that spiffy around town? A knitter couldn't hope for a more fashionable accessory ^__^

Dream in mailbox

Dear blog,

Guess what came in the mail for me Monday morning?

This beautiful sock yarn was shipped to me from simplysockyarn and it is SOO delicious! The color is something you have to see in person to believe, and it's so soft and squishy! I can not wait to start knitting this. It's taking all of my willpower to make myself continue knitting on the sunshine shawl instead of casting on something new!

It's Dream in Color Smooshy, the colorway is Raspberry Blaze, and OMG. What a treat. It's destined to be knit up as the peacock shawl, and Boy am I looking forward to it.

Next post will be another Wishful WIP. There are so many sock patterns I want to try out that even I don't know which one I'll blog about next ^__^

A cloud in my blue sky

Dear Blog,

In an attempt to speed up the knitting process, I've been taking the sunshine shawl to class with me. I knit on it during my ten minute breaks, and during my lunch break. Managed to finish chart D and this past week I finished the first row of chart E, only to discover that I was missing a stitch.

My row needs to end with 3 knit stitches and a YO, but I only have 2 stitches. Where is my other stitch? I've looked over the row for extra decreases, double checked that I knit 5 and not 6 in various places in the chart... but with upwards 600+stitches in one row, it really is like looking for a needle in a hay stack. Whats more, there is no guarantee that the mistake is in this row. The previous row was K1 YO around, I could have just as easily skipped a YO there. So what do I do? The perfectionist in me wants to completely tink back and start over..... but the practical side of me says I shouldn't work backwards unless I can actually find the place where the mistake is. If this were a normal project I would just increase a stitch and keep going as if nothing had happened, but lace isn't always as forgiving...... What should I do?

Wishful WIPS

Dear Blog,

Welcome to a new line of mini-posts designed to hide the fact that I don't have much actual knitting news to report. This new series 'Wishful WIPS' will feature a new pattern each week that I wish I was knitting, and why. I'm gonna start off with a few socks, mittens, and hats, before switching it up to some truly fantasy level projects like shawls, sweaters, and blankets. That way I can pretend that my knitting is cooler than it actually is.

The first pattern is new, designed by one of my favorite knitters Glenna. C :

Kaywinnit!

These socks are so cute! The perfect combination of dainty and practical, with a pretty easy stitch pattern. In my mind, I imagine knitting these up in a fun variegated yarn, possibly a yellow-pink, pink-blue, or pink/yellow/orange combination.

I think those colors match pefectly the personality of Kaylee, the character that inspired this pattern. There's nothing more fun (or geekier) than fire-fly inspired foot-ware. Let's set that on fire! ^_-

August update

Dear blog,

What's on the needles right now?

I'm still working on the sunshine shawl, and by that I mean that I haven't touched it since my last post. I love the pattern, but all I have is a PDF version, and a combination of me desperately avoiding the internet during the week, and hating the school laptop have definitely slowed the process down. My goal for this week is to find a printer.

Also, I realize I'm running out of time, especially if I'm still delusional enough to think I can finish this and two other lace projects by Christmas. Just to confirm my insanity I went ahead and ordered the yarn for shawl number two today. In my head I'll be knitting the Peacock Shawlette, in the near future.

I have managed to produce a new FO, however. Picture pending, it's the Eyelet and feather socks from the book sock yarn one-skien wonders. I'm actually starting to really love knitting socks, in fact I've already got my eye on a potential next pattern, but one thing I didn't love so much about this sock was the yarn. Patons stretch sock. ugg. It's stretchy and stringy and it feels more like knitting with thin rope then with yarn. Not at all a pleasant experience. So as far as Patons sock yarn goes, my advice is to stick to kroy. It's soft and yummy ^^;; The one good thing I can say about stretch is that there was no pooling and the two socks almost match up perfectly stripe-wise.

I'll edit this post later to include a picture, when I find the time.

