Knitting in the Shadows

And We've Hit the Half-Way Point

It's been a long time coming, but I've finally hit the half-way point on the Dwarrowdelf Curtain.  (yes, I said on the curtain, singular -- which means I'm 1/4 of the way to the pair).

I apologize for the poor photo quality, but I just had to make a record of the end of the first cone of yarn in these curtains. 

I'm a little nervous about this though.  I've not yet measured them, and I have this really unnerving feeling that that curtain up there is not, in fact, half the length of the window into which it's supposed to go.  I really don't want to have to buy another cone.

Meanwhile, The Divine Though Blogless Elizabeth has tempted me into a new project.

She is almost finished with the Solo Tank by Chris Bylsma.  I've been watching, and liking it more by the week, and finally caved to the inevitable.  I'm going to knit one for myself.  And... WEBs actually had suitable yarn on sale.  My new tank will cost me less than $20.00. Score!

As is always the way when a new project is in the offing, I swatched as soon as the yarn arrived.

I'm not as happy with the new phone's camera as with the old phone's camera.  But I'm hoping that I can learn to work with it.

I got lucky -- I got gauge on the first try!  Cast on is immanent.

......

Okay, I caved and measured the curtain... I've got 38" plus hem.  I suspect that hanging will result in some lengthening.  The goal length is 80".  We're going to make it.

Knitting Review - What to Pack

I'm taking a mini road trip.  I'll have plenty of knitting time.

And then, in another ten days, I'm taking a slightly longer road trip.  Again, there will be knitting time (even if it's only in the travel time).

I'm trying a new thing: planning ahead. 

Since knitters know that one of the FIRST things you pack for a trip is your knitting, I thought I'd get a head start and review the bidding now.  Luckily, I've put almost everything knitting related on Ravelry (there are still a few skeins of yarn lurking about that aren't photographed up there, but otherwise....).That means it's easy for me to review what I've got on the needles without relying on memory -- and with out getting out of my chair.

1.  The socks I discussed previously.  They're on US 0's (tiny tiny); I'm forcing myself through the two socks on two needles thing.  It's okay.

2. Sylvia's Mitts.  Alas, I think these will be frogged.  I'm enjoying them.  I love the yarn.  I love the pattern. Alas, the pattern is not showing up very well in the yarn.  My KnitNight buddies have pointed out that it seems like an awful waste of US 0 dpn knitting when you can't see the pretty design once it's done.

Sigh.  It looks mosly okay when it's just sitting there

But when you put them on, the lace kind of disappears

So, I'm debating whether to frog, or soldier on.  If I keep going, these would be good travel knitting as they take up very little space.

3. I've got JoAnn's cover up.  I could likely finish it on the trip.  But it's crazy making, and I'm not sure I then want to haul it around.  (It's a mesh like thing, knit with fingering or smaller weight yarn on size 11 dpns.)  Maybe I'll take it on the mini-trip.  Finishing this would be a great goodness.

4.  Lyonesse.  It's a shrug/cardi thing that I'm designing.  I've finished a sleeve.  I'm stuck, not quite sure what I want to do with the body.  That's why sleeve two is on the needles.  The sleeves are EASY, but I'll wind up in a place where I dont' have the light or paper or brain to do design work, with nothing left bu that... 

Okay -- IF I get my design brain on before the second tirp, that would be a good thing to take.  And... I will have down time that is also alone time on the first trip, in which I could be doing some design work...

5.  Florafil Shrug.  Kind of the reverse of Lyonesse.  On this design, I'm stuck on how to get to the sleeves from the back I've designed, and am still fussing with how I want the body.

6. A pair of mitts for Bookworm that have stalled out -- changed minds all around.

7.  The CURTAINS.  They're no longer a high priority, what with the window film that now covers their destination windows.  They also take up a lot of space in the suitcase.  They're going back to knit night knitting (I will finish them dammit), but aren't up for the travel thing.

And then there's the intended knitting.  A t-shirt sort of thing that I'm to knit with The Divine Though Blogless Elizabeth.  And a huge circular shawl we've planned.  And a possibility of something smaller in the gorgeous silver silk I've been hoarding.

Hmph.

Rut.

I'm in a knitting rut.

Clearly, I need suggestions from the Gallery.  I'll even cast on if I own good yarn for a project.  What shoudl I knit next?  What should I be taking?

Due to the joys of writing ahead, you won't see this until it may be too late to chime in for the first trip... but I'll need your advice more for the second one.

 

A new Home

At the beginning of the year, I did a supplement to my traditional "WIP Roundup" in which I posted a bit about a few projects that had been missed in the first go round.  In that list, I included a potential thing: Either I was going to find a new home for this shawl:

Or I was going to rip it back to the "plain" section and make it larger.  While I agree that Laminaria (the shawl) is lovely.  And it is soft and wonderful (what with having been knit out of cashmere), it was smaller than I like to wear.  I've pondered its fate for a couple of months now.

When I first posted about my dilemma, my lovely aunt Susan asked how big the shawl was.  But life got very complicated for her over the past few months, and I'm not sure she ever got my answer.

