Spring Shawl

We’re still a few weeks away from spring, but this yarn has me thinking thoughts of flowers, grass, and walks outside. I’ve made the hitchhiker shawl a couple of times, and decided to try another pattern in the series. Magrathea by Martina Behm is an asymmetrical shawl like Hitchhiker, but has a lacy edge. The pattern is pretty easy to follow, but I do have to keep the charts close at hand. 

I'm using some Alpaca Sox yarn I got on sale at my LYS. I've loved this yarn since it arrived at the shop, but couldn't justify getting it. When it was the last skein of this colorway in the sale bin I knew that I needed to give it a good home. I love how the lace gives it a delicate touch and yet there's still lots of straight knitting to show off this gorgeous colorway.

St. Patrick and St. David

My husband and I are both mutts. Our families have been in America long enough that we can trace our ancestry back to several countries in Europe. I'm proudest of my Irish heritage though and he claims the Welsh so March is a month of ancestral pride. I've read that St. Patrick's Day isn't that major of a holiday in Ireland, but in the states it is a huge celebration of Irish heritage. My socks aren't finished, but they're looking good. I'll definitely be wearing these next year to celebrate my Irish side.

St. David's Day is a lesser known holiday here in the states, but from what I can gather is a pretty big day in Wales. The daffodil is a symbol for Wales and is in season in March so many people will wear a daffodil on March 1 in honor of St. David. (They also wear leeks, but I'm not including a leek in my wall hanging.) 

I'm having a lot of fun with this project and it's going significantly faster than I thought it would. I'm already trying to figure out how I'm going to quilt it. I'm leaning towards outlining the flowers and leaves and doing a micro-stippling in the background, but I'm not sure what to do with the dark blue boarders. Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

It's Growing!!!

Blueberry continues to grow. I've already reached the increases! I'm really loving the pattern this verigated yarn is creating, and the lace is still centered.

The Return of the Blueberry

I finished Hermione's second sock!  Yes I still haven't woven in the ends, but that bit won't take long. 

I've finally returned to Blueberry. It was painful, but I knew I wouldn'tlove this   sweater if the lace was off center so I ripped it out. I'm being very careful in the set up and  so far everything is looking good. 

Almost Done

I'm just about finished with the first purple cowl. Thankfully this weekend I finally started feeling better and was able to do some catch-up work on quilting. (I actually have two Farmer's Wife blocks to share on Friday and am half finished with the third step of my guild's mystery quilt. I'm not sharing that one until it's finished though.) All of this quilting meant that the purple cowl didn't get as much love as she needed. 

I'm still two inches away from the end, but my list of Christmas knitting has been focused a bit more so I'm not worried about this. I also had a really pleasant surprise in my e-mail yesterday. I found this great alpaca yarn at the renaissance festival last month and have been searching for the perfect pattern. Yesterday Sweater Babe sent me a link to this month's free pattern, the Deluxe Lace Cowl. I'll need to read the pattern a bit closer to see if I need more yarn, but I'm really excited to cast on the second purple cowl.

Change of Heart Cowl

A few months ago I was listening to a podcast and found out that you can do an advance search on Ravelry for projects that use a certain weight of yarn and how many yards of the yarn you have. This has quickly become my favorite feature on Ravelry. I love being able to find the perfect pattern when I get a luxurious skein of yarn as a gift, or to start a project using yarn from my stash. I love Knitty so I'm sure I must have seen this pattern when it came out in August, but at the time I wasn't looking for a project that used a small amount of fingering yarn so it didn't catch my eye. Last Tuesday I wanted to cast on a Christmas present that night so I searched on Ravelry for a cowl using 400-500 yards of fingering yarn. I'm so glad that I found Change of Heart. 

I'm really surprised by how quickly this thing is flying off my needles. I normally am a fairly slow knitter, but I'm almost half done already. It's a fairly simple project, but I absolutely love the lace and cables that keep me wanting to do one more row to see the pattern grow. I definitely have to recommend this pattern if you're looking for a quick project that will make a great Christmas (or any other holiday) present.

Slow Knitting

This week's progress has been slow. (I suppose that happens when a complicated bag takes over your attention.) I love that every little stitch adds up. There may not be much progress from last week, but the sweater has still grown. Knitting reminds me to keep at the harder things in life. It may not look like much right now, but every little bit adds up to make something beautiful. Sweaters definitely aren't instant gratification, but they're worth the time.

