I Just Want To Fly

Oh, it's hard to take a picture of a shawl, when you're not willing to be in the photograph. But it's done, and I'm pretty pleased with it. The edging turned out a little more ruffley than I expected, but I think that a little more length to the edging (or severe blocking) would probably have taken care of that. The edging is Blue Sky Alpaca's Alpaca Sport, and it's a little denser than the blue Rowan felted tweed, so that could be a factor too. I hope that it will be a popular item (it's for a raffle for my local college alumnae chapter), or at least that whoever wins the basket it's in won't immediately donate it to another charitable cause!

I can easily see myself making one of these for myself, although I'll probably wait awhile. It's been nice to do a little work on other projects over the last couple of days, and to start a little something new:

Another Sock Knitter's Anonymous challenge--the May Mystery Sock! The pattern is called Kiila (Rav Link), which means gusset in Finnish, and it's designed by the wonderful Yarnissima so I'm really looking forward to seeing how it shapes up. I'm using Smooshy that I bought at Stitch N Pitch last year, the color is Happy Forest. Intuitively, I know that this is a soft, spongey wool, but it feels stiff and a little scratchy after that soft Alpaca sport border. Weird, huh? Must be careful not to turn into a person who will only knit cashmere and alpaca . . .

Anyway, I'm enjoying the pattern even though the sock has not been totally trouble-free. I took the photo above last night, before ripping back to the beginning of the chart that starts at the top of the toe. It's hard to see it well here, but there was either an extra row in the first cable group or something else was going on--it didn't look quite right, and there was also excessive laddering on the left side. I've reknit as much as I ripped back and a little more, and I feel better about the results. The problem may well have been just trying to keep the tension even, rather than my inability to follow a 4-stitch, 6 row chart, but either way it's looking better now.

Dry Faster!

It's finished! Just needs to dry--it's blocked out larger than I expected, but it looks really good! The end have been woven in, I'll just need to clip the final ends (and keep it away from dachshunds), and then it's totally done. Woo-hoo!

Looking So Long at These Pictures of You

The garter shawl is coming along, I'm now on the edging. Although the edging is meant to be "lightly" ruffled, the number of stitches is doubled in the first row so it's taking twice as long to knit each row now. I opted for a brown border because there are brown flecks in the blue tweed, and because I will probably need more than two skeins of the black alpaca I bought for the shawl for a nice-sized border. I have five or six skeins of the brown that I bought a long time ago for a project that didn't work out (Rav link to it), so that should be more than enough--I'll probably knit this for a few more days, and then cast off.

Since there are so many stitches, it's tough to make this look all that interesting in photos. I'm using a long cord, but not long enough to get a really good look at the shawl. I thought that the addition of a dachshund to the mix would improve the situation, but as you can see above, Frieda was only marginally helpful when photographing, and Gretel refused to get involved. Frieda looked everywhere except at the camera no matter how many times I called her name or whistled. Until the shot on the bottom right, that is, where she's lunging for a treat. I say "treat", but really it's just a single piece of kibble--she's not allowed to have treats anymore, since developing pancreatitis in the fall. It's tricky to get a photo while trying to hold the kibble just out of reach of a jumping dachshund, so I'm not sure I can say that photo is any more successful than the "I'm ignoring you" photos.

Once I picked everything up, and just pretended to have a treat? Perfect, immediate attention:

I Can See For Miles and Miles and Miles and Miles

Miles and miles of garter stitch, that is! I'm on my third (and final) ball of Felted Tweed, and I'm surprised how quickly this is progressing. I'm still mildly interested in it, too, which is a little surprising given that it's nothing but garter stitch with increases every other row.

The color is a little baffling to me. I took the two photos here a few minute apart. The top photo is outside, in a sort of shady spot. The top photo is inside, and to me is a much better representation of the color of the shawl. Weird, huh?

I should make progress on this over the weekend, but there are a few other knitted goods that I'd like to get back to. I finally picked up a zipper for the Green Chill (though I may have lost it already), and buttons for the Cables Baby. Plus, I haven't worked on Black Diamond all week, and it needs a turn too!

They Have a Fight, Triangle Wins

New Project? Of course it's a new project! On Friday, I received a request for a knitted item for my local collage alumnae group for an upcoming potluck / raffle. Did I mention that it's in mid-May? I'm going to give it a try, though I reserve the right to ditch at the last minute and sew a lap quilt (a fast lap quilt) instead. It's a simple garter stitch triangle shawl, using Rowan Felted Tweed for the main part and probably some sport-weight alpaca for the edging. The pattern is based on the Wool Peddler's Shawl by Cheryl Oberle (Rav Link), but I'm using the mods in this incredibly gorgeous version. I'm stretching that link across four words because it's really, really worth checking out. I was led to that version by this version, which I also love--but I don't think that I want to take the time off from work that would be necessary to get it done in a month. The raffle proceeds may not cover the cost of the yarn, after all--no need to get too crazy and use up my vacation time.

It's coming along fine for now, and it looks pretty good. The rows are not yet so long that they are a drag to sit through, although that day is certainly coming. I did mysteriously purl a stitch in the middle of a row a little while ago, but it's fixed now. I bought black yarn to use as the edging, but once I brought it home I realized that I have the same yarn in a brown that would also match some of the slubs in the blue tweed. I'm still leaning towards the black, but I have a feeling that by the time I get to that point I may just pick the closest ball of fun fur and end it. Sophisticated, yes?