I took Laminaria, the extra yarn, the needles, and the pattern with me to Texas this past weekend.  I planned to spend Friday evening ripping cashmere, and then Saturday evening relearning that not so plain pattern that makes the lovely basic ground for the shawl.

Before making any bold moves, however, I thought I'd bring it out for a viewing.

I brought it into Susan's quilting studio (why oh why did I not take any pictures!  It would make you swoon with jealousy), and asked her if she thought it was a comfortable size for her to wear.

She allowed as how it would be just PERFECT for summer in Houston, when you want a little something on your shoulders in the air conditioning.

Voila!

Laminaria has a new home!

And I cast on for something else entirely.

Library Windows

We moved into our house in July 2001.

We put lovely green leather recliners in the Library, across from the lovely fireplace with the green tile.

Ever since then, I've been trying to find window treatments for those windows.  As much as I love the bright sunshine, and the view of my lovely yard, it gets a bit too much in the afternoon when the sun is shining straight in.

I've looked at more curtains that I want to think about.  Finally, I decided to knit curtains for these windows.  And thus began the odyssey that is Dwarrowdelf.

Now, I'm making wonderful progress on these  curtains, but look at those windows again.  We're talking 84" long panels.  In lace. And they're wide too.  Even moving apace, I doubt there will be window coverage until next fall.

Golf Pro, who spends a lot of time in this room, has been very patient.  But as all the other work going on in the house, he began to wish that his space could be put on the list for improvements.  Finally, he asked that window coverings for those windows be next,

 After I got over feeling sorry for myself for having devoted so much time and effort into curtains, I started looking (again).  This time, I found something completely different. (And no, we' are NOT going into a Monty Python Sketch here).

Window fim.  That's different.

It doesn't quite achieve the sun block out goal for the half-round, but I still harbor a fantasy that I'll be able to work out some sort of miracle with the extra bits we have left over.  If that doesn't work, I've got a plan for a half-round curtain to match the Dwarrowdelf Panels.  I'm still thinking that they will work on these windows, even with the cool "stained glass".

If not, well, the dining room windows are the same size ....

We're both very pleased.

I am resisting t

The End of the Test

The other day, I finished up the test knit I was doing for someone else's fingerless mitt design.

The knitting was pretty easy.  The instructions weren't as clear as they could have been, and I shared with the designer some of the issues I found that might have caused problems for "newbie" knitters.

I was reminded a bit of why I so rarely just knit other people's designs... and why I'm usually so very careful to choose a test knit that I think I'll really like.

Now, these mitts are lovely,

But you can see in this phot one of the things that bugs me, personally, about them.  Look there, under the thumb.  There's a bit of bagginess there.  Golf Pro tried them on yesterday -- he found the same bagginess for his hands as well. 

When I design a mitt, I typically avoid this bagginess by actively shaping a gusset.  This designer approached the gusset issue by simply making the hand from wrist to thumb-division big enough to accommodate the widest part of your hand.  It works, don't get me wrong, it's just not as elegant as these mitts could be.

Ordinarily, I'd just up and change things, so that the mitss fit me the way I want them to.  But one can't quite do that for a test knit.  One must knit the mitt as written. 

Yes, it's true, I followed directions. I did what I was told.

Mark that down in your calendars.

Well, maybe not.  These mitts are supposed to be lace all the way around.  I didn't quite follow that instruction, because lace palms were too much for me.  Too much stuff gets caught in them.  You can't knit with lace palms (and yes, I do knit while wearing wrist warmers.  Don't you??).  But at least I hid the variance pretty well...

This exercise is good for me.  It reminds me of ways in which I can make testing a more pleasurable experience for those who test for me.

It also gives me more design ideas.  Of course, life does that sometimes too.

 

And the Pattern Writing Slows to a Crawl

Some time ago, I designed a lovely pair of gauntlets that almost, but did not quite make it into one of the online magazines.  At the time, I was all fired up to do the "icky" part, but since the design wasn't accepted, I blew it off until later.

I had these plans to submit it elsewhere, but have been forced to admit that I will not be getting that done.  Instead, I'm going to publish it on Ravelry, and here, along with my other designs.

Here's a preview:

The hold up?  Testing you ask?  Oh no.

It's the pesky turning of lovely charts into written out words.  In theory, the lovely charting software I'm using will do that for me.  Alas, it doesn't do it very well, and I keep finding errors in it's written pattern.  And even if it were accurate, few of us want to read a pattern that says:

k3, p2, k3, p2, k3, p2, k3, p2, k5, p2, k3, p2, k3, p2

We want to read a pattern that says:

(k3, p2) 4x, k5, p2, (k3, p2) 2x.

And so, I've got to go fixing all the little repeats.

Silly me, I've gone and designed a pattern with lots of litte repeats.  While it makes it easier to knit, it makes it slightly more painful to convert from chart to written words. 

It continues to boggle my mind that it takes four pages of text to provide the same instructions you can put into two charts that fit onto one page.  But so it is.

I'm slogging away,  half way through Chart B in a pattern with four charts of about 32 rounds, and three charts of about 7 rounds.

Once I've gotten that done, I WILL need a tester to make sure that it works in written format (I've already had the charted version well tested).  Any volunteers?