Double Trouble

One of the things I love about blogging is being able to see progress. For me knitting feels like a slow process. I love sitting in the morning with my coffee or at the end of a long day at work and relaxing while I play with my yarn. I focus on each stitch and row as it comes so I sometimes forget how much I've accomplished. I was about to write that this week has been busy so there's not much progress, but looking back at last week's posting I realized that my sweater has nearly doubled in size this week.

I'm so glad I chose to make both fronts at the same time. I messed up and repeated one of the rows. I didn't discover it until I'd knit three more rows. It's not a major mistake (if you look really closely at this picture you might see it,) but I know that if I was knitting one piece at a time I'd have frogged it. Since I knew the mistake was minor and was the same on both pieces I decided to leave it. I still love my DPNs so I probably won't use this method for socks, but I definitely see using it again for sweater fronts.

Two at a Time!

When I first started knitting socks I tried using the two at a time method. I'm not sure if I chose patterns beyond my skill level, used the wrong sized needle, or just didn't have the experience but my socks were terrible. They had huge ladders up the sides and were way too big. I fell in love with sock knitting after trying DPNs and swore off the two at a time method as not for me. I've decided to give this method another try for the fronts of Blueberry.

I was worried about my fronts matching perfectly and this method ensures that even my mistakes will line up. It's taking some extra concentration from keeping my yarn from twisting, but otherwise everything is going smoothly.

Out of the Black Hole

I can't believe that last week I was complaining about the never ending sweater and this week I'm 3" away from the end. I think last week I'd fallen into one of the knitting black holes where you knit and knit without it growing. Then one day you add one more row and discover your sweater has grown by 6 inches. I'm hoping to finish the back over the long weekend, but I know I have several quilting projects that will take priority. 

I'm debating whether I want to work on the front panels or if should be good and finish dad's Father's Day socks (yes I know Father's Day in the US was June 15th, but he likes me and doesn't wear wool socks in the summer.) 

This weekend I did cast on for the second sock. I got to go see my sister play oboe and english horn for the Cherokee Community Theater's performance of Les Miserables. We had to arrive at least half an hour early to pick up our tickets and it's an hour drive over there so I had some quality sock knitting time. I'm still in awe of how great everything was. I reserved tickets the week they went on sale so we got to sit in the front row right by my sister. I've seen my her perform in band concerts several times, but it's been a while since I've heard her by herself. I still remember the days of learning where she sounded like a dying duck, but that was almost 15 years ago. I couldn't believe how amazing she is. I've heard my dad say that my talent is with quilts and hers is with music and it is so true. Sorry for all the gushing, but I'm so proud of my baby sister and the amazing woman she's become. 

Finding Balance

I've done a lot better this week at finding balance. I've chosen one time of the day that I play the video game and the rest of the time I focus on things like knitting, reading, and quilting. I'm not done with the 6 round increase section, but I have finished 7 of the 12 rounds. I knew when I set the goal of 72 rounds in a week it was a bit lofty so I'm still very happy with the progress made this week.

Yarning Along

I made a mistake. I bought my husband a Nintendo DS for his birthday (really I've come in way under budget on gifts the past few holidays so I took all that savings and spent it on the gaming system.) He loves it and has been playing it a lot. The mistake is I got the Brain Age game. It's really fun, but requires you to log in every day and play to earn these little virtual stamps. Still not seeing the mistake? He's being a nice husband and sharing so I find myself playing video games when I should be knitting. I'm sure in a little while I'll be able to find balance, but right now the sleeve on Blueberry is still rather short. I have gotten past the increases every 4 rounds and have moved into the section where I increase every 6 rounds. Hopefully next week I'll have found balance and will be past the 6 round repeat section, but I won't be too mad at myself if that doesn't happen. There's still a lot of last minute stuff to get finished for the quilt show next month so I know knitting time will be precious.

Blueberry Progress

Still haven't made a choice on the moose buttons. Instead I've been focusing most of my creative time on Blueberry. (Okay so there was a quilt that kind of exploded onto the radar and has eaten up a lot of work time, but yarn has been hoarding my time lately so it's only fair that fabric gets a bit of revenge attention.)

I'm struggling to get a picture that accurately shows this yarn color. These are the best I can get right now, but they still aren't totally accurate. The yarn is more of a warm pacific blue than the blue showing up in pictures. I'll keep trying to get the perfect color shot so don't be surprised if the yarn looks different from week to week.

