Hooray, finished things! Oddly enough, really focusing on a project makes it go faster. Sometimes I think I’m a process knitter (learned a technique? okay, finished with this), and sometimes I’m sure I’m a product knitter (want to be done!). I haven’t any idea which one is true. Maybe I’m both. This one was a fun, quick, cabled, wooly knit.

Start: June 21st, 2008
Finish: June 24th, 2008
Pattern: Over Due Hat by KnittyHaven
Yarn: Vermont Organic Fiber Company: O-Wool Classic, in orange (color 640204)
Needles: US size 6 circulars and dpns. (I might have used size 5 dpns… I’m not sure.)

The pictures aren’t fabulous, but the hat is very cute, to go with a rather cute boy. I altered the decreases at the top because the ones in the pattern didn’t make sense, but otherwise it’s all as written. For the decreases, I found that there were 9 cables, so I put three on each dpn. Then I made sure to decrease 6 stitches every other row, primarily by k2tog-ing a knit over a purl, thereby absorbing the purl stitches.

It was nice to get to knit a whole hat out of less than one ball of yarn. Hopefully what’s left (a rather small orange ball) will be enough for accents on the Elinor tunic.

Also I finished my sister’s hat yesterday, but currently it is drying, and I’d like to take pictures of it while she’s wearing it.

So… I may have joined Plurk, and it’s true what they say: it’s pretty addictive. I don’t want to miss a thing! Whew. And I keep thinking that this trip coming up is going to be great for me getting detatched from my computer dependency, but since my parents have, in a way, insisted that I bring the laptop along to keep a record of everything we do and see, I think I’m doomed.

Oh well. Plurk certainly is amusing.

I finished the Playwright’s hat, and I waited for him to come over to take some FO pictures, so they’ll be up soon (hopefully today?)

I’ve been working on my sister’s hat, which went through a few incarnations before I settled on this one. I wouldn’t necessarily advise doing fair isle with two colors so close as these are, but I like how subtle the blue is against the gray.

I’m using some Schachenmayr nomotta Saskia. It’s a bit of hand-me-down in yarn terms: I found the ball of this yarn in a plastic bag along side the label and one finished mitten that my mom knit however long ago.

The other yarn, the blue and pink one, is a merino/silk blend that I spun for my sister. She picked it out when I was offering her some yarn out of my stash, wanting to use some handspun, and she chose the unspun roving. It wasn’t enough for a whole hat, and I’m quite pleased that I found something to go along with it. I was thinking about using some white alpaca that I have instead, but I like the gray a lot.

I’m into the decrease section now, and it should turn into a very cute beret for my artsy-cool sister.

Yarn! Exciting.

The only one I’ve listed is “Sarah,” the black/red/white one, but I’ll get the others up tomorrow.

http://spacecat.etsy.com

Well, a week into lazy summer break (okay, two, but the first was senior week and doesn’t count), I’m having a fairly bad case of knitter’s attention deficit. I have lots of works in progress. Perhaps too many, and at times I feel guilty that I’m abandoning things, but I’m trying to keep in the mindset that I can knit what I want, when I want. This more or less works, unless I’m on a deadline.

For example, just this week I finished up another pair of Fingerless Mitts for a friend’s mum’s birthday. I knit them on US size 5s, in Frog Tree Alpaca (sport), and they are very cute. I’m hoping her mum is pleased.

I haven’t finished my Mad Sapphire Weave socks, because I had to sacrifice the needles to using them for my two-socks-on-two-circs class at Lovelyarns. So they are tucked away at the moment in a bag on my bookshelf, waiting for their turn again. They are medium priority at the moment.

Instead, I am working on these simple stockinette socks (is there an echo in here?), in birthday-gift-yarn: Regia 4-ply sock yarn in a crazy Kaffe Fasset colorway. I wouldn’t normally pick it for myself, but they’re growing on me.

Also getting some attention is the new arrival: the Elinor tunic.

I love how this is made. It’s a top down, sleeveless tunic. You knit the back, and then pick up the provisional cast-on and knit the front, and then you join under the armholes. I’m into the decrease section, which seems a bit early, but I’m trusting it so far. I’m excited about getting to wear this one.

But I may put it down for these other, more pressing, not-for-me projects.

I owe my dad a scarf. I promised to knit him a new scarf for Christmas, but never started it. As a graduation present, my aunt and uncle brought me 100% Baby Alpaca yarn from Australia, which is the perfect amount/color/shade/fiber for a scarf for my dad! Hooray!

I love that blue. Yum. I think it’s going to become the Palindrome scarf, which is a reversible cabled scarf. Very cool.

Also, I need to knit my sister (who is currently painting the Tuscan landscape in Italy, thankyouverymuch) a hat. When I asked her what yarn she wanted, and offered her some handspun, etc, she chose some merino/silk roving that I hadn’t spun yet. I got the roving from Aija at sockpr0n as an add-on gift when I won the drawing for her alpaca rovingfiber, and it is really something. It’s beautiful and shiny and drafts wonderfully. And it’s fluffy.

See the shine! I love it. Pretty.

And finally, the new boy, henceforth referred to as The Playwright, requested a hat as well. I shall knit him one in the orange O-Wool which I am using for the Elinor tunic as an accent color. I think it’s CC3, and is only used a very little amount. So I think I’ll knit the hat and hope for the best in terms of leftovers. =D

Soon we will be leaving on our big cross country trip. I have been charged with blogging the whole thing, so I guess I’ll make a new blog for that at some point. I want to take the three projects above with me to work on so I can finish them before I’m off to college. Yikes. I might start dad’s scarf today, or The Playwright’s hat. I can’t start my sister’s hat until I’m done spinning. Here’s hoping I have enough spun. If not, I’ll use the handspun for the ribbing, or the body, and I’ll supplement something (maybe the same Baby Alpaca) for the rest. I love planning knitting.