Linda's Lace Cowl - Revisited

A few days ago, I received an email and a Ravelry message from a shop owner who had planned to use my pattern (my pattern!!!) for a knit along at her shop.  While it is true that she posted about that on a forum on Ravelry, it wasn't one that I would be likely to see, and I got no magic pings to alert me.  I would have received the Ravelry message earlier, but I was in the Court House exercising my right (and fulfilling my obligation) as a citizen by serving jury duty.

Anyway, she chose my pattern, and someone bought it through her shop, and ran into a snag.

I'm a little saddened by the way she handled the problem, which included writing me to tell me that though the design was lovely, she didn't think it was ready for publication and really needed a tech editor's services. (And yes, she did provide me with the name of her favorite tech editor).  I wasn't clear on what specifically she thought was wrong, though it seems to have had something to do with the fact the design calls for repeated shifting of the end of round marker.

So.  I printed out the pattern, and rummaged for some yarn.  I figured that since I hadn't laid eyes on the thing for two years, I would probably be able to find glitches in the pattern that I might not have seen when the whole design was solidly in my brain.

Linda's Lace Cowl was originally designed for DK weight yarn. It turns out that I have none that's not in a sweater-sized lot.  So, I grabbed some fingering weight and figured I'd do a double test:  first  to verify that the pattern is not actually littered with errors, and second to see if adding a repeat would be enough to make it work in fingering weight yarn.

The yarn I grabbed does not, in fact, work very well with the pattern. The lovely color shifts in the yarn doen't exactly obscure the lace pattern, but they don't do it any favors.

We will ignore the mess over there on the left, where my tension got wonky and I didn't block it right.

We will instead see what happens when you play with camera settings to see if the thing worked even if the colors don't.  What if we go for sepia tones?

Somehow, the horizontal stripes are more obvious to me here, but the two darker colors (purple and teal) seem to have blended into one "darker" thing.  What about black and white?

A little better.... but I think the cowl itself goes to the frog pond.

Anyway.

Having knit the cowl again, I did find two actual errors -- one in the last round of lace, and one in identifying which round needed the reverse end of round marker shifting.  It was not actually a mess.

However, I do see where a person working with only the words and not the charts might have had some trouble.  Chart readers will go back to the instructions to see if that section that started "NOTE: Please read before knitting" had any tips for the place where it's troubling.  Word readers will assume that you've written all these things right there in line for you.  I didn't duplicate the marker shifting instructions because I was trying to save space.

So.  I've now re-written the word section to include those specific directions.  I've corrected the error in identifying which of the rows had marker shifts.  And I've corrected that lace error in the last line.

And.

I've learned that adding a repeat will, in fact, make this pattern work for fingering weight yarn.

I also had the help of a dear, long-lost-but-found-with-Facebook friend, who agreed to knit it up as a test.

I wish that the yarn store owner had asked for help instead of just telling me the pattern wasn't good enough to publish yet.  But I'm glad that her remarks inspired me to re-knit the cowl and locate the trouble spot.  Either way, the corrected pattern was up on Ravelry within 72 hours of my receiving notice of the problem (it would have been sooner, but I wanted to wait for the test).

 In honor of the Knit-Along that she was originally going to do, I'm giving 20% off on that design (and along with it two other cowl designs) until September 21.

More Progress

It's not just socks that are progressing around here.

I've also been working diligently on the Dwarrowdelf Curtains.   Since progress on such a large panel is hard to see in small increments, I've not been photographing them (well, okay, it, since so far, I've only been working on one of the panels).  But I think I've made enough progress to show them off again.

 

 

This project is another one whose progress is made possible by one of the wonderful people in my life. My beloved mother has brought me some more of the wonderful coned yarn out of which I'm making these curtains. Now, I can make two panels, not just one!  Thank you, Mom!

A wee knitting update

I'm still pining for the Hope Socks, which have gone missing (along with my favorite knitting bag, and a just finished baby hat).

I've been a true slacker on the Woman to Woman afghan (no excuses either).

But I have been working steadily on the Dwarrowdelf Curtains. 

Certain of my knitting buds, who see my slow progress from week to week at Knit Night, have called me nuts to embark on this project.  They doubt my ability to stick to it until I have finished not only one, but two of these panels.

They, in fact, have voiced their suspicions that I'll wind up moving to a new house before I finish these curtains. 

To them I say, "Challenge accepted".

Even if steady knitting does not necessarily mean that you'll see a vast difference between this picture and the last one, I shall knit on.  These rows are pretty long, and even though this is pretty much the only knitting project my hands get to tough, I've yet to complete one vertical repeat of the pattern.  Still, I see progress. And thus, I'm not ready to chuck in the towel.

With luck, my camera battery will have plenty of charge for the next picture.  This week, we make do with the phone's picture (see, it is a good thing to have considered photo quality when choosing a phone).

 

 

The Return of Lace

Once upon a time, I seemed to knit nothing but lace. Lace lace lace.

I loved lace so much, I talked my dear friend into helping me start a Giant Repeating Lace KAL. We called it Seasons of Lace.  And I knit lace and ran the KAL for several years, and it was good.

