Lack of posts

There has been a lack of posts lately and this is mostly because there has been a lack of photos lately.  Since I last blogged, I've managed to finish 4 projects.  Well, in all fairness, I finished 3 over the last 3 days (went on a "finishing-bing").  And I even managed to take a picture of one of those projects:

Behold!  My gorgeous Ulmus shawl, made from the last two Blue Moon club kits from last year.  This is my third blocked project (the second is one of those yet to be photographed).

I'm extremely pleased with my color choices.  And I will be posting pictures of me wearing the shawl soon.

Entrelac Socks

A few weeks ago I came up with the clever plan to knit a pair of socks with Entrelac to fulfill 2 new year's resolutions items: 1) knit 10 pairs of socks and 2) knit something Entrelac.  I know, I'm a total genius :)

I emailed sockJulie (to be distinguished from capecodJulie) to see if she had ever knit Entrelac socks before and if she had any advise for me.  She replied that she had not but had always wanted to knit such a pair.  So we decided to do a knit along.

First I'll talk about my socks.  I picked a ball of Blue Moon Socks that Rock in Lightweight that Karen had gifted me last year (she is such a sweetie!) and then left on a trip.  HAHA!  Didn't see that comin', did ya!  By the time I got back sockJulie had almost finished 1 sock and it is beautiful.  I will put up a link to her project when she puts it up.  It took me some time to get settled in from my trip and I was also distracted by a few things so before I even started, sockJulie had already finished her first sock and this thing is something to marvel at (I will explain why later).  Well, of course, I started furiously knitting on my sock in order to catch up and the final result is this:

Marvel at the beauty of the handpainted colors as they gently pool in little squares and triangles.  Admire my flawless technique and hand...[I'm going to stop now as this could go on for a while]

Let's examine the structure of Entrelac when it is knit in the round:

The entrelac is basically made up of Starting Triangles, followed by 1st Tier of Squares, followed by 2nd Tier of squares and then the desired number of 1st and 2nd tiers and at the end you have the Ending Triangles.  Quite simple really - just trust and follow a good pattern, that's all there is to it.  In that aspect it is ironic that I chose to try this technique for the first time with a sock; a sock is much the same in that it does not make sense the first time you knit a sock, you just have to trust and follow the pattern and you will understand the concept fully after you have finished knitting it.

The pattern sockJulie chose is called Annetrelac Socks (the designer's name incidentally is not Anne, go figure) and in this pattern, you do the entrelac on the leg and then do a plain knit on the foot as I did.  sockJulie however, decided to do the entrelac all the way down the foot - now imagine this with the schematic I put up above!  Basically, she did the starting triangles, a few tiers of squares and then she split her stitches to  do the heel and so had to do ending triangles on half of the stitches and continue the tiers of squares in the front; after she finished the heel, she had to do another set of starting triangles on half the stitches while maintaining the active tier of squares! The thought boggles my mind - she is an amazing knitter!  As I said, I'll put up a link as soon as she puts up her project.

Here is yet another picture of my gorgeous handiwork! LOL.  As you can see, the foot looks inside out.  That's right, I put the purl bumps on the outside.  I chose to do this because my experience with this yarn is while it is very soft, the purl bumps bother the bottom of my feet when I wear them with shoes or boots.  So when I finished knitting the leg, I turned the sock inside out and changed the direction of knitting by doing a wrap and turn and then continued knitting the heel onwards.  So basically I still knit the whole foot, but I did it while the sock was inside out; I learned about this trick on one of Knitpicks' podcast episodes and thought what a clever idea to get all the purl bumps on the outside without purling the whole foot.

I am extremely happy with the socks and am giving them to Winter.  Winter is knitting me a shawl!  So I've decided to knit her a few pairs of socks.  :)  I can't believe I'm going to get one of Winter's gorgeous lace shawls! YAY!!!!

Striped Socks

Before I went on my yarn diet, I had one last hurrah at Knitpicks and purchased some Felici self-striping yarn.  It is made from my favorite base of sock yarn - Knitpick's merino/nylon blend; their new name for this is Stroll in solid colors, Felici for the striping yarn and they also have a bare version which Winter has dyed up for me in the past.  I'm not affiliated with Knitpicks, it is just my favorite sock yarn!

I knit the socks toe-up and two-at-a-time using magic loop.  They were very fun to knit because I could really see my progress every few rows when the color changed.  I have another pair's worth of this yarn that I'll be casting on soon.

This is 1st of 10 pairs of socks for my new year's resolution.

Binned

I’ve been working on the Peaks Island Hood and nothing else for the past few days.  I’m almost done too!  I’ve finished the long length of the scarf and the entire hood and have started the short length of the scarf and am on my last ball of yarn.  I have a feeling I may run out of yarn before the end so I’m going to knit and knit and knit on it today and see which one I finish first – the yarn or the pattern.  The shop is open today and early on Thursday so I can always run out tomorrow if I do run out of yarn first.  

I also organized the stash – took all of it out of my living/thinking space and put it in storage upstairs.  I have only one bin of yarn that I want to work on next and all my WIPs (which attacked me from every corner when I was organizing) in a space that is visible to me.  This has made life so much easier – no only is everything very decluttered but I find that I can knit far more easily now.  It seems weird I know but I think what was happening is when I could see all the yarn I have all the time, I was starting to build up guilt over it and it would actually make me not want to knit.  Now that I have one small bin of yarn and some WIPs, I can just focus one or two projects and a time and get them done.  It is even more relaxing as a hobby now. 