Sorry for the spam earlier! Love.

So I spent some time yesterday playing out in the backyard with yarn and dyes, and I’ve now put up on etsy.com my first evarr sock yarn for sale.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=12665250

What do you think? I have another skein I’ve dyed that’s fit for consumption (the third skein is a bit short, I think), that’s the most fabulous emerald and turquoise and teal. I’ll be putting that up later, once I’ve wrangled it into submission on the skein holder. Yum yum yum.

I love yarn.

But hey, it’s about socks!

Shoe In - Fave Footwear Photo Brickfish

Help a girl out with some college money?
Vote for my socks as the best pair of footwear. I’m up against shoes– and please, we all know that handknit socks beat shoes any day.

Thus ends my 13 year time at the Park School.

Icarus was finished just on time. I blocked it Thursday, overnight, and the cat came along and tried to help by pulling out the pins I was putting in (this is the one who likes pulling push pins out of bulletin boards).

Start: February 9, 2008
Finish: June 5, 2008
Pattern: Icarus (Ravelry) by Miriam Felton
Yarn: Jojoland Harmony in HC04, which is an off-white gradient rainbow.
Needles: US #3, circular.

(see more specs and pictures on the Ravelry project entry)

It’s beautiful. It went perfectly with the dress, I didn’t need a shawl pin (although I wouldn’t turn one down now), and it had exactly the right level of color in it that made it glow against my white graduation dress.

I did not, however, take it up with me to get my diploma. At Park they draw diplomas at random. The first one is chosen randomly, and then after each student receives his or her diploma, they choose the next one out of the basket. So you have to be paying attention and ready to be called.

So when I was called, I didn’t want to spend time gathering up the shawl, beautiful as it is. The last person to get picked wins the pool of money that everyone puts a few dollars into. It turns into a big betting game, and all the teachers have a pool on who will be last. Hilarious. I love my school.

But I guess it’s about time to be moving on.

Hooray! We have a winner for our 20th Pair Contest/Drawing! Yay.

That was fun, everyone, thanks so much for commenting and getting involved and flashing some sock stash. Some of you have some awesome stashes, and I am way jealous.

When we go on our cross-country trip this summer, my mother said I’m only allowed to take two sock projects. Outrageous! It’s a six week trip, and I can finish a pair of socks in two weeks with distractions– with a lot driving, I’ll be finishing those in days. So I’m going to sacrifice packing underwear so I can pack more yarn.

Okay, just kidding. I promise to pack enough underwear.

Anyway, the winner of the drawing for the very sexy gradient sock yarn is…

darbyrose! Yay!

Darbyrose, email me at felinecrafty-AT-gmail-DOT-com to stake your claim on the very sexy yarn.

Again, thanks to everyone a ton. That post is probably my highest frequented, aside from the Spring Cable socks pattern.

And for the sake of having a picture, here’s Admiral Nelson taking a nap.

Icarus.

Mad Sapphire Weave.

So, I don’t have any pictures to show you today because I think my mum took the camera to work and didn’t bring it back, so instead I’ll just bore you with chatter.

My first WIP priority (still) is the Icarus shawl for my graduation. I’m 2 rows into the last 24 row chart, and each row must have over 400 stitches on it, because they take almost half an hour each. I have 10 days to finish the shawl. I want to be blocking it at the latest next Saturday, so I’ve got to push through and get this done! It’s beautiful, though, and I’ve gotten to the beads too early, so I keep shoving them down the yarn wondering if I got too ambitious and put them on way early. At any rate, I need to do two more rows today to keep on track and at a reasonable pace.

The second thing I’m working on is The Project Sweater, which I have tried on and decided looks ridiculous, but I’ll keep going for the sake of the project. I’m very tempted, however, once I’ve shown it off and gone “ooer sweater” to rip it out and fix the outrageous short rows and stupidly huge stripes. It’s a bit silly. Anyway, it’s not as if the knitting part is the hard part, but it is a learning part. It’s all good.

Thirdly I am working on a pair of Mad Color Weave socks in the Socks that Rock in “Sapphire”, and they’re lovely. Sue at Lovelyarns was pondering trying to start an account with BMFA at TNNA next weekend, and so I pulled out the socks and showed her the yarn. She wasn’t impressed at the way it pooled, but I’m enjoying the colors and the way they get mixed up nicely by this pattern. I really like knitting with the STR. Yum. I’ve got to do a few more rows to get them to the heels for my class on Saturday, and I’m hoping both students come back. Aileen was pretty chill about the whole 2-socks-2-circs thing, but the other woman was quite frustrated with it. I don’t know. I love knitting my socks this way, but sometimes I think I forget that my brain handles engineering very well, and not everyone thinks the way I do.

Other projects are stalled out or put away for a while. I need to work primarily on Icarus before I can really pick anything back up or start anything new (like the Elinor tunic, which I am super excited for). But I will finish it! And I promise to post finished pictures-myself-included, in my dress, after graduation.

And, of course, don’t forget to check out the drawing for my 20th pair of socks, Uzume! It’s open till Friday night, then I’ll close the comments for a bit.