I'm almost to the sleeve cap. I think in the next day or two I'll finish the first sleeve and start the second one. I'm still using tiny needles, but everything is fitting accurately so I'm guessing gauge is just being weird this time. I've been surprised by how fast this is going. It's really no different than making a big sock. 

Comfort Knitting

This week I've been struck with a nasty virus. I didn't have the mental capacity for the complicated cables the green sweater required so I turned to a bit of comfort knitting. When I began knitting socks were very scary things. I could grasp the concept of how yarn could turn into a scarf and that a sweater was just a bigger scarf. I couldn't figure out how it turned into a tube and the heel was a complete mystery. I decided to trust the pattern. It felt a bit like waving a wand and hoping some magic would occur, but I created a sock. Three years later and socks still hold a bit of magic. However it's now magic I'm familiar with and making a basic sock is like working with an old friend.

Hopefully by the time I finish the second sock the last traces of this bug will be gone and I'll be able to return my attention to the green sweater. 

First Finish of the Marathon

So my marathon of finishes has been interrupted by an unplanned illness. I don't think things will get finished in time to meet my original goal of two weeks, but I'm still chipping away at the pile. I will admit I make a horrible patient. I hate sitting still even when I don't have the energy to do anything. I've been able to focus most of my restlessness into a basic sock (I'll share that on Wednesday.) These gloves were past the complicated cables so I've also been working on them off and on this week.

I started these gloves in December, but have mostly been focusing on my green sweater so they've taken a while to finish. I think if these were my only project they'd finish really fast and will be a great pattern to keep in my repertoire for gift knitting. The pattern is Fingerless Gloves from Lion Brand Yarn. I used Imagination from KnitPicks (sadly they don't make this yarn anymore.) I still have a ball and a little left from these gloves so I'm thinking about making a matching cowl. It's such a beautiful yarn I don't want any of it to go to waste.

Special thanks to my husband for doing today's photography. 

It's really hard to take pictures of your own hands.

Almost done

The green sweater is getting extremely close to being done. I've finished both fronts and just have the back and collar left. I even made a choice on buttons and should be getting them in the mail soon. I'm not sure where to find buttons on the KnitPicks website without doing a search, but when you do a product search there are 8 pages of buttons! I found some cute Scottish Thistle buttons but couldn't justify twenty dollars for buttons when there were 8 pages of options. I ended up going with the moose buttons. I think they'll look really good with the sweater.

I'm hoping I can get this sweater finished in the next week or so. Once it's done I have plans to cast on for Anne's Cardigan. I really want to alter the pattern and knit it as a single piece to the arms like I did on the green sweater. This would mean I wouldn't have to mess with any seams, but I'm not sure how to alter knitting patterns. Do I just knit across the charts and act like they're all combined, or do knitwear designers add a stitch or two at the edges to leave room for seams? These are probably crazy questions considering the sweater I'm just about to finish, but I've never altered knit patterns. Quilt patterns I see as loose suggestions of what to do, but knitting feels like I'm doomed to fail if I go off pattern. I know this is ridiculous and lots of knitters alter patterns all the time, but it still is very scary to contemplate. 

Focusing on the Finish Line

Last week I was happily working along on the green sweater when I saw another blogger posting about the Ravellenic Games. Immediately I wanted to set greeny aside and cast on a new sweater with the lofty hopes of finishing it in two weeks. My husband knows me very well and knows that at the end of the two weeks I'd have another WIP and would be upset with myself for not meeting the impossible goal. He gently reminded me that I have several projects on the verge of being done and questioned if this really was the best time to start a new sweater. As usual he was right and inspired me to set my own goal. In the next two weeks I will focus on finishing everything that is close to being finished. It won't count towards any competitions, but it's still a good goal.

Writer's Block is still patiently waiting for binding. I also got two tops back from my quilter so now there are three quilts that need binding and labels.

In addition to finishing the green sweater I also need to finish the button band on the brown blob (I ordered more yarn when I ordered buttons for greeny.) I need to finish sewing the ribbon onto the steeked part of the purple monster and add buttons. (I also might need to find a solution to loosening the wrists. The color work on the cuffs have made it so that the sleeves aren't comfortable.) The last thing on the list of things to be finished are my fingerless gloves.