[Pictures of bin pending]

I just had an idea about the malabrigo set I’m going to be making in this yarn:

I want to make a hat, scarf and mittens set but am thinking that the variegated colorway might be too much for my head.  So I had an idea: I make the scarf and mittens in this color and get a skein of solid color malabrigo worsted for the hat; then I’ll run around the rim and flaps of the hat with the variegated so it’s a nice pop of color and the whole thing looks like a set but isn’t like “WHOA!  What’s that on her head?!?”

Last night's adventures

I gave Ruth the handspun and she absolutely loved it!  we were brainstorming ideas of what she could knit with it and I suggested a small triangular shawl…you know, like the kind I want to make when I end up plying that orange handspun (both bobbins are now full so only the plying remains).  So at some point I’ll be going over to her house so we can go on ravelry and find a pattern she likes.  

Winter brought some more of her handspun fresh off the niddy noddy and omg, she is turning into an amazing spinner!  Her third skein ever is so beautiful – even I can’t spin that well yet!  If she posts pics of it to her blog I’ll link it here so you can all admire the pretty!

The next thing I’m spinning is that beautiful chocolate brown alpaca blend I got from Rhinebeck.  As you can see, it is a floofy bag so spinning it up will free up a lot of space!

I also finished something yesterday with Ruth’s help:

 

This scarf was supposed to be for the OFA charity but I love it so much that I decided to keep it for myself.  I cast on another scarf last night using some more rejects from their originally intended projects but after knitting about 4 inches, I fell in love with that one too! ::sigh:: so I had to put that one aside as well and will finish it later when I have more time.  

 

I started a second scarf last night and this one I’m determined not to like!  Though I may have to rip out the 1.5 inches I accomplished last night to switch to a bigger needle.  I’m very happy for all the stashbusting happening though!

Lastly, I bought Heather dinner last night so she would sew in ends on all the washcloths for me! Yay!  So now I’ve got a large stack of squares ready to go.  WOOT!  Thank you Heather!

A Spinning Weekend

Because I was sick this weekend, I spent most of it in front of my tv but there is only so much knitting I can do at a stretch.  So I opted to spin a lot - apparently that one I can do forever!  LOL.  I finished a skein of superfine merino (4 oz, spun up to approximately 360 yards so it is a fingering to heavy fingering weight yarn):

 

This is going to be a thank you present for Ruth for helping me with the blanket. It is a 2 ply yarn and it took surprisingly long to ply.  I did it on my spindle (really need to install the plying head on my wheel) so it took all day.  The yarn has come out beautifully and has got to be my most even yarn to date.

The next one I've started working on is a wool/bamboo blend from Creatively Dyed.  I've already finished 1 bobbin full (told you I spent the whole weekend spinning).  In roving form the colors are very bright orange but it is spinning up to be a beautiful dull orange/gold which I absolutely love!  It also has large splashes of dark brown so I could not be happier.   I think this is going to be turned into one of those small shawls knit with sock yarn that have suddenly become so popular.

Speaking of small shawls - I'm not knitting that for my grandmother after all.  At some point last week I just started reaching into that bag of cotton yarn I have and started knitting dishcloths and knitting dishcloths and ... knitting dishcloths.  I've got a nice little pile going and i think i'll join them all together with the cone of cotton yarn to make a lap blanket for her.  That way it can be machine washable, does not have to be blocked, won't be too warm and I'll have used stash yarn instead of buying new yarn so perfect on all counts!

Now I know I promised a picture of the blanket but it has still not been washed and blocked.  I didn't get the Eucalan last week because Terri hadn't printed out the gift cards to the store yet.  I hope they are ready by tomorrow because I really want to get started on knitting that hood as well (it hasn't gotten cold yet but it will soon enough).  So no picture for now.

November Goals

I've gotta have some goals for November.  I usually just post my monthly goals to the list on Ravelry but perhaps I should add them here as well.  I am considering what would be the best way to track this - adding another panel to the sidebar would mean...another panel in the sidebar and its a bit crowded over there at the moment.  I'll just post updates for this month and see how that goes.

Goals (In order of priority):
1) Spin up 1 skein of yarn (B/G)
2) Finish the granny squares blanket
3) Finish OFA Scarf
4) Finish the Edging Setup chart on Aeolian Shawl

Bonus Goals:
1) Start the Aran Sweater
2) Finish Cashmere Leaves Scarf
3) Finish 1 skein of the meriboo fiber

WIP Control

Oooh the WIPs are getting extremely out of hand! I've got way to many things going and nothing finishing!

The oldest WIP of all is, of course, the blanket which is going to be about a year old soon. It is almost done, 6 out of 10 strips have been sewn. Once the strips are done, they will have to be sewn to each other and finally the border. I'm concerned about running out of yarn for the edge; fortunately, I received a very generous gift certificate to Knitpicks for my birthday so I can order more if need be.



A couple of the newer WIPs are the recently started scarves:

Cashmere Leaves - being knit with the cashmere I purchased at Rhinebeck.



OFA Scarf - this is stash yarn, the bamboo yarn that i'd gotten in hopes of knitting an accessory scarf but honestly, who knits accessories in such a drab color! I'm also holding a strand of some sock yarn from Sunshine Yarns along with it to give it a beautiful splash of color.



Then there is of course the Aeolian Shawl, such a beautiful shawl but it has taken a back seat lately because of the blanket and all the spinning.



There is also the Aran sweater which has gone through a couple of transformations. First I was going to do the St. Brigid pattern by Alice Starmore but decided against it after MANY iterations of it failed. Then the yarn was stashed out of spite. I found an Aran Sweater pattern on the Lion Brand site and am considering it. The other option is to do the Wash's Sweater with this yarn but I need to check the yarn requirements and such for that pattern.

There is also the sample sock for the shop which I've actually made a bit of progress on. Though, I don't think i want to be devoting a majority of my crafting time to the sample knitting as I've got the overwhelming stash/lack of space issue to be worrying about.