Knitting to Relax

I have had two skeins of Merino / Tencel yarn dyed by The Yarn Pirate in the stash for quite some time. I love merino/tencel blends for their softness and sheen. Either one of these would look fabulous as socks, but after the fun I had knitting the (far too small) Iron Horse shawl, I got the idea to alternate the two.

First I make a yarn "cake" out of the Icicle colorway. It is a lovely blue - dark blue - white - gray colorway that reminds me of my parakeet, Skye. Snowy walks, gray gravelly drives, bright blue sky, ah, white winters back east.
This is the Butternut skein, with brown, yellow-green, dark brown and bright orange. It is everything I love about Autumn (and I love just about everything about Autumn!).

The two little yarn cakes, ready to be knit into something wonderful. I am quite a ways into the shawl now - it goes quite fast with largeish (for me) yarn and size 4 needles. The fabric is soft, smooth and has a lovely drape. I am not entirely sure if I like the way the stripes are lining up, but I like the idea of blending the seasons so I will keep at it.

Now the only difficult descision left is: do I use the blue or the orange colorway for the edging lace?

End of the Line

My first Camp Loopy project is done! It is pinned out on my bed, blocking and drying. First I gave it a good soak and rinse and put fresh sheets on the bed. Bingo is my self appointed sheet monitor, and made sure everything was ready for me to begin pinning out the damp shawl.

Drying as fast as the fan will go. It is very tiny, but very pretty. I could definitely make this again (in a larger size). I might even go wild and use the needles the pattern asks for!

Into the Final Lap

I have managed to make good progress on my Iron Horse shawl this afternoon, although I spent much of the day playing around online. It goes fast when I knit it. I had some minor mistakes but am just *cough*fixing*cough* them as I go along instead of ripping out rows and rows and rows. For some reason the lace seems to go faster than the stockinette rows did; perhaps I am paying more attention. Or maybe it is all those K2tog and SKP stitches eating up the mileage.

The illegal fireworks are really starting to pick up now and the younger dog is hiding under the desk. The older one surely can't hear the booms and bangs over the sound of her own snoring. The doors and windows are secured anyway. Not 20 minutes ago I saw a pitbull flying up the middle of the 7 lane street in front of my house; running away from the noise, I assume. Hmm, I should turn on the light in the birdroom so they are less distressed by the noise.

The new Camp Loopy project is socks or mittens or gloves with cables and the cast on date it 7/15. I found a free pattern for some cute socks with owls on them and have resolved to use some more stash yarn, although I have not gone stash diving in search of the perfect skein. I wavered for a moment (I still have some Christmas Present Credit at The Loopy Ewe), but managed to come to my senses when the cat sneezed on my arm. His vet trip comes before new yarn.

I signed up for the Tour de Fleece, but as I have have now missed the first 3 days entirely, I am giving up. Stick to my knitting, that is the plan.

Whew. The house is starting to release all the heat it soaked up during the day. It might be time for another dip in the tub *brrrr*

Oops

I was reading the pattern for my current shawl project and realized that the needle size bears no relation to the size the pattern recommends. Fabulous. I could have used needles that I already had instead of going bonkers that I needed new ones AND it would be the proper size instead of suspiciously small.

I will just block the holy hell out of it.

Snuggles & Sociability

I managed to get out of the house to day and be sociable. We gardened in the morning (RIP, beanstalk), I joined my guild for a little WoW time, I chatted with the parakeet and I met my friend in Redlands for an afternoon of knitting and parrot snuggling.

It was nice to sit and knit with someone else - haven't done too much of that since my knitting store closed almost a year ago. I noticed a dropped stitch in my Iron Horse shawl about 8 rows down and have st it aside for the moment. I just need to remember where I put the tiny crochet hook (I swear I just had it) and pull the stitch up the work , squeezing it into the existing rows. Part of me can't believe I missed that glaring error and part of me says, well if you are going to work while you are tired, you are going to have errors. It is an easy fix and I will be done with this soon, I hope.

More Progress

I have hit the long slog of the stockinette portion of Iron Horse. It is also starting to get heavy and hurt my hands; the 90 minute knitting session last night made my thumb numb. I remembered that pain was one reason I curtailed my knitting so drastically a couple years ago.

But here we are, at repeat 21 of 26 sets of stripes...

...and it still looks like a blob. It is going to be too big to photograph soon... I am about maxed out on needle room. It is month end at work this week and I am catsitting, but I think I can get to the lace portion by Sunday. The due date is 7/15 or before, so I should have plenty of time.

Pulling into the Station

My Iron Horse shawl is coming along nicely. The picture isn't very good, but the project is pleasant and the yarn is heavenly.

I couldn't get much knitting done this weekend due to an overnight trip to Ramona and a day working in the garden, but I really turned up the energy today and have made great progress. I am still concerned about a yarn shortage, but then I remember that lace gets blocked.

I have been keeping up with the Cabin 3 posts on Ravelry and it has been great fun to see what everyone else is up to.

Knitting on the Iron Horse

Quite good progress for a morning's knitting today. It feels good to have yarn in the hands again. Techniques are coming back to me slowly, so I am glad ths is an easy and forgiving project. My major success was working out / remembering how to carry the off color yarn up the side of the work. I wasn't too sure about pink and green together (I keep having flashbacks to 1987), but I think they are working really well. They are also slightly variegated, which adds a lot of visual interest.

I seriously despair that I will have enough yarn, but I always feel that way at the beginning of a lace project.

Break time is over - back to the salt mines!