And there was lots of lace.

  And then there was life. And massage school.

And suddenly, I was buried in way too much to do! It got so bad that lace all but disappeared from my needles.

It's been socks, and the lovely shadow-knitting afghan that I was commissioned to design and knit.

And the current lace project languished, pining for my attention.

As you may recall (well, likely not, since it's been so long .... ) I've gone on a tear, and am adapting Susan Pandorf's Dwarrowdelf Stole pattern for use as curtains. This means I needed to make them a lot WIDER to fit my windows.

So, being the oh-so-professional planner and detail person that I am... I hauled off and knit a top edge, vastly increasing the number of repeats called for by the stole pattern.

And then I looked to see what the ratio of repeats on top edge piece would be to the repeats on the body, and my brain fried a little.

In many ways, it has been simple (ish) math that was getting between me and my lace knitting.

I knew that the repeats on the top edge were 14 rows "wide". I knew that the ends of the top edge included a five row edge. (I spaced for the longest time on the three rows of set up at one end and the four rows of ... well... set down at the other).

I knew that I was getting approximately 7 rows to the inch. I knew that the repeats on the body would be 24 stitches wide. I knew that the ends included a 9 stitch edge on one side and an 18 stitch edge on the other.And... I knew that I was getting approximately 6 stitches to the inch.

Clearly, forgetting those 7 extra rows bollixed me up for a while.

But suddenly, after my brief escape to Oak Park, I made the math work! And here, we see the winding up of the skinny top edge:

It's pushing 44 inches long here. This aftenoon, I knit that five row edge, and bound off.

I'm now in the throes of picking up three hundred and some odd stitches along the edge that runs along the left side in that picture. So much for something to work on where the rows are short and I can feel like real progress happens when I knit for a few minutes.

Dithering ....

I'm almost finished with two projects --

Catkin is in its final rows....and too scrunched on the needles to show off well.

And while Fairy Stars (which I've been working on for what seems like ages), is still on the needles, it's too close to the end to be appropriate for travel knitting, which is what I must plan now.  In fact, it is within the realm of possibility that it will be finished before I leave. (I'd show you, but it's really squished on the needles right now).

So.... I've been poring over my queue trying to decide what to take on my upcoming trip to Scotland.  When I leave home, I'll be gone for two weeks. Think of all that knitting time as I sit forever in airports waiting for my next flight... and then on the plane....  I could finish something on the way! (By the time I get home, I'll have sat through five layovers, and been in the air for about 28 hours).

On the other hand, one wants something that weighs very little, and takes up not much room, but affords hours and hours of knitting time.  Worsted weight takes up tons of room in the suitcase, making it not a good candidate for a carry-on bag.  And now that the airlines want to charge big bucks to let you put baggage in the baggage compartment, one does not want to carry more than one bag under the plane.  I'm pretty sure DH would be unhappy with me if I tried to use up all the space in our one checked bag with yarn.

So, I've been thinking of doing something with one of these yarns(all but one of which are a good thousand yards or more, so I can make a nice big shawl, and thus will not run out of knitting while I'm gone):

Some yummy yarn dyed for me by Alyse.  I really should figure out how many yards are in this 225 g of light fingering weight yarn...

Briar Rose Angel Face - 2500 yards of luscious alpaca (the largest skein in consideration).

 

BB Knits Divinity Lace -- 1320 yards of cashmere, alpaca, silk (possibly for Kamile?)

 
Tanis Fibers Pink Label Lace-weight - 1000 yards of merino

Fleece Artist Suri Blue 1320 total yards of alpaca/wool (in two skeins).

Miss Babs Mulberry Silk - 1250 yards of SILK.

There's also a lovely kit using Just Our Yarns Almaza that I can't seem to find a picture for -- but that one has beads.... and I'm pretty sure that the airlines will not be happy with that sharp little beading hook.

Dither Dither...  Recommendations?  Suggestions....

I will, of course, be taking a pair of socks, and a pair of fingerless mitts (that out of Malabrigo Sock, yumm).  I'm also contemplating something out of a heavier yarn, just to give my wrists a break.

 

 

Kitting! Oh yeah!!

Once upon a time, I started a blog about knitting.  I blogged for years about knitting, and suddenly started going off track and blathering about books and customer service and make up....

But today I'm actually going back to knitting...

Well, I've BEEN knitting... a lot.  But I haven't been posting about it as much.

I've been making a little progress on Catkin...

 

What you see there at the bottom of the picture is an anamoly in my knitting.  There are three stitch markers there... three... in a picture that is close up enough to count the stitches!  I'm queen of minimalism when it comes to stitch marker use, but this pattern is hard enough to see at it's beginning that I'm finding having a marker for every stitch repeat really helpful.  So, what you see there is one repeat marker, and a pair of section markers (one on each side of a "centerline" stitch - though there are several of those).  I'm guessing that once it's established, and thus more visible, I may find that I don't need them anymore, but for now... I'm happy to have a stitch marker stash.

That's the newest project, and thus, inevitably, the most alluring.  But I'm still enjoying Fairy Stars ...

