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 :)