Also, just for kicks, I'm knitting a Ravenclaw house scarf. I'm sort of tossing around halloween ideas for this year, and I haven't really decided how committed I am to the costume thing, so I'm knitting this up 'just in case' I don't get around to doing something cooler.

Sunshine Chart C

Dear Blog,

Progress continues.

Sunshine

Dear blog,

Do you know that feeling where you want something really bad, and you can't stop thinking about it, and then once you get it it turns out to be not-that-great? That is not what knitting the Girasole shawl is like at all.

I've been waiting to knit this pattern for years, literally. It went into my queue mere hours after it was published on ravelry and I've been drooling over it ever since, and last week I finally cast on. It was wonderful. I've got four skeins of Malabrigo lace weight in exactly the color I'd always imagined knitting in my dreams and knitting has been.... amazing, and wonderful. Soothing, relaxing, and totally enticing.

For lace knitters, the most intimidating part of the project is how each row gets incrementally bigger, each step has increasingly more stitches, the end seems like it will never come. But with this project, each row, each yarn over, makes me smile. Instead of being daunted, the growing size inspires me. I love knitting it so much that instead of a doomed since that I'll never ever cast off this project, I feel confident that I will be knitting this shawl for a long time. And I am going to savor every moment of it.

Eyelet sock

Dear blog.

These past two weeks have been really busy. Class went from being snore-worthy with HW I could do in my sleep, to challenging over night, so the leap-of-faith sweater hasn't gotten much play yet. Don't worry, I don't quit that easy!

What has been seeing a lot of action is the eyelet sock

Mainly because it's portable and simple, and I can knit it in class/during my lunch break. This photo is actually pretty old, in real life I'm just about done with the gusset on this thing! ^__^;;

And the best news? I finally got my yellow malabrigo laceweight! look forward to casting that on in the near future :)

Leap of faith

Dear blog,

I am about to take a giant leap of faith. My knitpicks order came in the mail - 900 yards of Wool of the Andes in the 'Winter Night' colorway, destined to become The sideway spencer sweater. I have to admit, I do not have good feelings about this sweater. I purchased the pattern ages ago, and it has sat pretty close to the top of my queue ever since. From a process knitter's perspective, it's perfect: It's full of wonderful, interesting cables, and it's knit sideways! What could be cooler? But the product knitter inside me looks at ravelry and sees how every single project is a completely different shape and size, which means I have no-way to predict what mine will look like finished. Plus, it's a cropped sweater, and those only flatter certain body types. Not to mention the bunchy bulky HORIZONTAL cables..... So yeah, I'm not convinced that even if I did everything totally right and this sweater came out perfect and in my size that I would actually wear it.

With all that said. I still really want to knit this pattern. And trust me, I've spent three days on ravelry with cold feet, looking at every other possible sweater I could knit instead. I still come back to this one. Which brings us to the real problems.

Gauge. Oh Gauge, why do you hate me so? This sweater is supposed to be knit on US8 needles with a gauge of 4sts =1 inch. I knit my swatch on US4 needles and am obtaining that gauge only in my imagination. (Depending on where on the swatch I measure, I get 5 sts or 4 1/2 sts. ) I tell myself that I have a 32 inch bust, and that surely by knitting the size 28 It'll more than make up for my loose gauge, right?

I'm doing the ribbing on the cuff on US2 needles, and it just doesn't feel right. It feels.....lacy and droopy.

The other problem is the pattern itself.... I'm used to knitting patterns that hold your hand for every single step, and while this pattern is well written, it says things like "Increase 6 sts evenly in this row." Without spelling out exactly how and where. I mean, I'm a smart person and I can figure out it, but it does not give me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. I especially don't like the part in the sleeve instructions where it says : "Begin with stitch 14, work 1 row of cable pattern across all stitches ending with stitch 13." I'm not sure, but I think these numbers refer to places in the cable chart.....but why not just start with the beginning of the chart? And the chart itself says that it's a repeat of 18 stitches + 8, but I can't find any reference to where those extra 8 stitches come in. There are also increases that happen... and all the pattern says is to include the new stitches into the cable pattern, without explaining how to do that. I'm sure a more experienced knitter doesn't need these kinds of prompts, but I do! I get a sick feeling in my gut every time I look at these instructions, but I'm casting on anyway. What's the worst that can happen?