It's getting big enough that it's hard to photograph on the needles.  As it turns out, this is not going to be a small shall, it's going to be somewhere near the huge department.  And I'm changing the shape from triangular to something else whose name I'm not sure of.  I like to think I'm closing in on the place where I will split it in the middle....

...but really, there are two more sections to go.

In the mean time, my best buddy the Roomba..

has been being naughty lately.  It's been hunting string like things.  It bumps the wee side table next to my chair until things fall off it's bottom shelf, and then it gets tangled up in them.  This morning, I had to rescue a sock....

Just look at that mess!   Luckily, I caught it early.  Sometimes it winds up the yarn until it can't move.  Then it complains!  how rude.

Stars -- Splitting?

Ages ago, I started knitting a shawl for a dear friend.  She had chosen my design Stars Over Diamonds (Rav Link), and that meant i got to knit something I knew well.  Other things have slipped in, but I've been working on it fairly steadily (even though the original deadline was removed).

But wait, what's going on up there at the top?

That is where this shawl diverges from the original pattern.  We decided that the triangle shape was not quite right.... in order to make it as wide as she wants it, it was going to wind up going down to her knees, which was not what she wanted.

Redesign happening now.

 

On the benefits of designing gauntlets.

I may or may not have mentioned that I'm designing a pair of lace fingerless gauntlets for Kitty.  She had some pretty stringent specs for them:

1) Long -- Fingerless GAUNTLETS, not Fingerless Mitts.  To the elbow. She'd likely have been happy had I made them go past her elbow, but I didn't to deal with the potential challenges of the elbow.

2) Lace -- but not too lacy.  She's not known for being gentle on things.

3) No wool -- because even though she wanted them long long long -- her hands get really hot.

And I've done it. She says it's perfect. (Phew -- knitting for teenagers is risky.)

While I now have a great plan for gauntlets (or wrist warmers for that matter) that catch the thumb without covering the palm, I also have a completed gauntlet pattern for more standard gauntlets.  I've also got a completed gauntlet to which I made some adjustments to reduce the palm coverage. 

And now... I get to do the first teal test of my pattern myself!  That's the benefit of designing things that come in pairs.  To finish making sure that the design works for both hands, (and to finish the pair for Kitty), I have to/get to test the pattern in a way I don't really get to test other things.

There's a reason I don't test knit very often.  I tend to "fix" mistakes as I knit.  And when I'm knitting my own patterns, I tend to do what I know what's supposed to happen, whether or not I actually wrote it down that way. (That makes me a truly horrid test knitter for my own patterns).  But, when I'm trying to figure out what ways the left one is going to work out differently from the right -- well... I have less tendency to just do what I know is there, and am more likely to really see what I wrote.

Soon, I hope, I'll be sending this pattern off to real testers.

 

Still Alive ---

It seems that every so often, I'm posting that I've not fallen off the face of the earth.  Evidently, my lungs continue to be weaker than they ought to be, so when the local (or, perhaps airplane inspired) resperatory virus catches me, I'm down for days on end.  Somehow, when I can barely stay awake for four hours in a day, blogging falls by the way side.

Luckily, this time it did not involve me trying to cough up a lung, or spleen, or any other inappropriate body part.  Nor, knock wood, did it come to antibiotics.  But it certainly meant sleeping all day, for days. 

I was out of it enough that I barely knit for a week.

Yes, you read that correctly.  If you consider a normal week's knitting output around here, in the past week has yielded maybe a day's worth.  Sad... so sad.

I did, however, manage to read (or finish) more than half a dozen books.  Three of them were fun fiction (I do so enjoy Kelley Armstrong, and I had myself a bit of a feast with Frostbitten (Women of the Otherworld) , Waking the Witch (Women of the Otherworld, Book 11) and Men of the Otherworld: A Collection of Otherworld Tales all in a row).  I then ventured into the pile of books that Golf Pro was reading, and read Dennis LeHane's Moonlight Mile ; I enjoyed the first half or so, but I started to have doubts during the scene in which the protagonist got mugged for his laptop.  In the end, the Russian mob involvement just became to unbelievable for me, and by the last sixth or so of the book, I was reading just because I hate to quit before I finish a book.  The first book of my gluttonous book week was Cathrynne Valiente's The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden, which I highly recoomend if you like fantasy literature at all (or fairy tales, or even books just a step outside the run of the mill).  It is a delicious book full of nested stories within stories, all connected in ways you didnt' expect. 

In addition, I actually knocked out some NONFICTION (yes, I know, an uncommon thing for me, but there you have it).  First, I finished up The Smart Swarm: How Understanding Flocks, Schools, and Colonies Can Make Us Better at Communicating, Decision Making, and Getting Things Done (which I highly recommend - I'm going to read it again so I don't forget some of the stuff that I learned while my brain was fuzzy), and then I read Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality, which I found fascinating.  I highly recommend it if you're at all interested in athropology, primatology, or even psychology of relationships -- food for thought indeed (and well written, with a sense of humor).

But, lest you think I'd forgotten that this is, allegedly, a knitting blog - an update of the fiber kind.

Just before I was sidelined, I did finish Inebriate of Air...