These aren't all of my WIPs. (You'll notice the mystery quilt is no where to be seen.) These are just the projects that are one or two steps away from being finished. Last summer my husband helped me wind up my yarn mountain. The light blue yarn in the mountain is going into the fingerless gloves, the yellow yarn became Omelet (I should probably add a photo shoot of Omelet to my list of things to do in the next two weeks.) The brown yarn became a hat I made for my husband for Christmas, which leave the blue yarn at the base of the mountain. When I finish with this list I get to cast the blue yarn on for Anne's Cardigan.

Green Sweater goes Pink

You might be wondering how the green sweater has gone pink. No I haven't dyed it. I got two of my Valentine's Day gifts early and I get to announce them today. I've been struggling to get the Pintrest image to hover over my pictures so linking can be easy. My husband figured out how to add that to the blog, and has added a thing that causes thumbnails of related posts to show up at the bottom of posts. (This one only works when you are in a specific post. If you're on the home page you have to click on the title of the post to see related posts.) After spending a half hour working on those things my husband commented that he felt he was getting off easy and asked if there was anything else I wanted. I suggested he could always get me a sheep.

This blog has been a great motivator this week. On Sunday I had 13 rows left until I reached the armscye. I got it into my head that if I really focused I could finish those rows before today's posting. Last night I had four rows left. I usually don't knit four rows on weeknights. I'm too tired to give the charts the focus they need, but nothing new was on t.v. We found some reruns of one of my favorite shows and I finished the last four rows in the chart! 

The next step involves knitting the left front, back, and right front as separate pieces. The pieces not being worked on get slipped to waste yarn. I always hate slipping things to waste yarn because it's such a hassle to put them back on the needles. When I woke up this morning I remembered that I'm using interchangeable needles. Rather than slipping the stitches not being worked on to waste yarn I can just move my needles to a new cable and leave the current cable in the stitches. Then when I'm ready to pick up those stitches I can put my needle back on the cable and I'm ready to knit the next set of stitches. (This method would also work with fixed circular needles by using a second circular needle.)

*Update: I keep forgetting to include the link to the pattern. Sorry about that. This sweater is KnitPicks Fogarty Creek Blazer. You can get the sweater as an individual pattern of part of the Rocky Shores book. I love all 6 patterns in the book and would recommend spending the extra money to get the book instead of the single pattern. I'll probably be making more items from the collection in the future.

Progress!!!

I finally feel like I'm making progress on this sweater. I'm 15 rows away from the armscye (which apparently is a fancy word for arm hole.) The colored high lighters are a really great motivator. I've set myself the goal of finishing at least one row a day this week. Monday and Tuesday it was only one row, but it's one more row than I had the day before. In March I'm going to an overnight quilt retreat and I'm hoping I might be able to wear this sweater in place of a coat. This might be a bit unrealistic since it assumes I can finish the never ending sweater in a month and that the weather will decide to warm up by March.

Nevertheless the end of this sweater seems to be in sight. I've even started looking for buttons. I want this sweater to be in my wardrobe for at least the next 10 years so I'm avoiding the owls. I think the moose might also be nixed, but beyond that I'm not quite sure. I think I'm going to try and find something with a Celtic design but after looking at KnitPick's site that narrows my search down to about 50 buttons. 

Fogarty Creek Blazer

Highlighters and Sweaters

Today I decided to see just how long this sweater is. The two front sides and back are all knit as one piece up to the armscyces. There are days it feels like I'm not making any progress, but that might have something to do with the fact that my arthritis is still flaring. It's significantly better than last week. Sadly one of the few things that is causing it to act up right now is knitting. At least I can quilt without pain so I have several Mondays worth of posts that I can start sharing.

I have discovered multicolored highlighters are a great way to mark my completed rows. I think this might be a bit like saying I've discovered there's some fun stuff to do in Chicago, but it's something new to me so I'm claiming the discovery. With these long rows I lose track of how many rounds I've done in a day. Frequently because I can't see any progress I feel like I'm not accomplishing anything. By changing the color highlighter I'm using I can see that I finished three rows last night. Right now I just have four highlighters and am changing every day. I want to get a set of highlighters with 7 colors and assign one color to each day of the week. This will let me track my progress from week to week and see how many days during the week I'm not touching this sweater.

I think this might be one of my favorite shots of this sweater. I love how beautiful those cables look. My progress may not be as fast as I wish, but this photo reminds me that progress has definitely been made.