Keep your eyes focused here. This is going to be an epic WIP.

FO Triple threat!

Dear blog, The last month sort of went by in a whirlwind. All sorts of crazy stuff going on what with class starting and me moving rooms, and it all boils down to me finishing three epic projects without having the time or the sense to blog about them. So here we go!

FO: Evangeline

Yay! I love this pattern. Easy to knit, fun to wear, who could say no?

Knit with loops & threads impeccable (my current acrylic of choice ) and while ravelry doesn't know what size needles I used, I'm guessing it was probably US7's. Those are the DPNS that get the most use from me! (tho now that I think about it, it could easily have been the US3s, my 2nd most used set... This is why we document things as they happen ppl...)

I knit the first glove during smart start, and found out that one of my teachers also knits! She came to class wearing several different lovely lace scarfs :) She said the pattern looked really similar to Bella's mitts. Guess if you've seen one cable you've seen them all...

FO : Onerva

Mmmmh. I love this scarf! I only wish I had my personal photographer here to take nicer pictures ;)

Knit on US5 circulars in malabrigo laceweight, this thing is the softest dreamiest thing I've ever knit. I was afraid I'd run out of yarn at the end, and so I did a simple stretchy bind off.... It curls and I'm not the biggest fan. But it's not bad enough to ruin the overall awesomeness.

FO : Pretty Puffs Slouch

So I went absolutely crazy one sunday.... No yarn, no projects... no yarn.... Stubornly refusing the 2 socks worth of sock yarn in my drawer.... no yarn. Is there seriously no yarn? That's when I stumbled upon my back-up skien of impeccable worsted. The one I bought *just incase* I ran out while knitting Evangeline. I realized I had failed miserably in all of my previous attempts to crochet anything, and that I had a whole day ahead of me with nothing to do..... And that's how I got this hat. It only took a day to crochet, but it's taken me years to leap off of the granny-square edge.

So yeah. Wow. Loads of FO's. Hoping I'll be able to bring some WIPS to my next post. I'm expecting a Knitpicks order in the mail, and yes, the sock yarn and I are having a dialogue. But that's a story for another day.

Until then

Cheers

FO : Mystery Starghan

Dear blog,

I feel like it's been ages since I've had a decent FO post, so here's my attempt.

The knitted starghan pattern is delightful in many ways; simple, easy to follow, and brilliant. I love that you can knit in a circle and end up with a star-shape. That, to me, is awesome.

I managed to cram all these stitches onto a teeny tiny circular needle. I bought four skeins to do the stripes, but ended up only using half of each color (So there's another stripy pattern in my future.)

The blanket is miles and miles of knitting, with only a token scattering of yarn overs and decreases so it did get a little mind-numbing in places. But after all, that's what Buffy is for ^__^

In other news ; Onerva is going at a steady pace, Evangeline is nearly done, and I placed a knitpicks order today for a sweaters worth of dark blue yarn ^^;;

Peace out.

Starts and fits

Hey blog,

Yesterday I mailed the mystery project, so it's off on it's own little adventure now.

I've been knitting on Evangeline, already raced past the halfway point despite the mental block on knitting without a cable needle.