Here she is, before blocking

And yes, she did get rather large -- but still so light and airy, despite all the beads. Not that you can see the beads in this shot, but it's pre-blocking, and poorly lit...  I'd show you more, but, well, the background carpet pretty much obscures anything I'd be trying to show you anyway.... (alas).

I'm also making real progress on Fairy Stars.  However, as with most things knit on yarn that fine, it mostly looks like a soft blob right now.  If my pseudo blocking stretching and stitch counting last night holds any validity for predicting the finished dimensions, I seem to be only a few repeats away from the top edging pattern though (at least to make it the size it's donee wants it to be), so I'm still within striking distance of finishing on time.  I'm going to have to resist strongly the urge to keep going until I've used up all of the luscious yarn.  I'm pretty sure that she does not, in fact, want one that reaches the floor.

Oh, and I darned another pair of socks.

More needles -- and more lace!

I got most of my needles listed on Ravelry.  There are a few currently in WIPs that aren't entered yet, but otherwise -- it's all there.

Very revealing .... just not sure what I've revealed.

For example, I vastly prefer 4 and 5" dpns (they're called sock needles now).  And yet I seem to have an alarmingly high percentage of 7 1/2 - 8"  and even 10" dpns.  I've got about a dozen sets of size 2's -- ten of which are longer than I like to use.  I've also got ten pair of size 1's, seven of which are, you guessed it, longer than I like to use. What is up with that? (and yes, I'm more than happy to sell off those long dpns - as long as I have any shorter ones too.) 

Okay, most of them were bought when I couldn't find short needles.  But still... ten sets???

I've freaked myself out enough for one day, so I started some serious work on Inebriate of Air.  Even though the design was inspired by not knitting Emily Dickinson, which has lace only at the bottom edge, lace seems to have broken out with a vengeance around the shoulders in Inebriate of Air. 

 Clearly, I have no control over this thing. 

However, the good part is, I'm approaching the finish line.

Tip up Triangles - the fun part

When one is knitting a triangle shaped shawl, there are basically four ways to achieve that shape..

One, is to cast on a gazillion stitches, and decrease one's way down to practically none.  Emily Dickinson is knit this way - as is the shawl not knitting Emily inspired me to knit, Inebriate of Air - last seen draped over the knitting chair.  While this does mean that one starts by casting on forever (or what feels like forever), it also means that every row is a little shorter, and by the time you're sick of it all, the end happens very quickly

Another way is to start at one tip, increase steadily on one side of the shawl until it's as deep (and half as wide) as you want it to be, and then decrease back down to the one or two stitches you started with. Argante is knit this way.

A third way is to start at the center, and do some very creative increasing around until you end up with a triangle.  I've yet to try this, but I've seen it done -- in Firelight, for example.

The last way, is to start at the bottom point (or the center of the top, if you're going top down), casting on three or so stitches, and increase steadily until the shawl is as deep and wide as you like... then cast off.  Stars Over Diamonds is knit that way.  While this means that the end rows are interminable, the beginning goes really quickly -- and that's fun!

Look ma, almost done with the first chart already!

And here we get one of the other joys of lace.  While I can clearly see that the Size U.S. 3's are a decent needle for this yarn, I can't clearly see what's going on in the outside edge (or some of the middle spaces), and those sections look, in Stephanie Pearl McPhee's words, like boiled ass. 

I must remind myself that this swift progress is deceptive, and that I am unlikely to be able to churn out nine inches worth of shawl in a day again before I start on some other project.

And I promise to take the next picture in daylight -- that might let you see the awesome but subtle things going on in the color of this yarn.  As for the texture ... well... I'll be enjoying that all by myself -- to share in that special joy, you'll have to buy some of your very own. (here at Sheepy Time Knits).

A Challenge...

This season over on Seasons of Lace we've got a new raffle category; one which I fully intended to participate in.  We're resurrecting lace projects that have been in hibernation for at least three months.  I've got one that's more like three years old ... so it totally qualifies.   I had planned to haul it out, figure out how to fix and finish it... and knit away.

But lo', as with most of the best laid plans of mice and men and knitters... I've been tempted astray.  A dear friend whose wrists do not allow her to knit much - and never at all with tiny needles, has asked me to knit a shawl for her.  "But of course" I say.  "By March 7th" she says.  "Um...."  I say ... "I'll do my best..."

And then she hands me the delicious yarn with which she wants me to knit this shawl.  Even though it's very fine, I cannot resist this yarn: Sheepy Time Knits Fairy Lace (which the site describes as "A luxuriously soft, fine laceweight yarn of baby alpaca, silk, and cashmere. Available in 50g and 100g skeins, with a generous 656 or 1312 yards." 

We spent a day or so in the choosing, and then she chose, of all the patterns she looked at, one of my own designs. (blush). 

I cast on, hoping, but not really believing, that I could pull it off on a U.S. 5, and thus increase the like;ihood that I could finish it in time.  I swiftly recognized that a smaller needle was necessary.

I tried again on a U.S. 4.

Again ... this isn't awful... but it really needs a smaller needle.

At last, I dug in my needle stash, discovered to my surprise that I have only one size 3 needle... and cast on again.  I'm grateful that I need not go down to a U.S. 2 to get a decent fabric, but now worry that I'll never make the deadline...

 

Sock Disaster... and large lace

Not so very long ago, I knit a lovely sock out of Fleece Artist Merino ...

I finished them some time in 2008.

Today, one of the heels looks like this:

This would be just barely in time ... In theory, I could do a major darning job, and save these socks.  Except that before I realized this wee problem was here, the other heel did this:

Here's the "glamour shot"

And now, while we're all scared..... here's Inebriate of Air, somewhere past half-way done (I hope)

Yes, the bottom of one panel does goe all the way across my chair, unblocked.

I feel lucky, oh so lucky...

Even though I woke up this morning from a dream that literally left me with tears in my eyes, with a yucky feeling in my head that warns of EVIL cold coming on, it's been a pretty good day. 

First, I've enjoyed knowing that there is a job opening at a company where two of my friends work -- which job is something I think I'd be pretty good at ... and I'll be officially applying as soon as they post it -- but it looks like I'll get to meet the person now in the job before she leaves.  

Second, I've forgotten the dream that made me cry.

Third, I opened my Ravelry inbox to find that even before I'd gotten the old Prize Solicitation engine for Seasons of Lace running, someone has donated two wonderful prizes for the season that's just begun.  I love volunteer prize donors -- they make my job as Prize Maven so very much easier!

Then, I discovered that I won some truly scrumptuous yarn in a Seasons of Lace raffle -- it's one that we have for folks who use and post about stuff that our sponsors and prize donors make/sell.  Thus, just becasue I've been knitting with yarn that our Sponsors sell, I get more yarn from our sponsors!  Oh darn.

That's Sheepy Time Fairy Fingering, and it's soooooo soft!

Then, I checked my email and discovered that I won a raffle prize on another blog!  This time just for reading a blog and posting a comment!  The blog in question allegedly provides the Chronicles of a Lazy Knitter, but if this charming lady is lazy, well, I'm a toadstool.  And the post in question was celebrating her fourth Blogiversary.  That sort of thing always makes me wonder.... when is my blogiversary again??  But I quickly got distracted by the thought that sometime soon, a package of undisclosed goodies will be arriving at my door.

Also in my email -- first round photos from one of my pattern testers.  She found a couple of errors, which I fixed, and managed to produce a cowl that was just as I'd meant it to look.  I'm eagerly awaiting emails from the other testers...

And finally, I ad libbed a whole new approach to mashed sweet potatoes tonight, and Ithink they worked pretty well.

I'm feeling seriously lucky.  Here's hoping its a sign of the times.

Welcome to the New Year

What a lovely welcome to the new year...

I slipped away quietly to enjoy a small gathering of friends north of Chicago on New Year's Eve, then slipped further north to enjoy a New Year's brunch in Kenosha, Wisconsin the next morning.  There was lots of good food and good friends (and good drinks even).  And best of all, thanks to friends again, I did not do ANY of the driving! w00t! 

I rode the train up, and enjoyed intermittent conversations with a charming young man who works at Argon Labs.  I was fetched at Union Station in Chicago by two lovely friends, who whisked me away for a pleasant lunch, and then took me to a movie (Tron -- very pretty), before we ventured up to the far north for the party.

On Saturday, I rode home with another friend who had been north for the week. She and I enjoyed a rare journey with no children in the car....

And on that journey, on January 1, 2011, I started a new project -- a new design even.

It was all glorious.

Alas, I have no pictures. (yet)

Once home, I contacted the testing pool on Ravelry -- and lined up testers for FOUR patterns

So productive!

And today... I spent the day working on the background stuff for the Seasons of Lace blog. It's amazing how much time that stuff takes, and how little it shows on the blog itself.  Ah well, I try to look at it as productivity, since it does make things easier for the back-stage crew.

 

 

The Holidays are Early! but I finished almost on time

My family has a tradition that involves visits from various family members at certain times during the Holiday Season.  It's grown and morphed over the years, but basically, the end of the year has looked pretty similar for a long time.

It looks looked kind of like this:

Thanksgiving Day - massive celebratory dinner with many many friends at Holly's.  Since my family is almost all over 500 miles away, and indeed most is over 800 miles away, we join this eclectic group of folks whose families are too far away to share Thanksgiving with. Every year it gets better.

The Day After Thankgiving - risotto at Holly's for "lunch" followed but a smaller joyous thanksgiving feast with the Baumanns, and their daughters and their husbands and kids.  More joy.  A family I'm so thrilled to be invited to join I can't convey it in words.

The weekend at Holly's, full of out-of-town friends I almost never see, goes on with more food and games and socializing.  By Sunday night I'm tired and happy.

On Monday I start knitting for the Holiday Gift Giving Season in earnest.

Somewhere around December 17th we start considering The Tree.  By the 21st we'll have cut one, and lighted it. In the interim, I'll haul out the unseemly collection of Fathers Christmas and the even more unseemly collection of candles and fill every formerly empty flat surface (well, okay not the kitchen counter) with Holiday decorations.

On December 21, or as early as the 17th, if Dec 21 is on a Tuesday or Wednesday, we host a Solstice Party. 