It's so pretty ^^:;

Started season three of medium. Wow. Totally forgot how awesome this show is. lol.

anyway, figured I'd go back to knitting on onerva today and save the cables for knitting during class breaks :)

Stardom

Hey blog, no photos today. Just popped in to acknowledge the near-completion of the mystery project. I achieved a new rank in my skills as a knitter while finishing this project, as I was able to knit the last 6 rows and bind off in pattern while simultaneously finishing a book on my kindle ^__^

I also cast on a new project last week or so, Evangeline. It's my second go at the pattern and I started it mostly to fulfill my need for cable knitting admits all the lacy yarn-overs and garter stitch of my other two projects. I taught myself how to cable without a cable needle during my last cable pattern, but alas, this is a skill that is not like riding a bike, as I discovered when I tried to work out how to do it again for this pattern.

I'll have to dig through the net for a good refresher course I suppose.

Until next,

Theo

Knit Picks fatality.

Hello Blog,

I've been knitting steadily on the big Mystery Project this past week when this happened:

I love knitpick's needles and I use them extensively, so I'm surprised and distressed that this should happen. For now everything is OK, I stuck the two pieces back together and so far they've stayed that way. I'm just a little sad and concerened that it'll eventually happen again, then there will be dropped stitches and cursing and I'll probably have to replace it.

The good news in all this of course, is that the project is going pretty fast. I'm knitting through Buffy again - taking it a bit slower than my last marathon - I've also still got four or five seasons of medium to watch, but I'm saving that to finish Onerva with.

I've also got a new project planned, yarn bought and everything, which I'm hoping to start sometime next week!

Until later,

Cheers

Onerva

One of the lace patterns that have been in my queue for a long time is the onerva shawl. It's so simple and elegant, and I knew the moment I saw it that I wanted to knit it in a soft gray color. Recently visited my new LYS and picked up some Malabrigo laceweight. Oh, my, is it soft. Compared to Knitpicks pallette, and knitpicks gloss lace, which I knit my previous shawls with, this yarn is like butter, or bunny fur, or clouds. It's sooo nice. Mmmm. I'm in love with it. It's hard for me to make progress on my shawl because I keep petting it rather than knitting.

I am finding this pattern to be unreasonably difficult to knit, however. It is not written in english, but since the majority of it is just a lace chart, I figured that wouldn't really be an issue. But for some reason this chart has confused the ever living daylights out of me. With a lot of help from the notes of other wonderful knitters, I feel that I've sort of kind of got the hang of it now, but for the first 40 or so rows I was totally knitting blind.

Now that I've got a hang of the pattern I feel that I should be able to finish it pretty quickly :)

FO: Boot Camp and Waiting Scarf

Tada!

Here it is, my home-baked super long scarf ^__^

I loooove the colors of the scarf, I can't wait until I encounter some cold weather worthy of wearing it, but I suspect it's going to be a while because it's really nice here :)

As I've already said, started this project to de-stress on my way to boot camp, and finished it here in monterey as I was settling in at my new school ^^;;

Spoiler alert; This past weekend I totally visited my new LYS ;P

Boot Camp and Waiting Scarf

Hey blog!

Just wanted to pop in and give you a little update. I just recently graduated from Navy Boot camp, and got my first bit of knitting back. It's the boot camp and waiting scarf that I started the night before I shipped out and that I knit all the way to the inproccessing building at Great Lakes. It's knit in some super cushy acrylic yarn (probably my favorite acrylic brand right now ) Loops and Threads impeccable Ombre ^_^ No idea what size needles I'm using - generic circulars in case boot camp made me throw them out. They didn't even see me put them in the 'send home' box. ;)

Started with a square of garter stitch and then invented a little pattern based on threes.

Garter square

3 rows stockinette
3 three rows of garter and stockinette

square of garter

3 rows stockinette

three squares of seed stitch in between squares of garter

repeat.

I'm 2/3s of the way done. Aiming to do (of course) three repeats of the pattern.

My other yarn and needles are in the mail. I should be picking up my cables and lace scarf and starting a new pair of socks within the next week or too. Also hopefully there will be a camera somewhere along the way and we can get caught up on pictures.

Until then, stay chill :)
THEO