On December 22-ish, I hang the holiday stockings

On December 23 or thereabouts, my mother usually comes in, and stays through December 26th.

On December 24, we have a tree decorating ritual that involves the girls placing their annual ornaments, in order from the ones they got as babies, and then receiving and placing their new ornament for the year.  The ornaments celebrate something special about the year.

On December 28th or so ... or as late as January 2, my father comes in and stays for four or five days.

But this year, we're all catty wampus.

On November 30, I got my hands on the yarn for my mother's present.

On December 3, my mother arrived for her holiday visit. 

On December 4, we went out to the tree farm and cut our Yule/Christmas tree.....and lit and decorated it.

That, my friends, is a tree.  In my house.  BEFORE December 15!  It now has lghts, garlands and 20 years' worth of ornaments (okay, 20 for LJ, 14 for Kitty, and 12 for bookworm).  It feels... weird.  Trees don't go up for the whole month around here.  Not ever.  And yet... there it is, all decorated and stuff.  Well, not all decorated -- We've not yet bestowed THIS years' ornaments -- partly because one has to be painted and one has to be found yet.  In any ordinary year, I'd have plenty of time!

As, as if getting the tree a good two weeks early wasn't enough, on December 5th we exchanged gifts! (St. Niklaus Day gifts?  Channuka gifts?  Surely not Yule/Solstice or Christmas gifts....). Well, some.  The ones from my folks and to my folks anyway.  With the exception of this one, that didn't get bestowed until this morning.

I designed it, and then knit it twice because I'm a fool who can't remember that with DK weight yarn (yes, even after the debacle with trying to knit it on size 6 needles), 96 stitches is far too many for a cowl.  Having finished the 96 stitch cowl, and confirmed that the lace transitions worked, I ripped the whole thing out, and tried again -- with fewer stitches.  That did necessitate a bit of lace tweaking, but I finished it in time to put it around Mom's neck as she departed for the airport in 7 degree chill.

Now all I need is a test knitter (and maybe a few better pictures) and I can get the pattern out. (And... tee hee ... there's still enough yarn for me to knit one for myself).

Maybe I bead too much???

I've been working slowly but steadily on Inebriate of Air.  Compared to my more recent beading adventures, there are hardly any beads in it, really....

See... you can barely see them!  Okay, the lacey bit had a lot of beads, but since then, really... not that many...

(Yeah, they are kind of blendy, but that's the point)

And by some standards, I suppose that every seven stitches is a bunch of beads in one row...  But I didn't realize I was wearing out my crochet hook....

But tonight, I wore the hook clean off it!

I'm not looking forward to finding that hook though -- it's size 14, and that means it's tiny and sharp.

Luckily, I have more of those hooks.  Cause I was hoping to take this project with me this weekend -- I'm goin' to WindyCon to hear some awesome music.

Not so luckily, I'm running out of beads.  More are en route, but I don't think they'll get here before I hit the road.  So, I've gotta plan more knitting to take with me.

You got me....

Okay, you got me.

You knew.  I pretended that I'd be able to just  do something simple for the rest of the pattern that is Inebriate of Air.  I pretended that I'd be able to go on without adding  more lace...

I guess I was wrong.

I can't even pretend that I just repeated the same lace pattern... since first I added to the original lace pattern, and then... changed it again slightly for the "repeat".

Not that you can see it... but you can see that I've added beads...

I'm pretty sure you're not surprised at that outcome are you?

But I do have a specific plan for the rest of this design, and unless I change it (again), the only patterning you'll see as we progress is a shift to stockinette from the garter stitch....

I slowed down today because I was watching a wonderful movie.  Since it's in Japanese, with subtitles, I had to keep my eyes on the screen.  While I can knit without watching closely, this yarn splits a little -- and with all these stitches on the needle, they're jammed in pretty close to each other -- knitting without watching happens more slowly.  And then again, there were moments in the movie that had me riveted.

What?  oh the movie is Departures.

 

It's the story of a young cellist whose orchestra is disbanded, leaving him with little choice but to return to his hometown where he finds a job performing Casketing Ceremonies for the "recently departed".  I absolutely love the ceremony!  It allows the departed's family to be there while he or she is ritually bathed (in a very sensitve way that ensures that the family never sees the body naked), dressed, posed, and made up -- in a professional yet spiritual way that honors the dead and the family, and allows each person to bid farewell.   In our society, that transition for the dead is hidden behind closed doors where the family is not allowed until they've finished whatever spooky thing they're doing. 

It was just beautiful.  I shed lots of tears during this movie, but would gladly watch it again - tomorrow...

 

I Win...

It only took three days... three episodes of Gray's Anatomoy, two episodes of Private Practice, an episode or so of Dancing with the Stars and half of Grease...  But I did it...  I turned this

Into this .....

And then...... into this:

If you look closely ... you can see that the beading has begun.

And yes, this is a heavily beaded stole... but even it's most heavily beaded rows don't use as many beads as one of Irtfa'a's.  And there are far fewer stitches than the current rows of Inebriate of Air.

With any luck, you'll see the Dragonfly emerging soon.