Busy July

It has been a while since I have updated. I have been knitting, and also playing World of Warcraft again and those two have been pretty much dominated my free time.

Off the Needles:

Cotton Kisses Cardigan: This is completed! Mom loved it, and on the thank you note it said that Dad could not “believe it is handmade”. I think that is a good thing, and speaks to the care I took with it. It turns out even if you stay up until 2 am picking up a collar and get up early the next morning to get the buttons on, it’s still much admired.

Trilobyte Hat: This has been frogged as I buggered it up. I intend to recast on for an x-mas gift, but if it isn’t done by November, I won’t be casting it on because I won’t get it done in time. No more knitted gifts. At least, no more last minute knitted gifts.

Alisande Cardigan: I started this ages ago, and finished the back this weekend. I have to be honest, I don’t like the way it looks. This isn’t the fault of the designer, or the design. I loved it when I bought it. I just don’t love it now. Having completed the back and attempting the two front pieces, I just don’t like the look.

On the Needles

Medallion Bag: The second class for this went excellently. I have now picked up around the bottom, but I’m afraid I don’t really have the time and quiet to devote to this bag right now.

Fawkes: No real progress, cardi took the wind out of me.

Shipwreck: After being reminded of this on the phone in traffic, I pulled it out again. I ordered all the necessary needles and cords from Knitpicks and they came today! I still have to finish the last lace pattern before I start the ocean of  yo, k2tog that are coming. Tomorrow will be an excellent evening to spend in a cafe with this beauty.

Hey Teach: Okay, yes, I’m on the rebound from Alisande, I admit it. But I picked up 4 skiens of  Caron’s Spa (acrylic and bamboo blend) and it is buttery soft to start Hey Teach and I’m in love this time.

I have also ordered a subscription to Handknit Heroes It’s a comic book about knitters, who are super heroes. Hopefully it will show up soon!

Back to Blogging

I’m afraid I have taken a rather long break from knitting. Since March I have been hired into my now full time job from my temp position, moved into a townhouse, and will very soon be a certified yankee!

Here is what is on the needles:

Fawkes socks in Sockotta. RIP Momma Monkey. Every time I take out this pattern I think of her, and how nice she was in her rav mails to me.

Medallion Bag in Cascade 220. I am taking an awesome class with Gina from Stitches & Scones. She did a great job of teaching me how to knit continental and purl left handed. Me-purl left handed!

Cotton Kisses Cardigan in Cotton Kisses – I have a baby shower in less than 2 weeks, so I have to get on this ASAP. I also got this from S&S. It is the yarn, 3 buttons, and 2 patterns all for $14. How perfect is that?

Trilobyte in Dream in Color Classy. I have a bit of time on this, but not much. I better focus on the baby cardigan for now anyway.

Tomorrow is the last day to be in the apartment, so we have to go over there and clean up.  I will have pics of all my projects sometime this week.

Shipwrecked

I have been busy, as usual. Mostly with that baby blanket and also I have snuck in some time for lace, Shipwreck in the Spring ’09 Knitty:

 

 

This is going to be a huge problem, because I now love lace. Of course, this means that I can find things to do with my enormous stash of sock yarn. I’ll be adding a lot of stuff to my Ravelry queue.

47th & Broadway

The hat, she is finished. After a quick search on Ravelry, Broadway is (as suspected) a bit of a popular name. So, the hat is getting a new name, 47th & Broadway. 

So there we have it. The reknit is on hold for a bit while I assist a coworker who is a soon-to-be grandmother of  fraternal twins. I’m crocheting up 25 pink granny squares so that she can make up a blanket for the girl, and she is working on the blue for the boy. I love making things for other people, especially babies. Then this weekend I can get right back to the hat.

NYC Rundown

Well, I lost an hour of sleep but I gained some time to myself because hubby is back to work today. That means that I get some time to blog!  Here are the pics of my yarn hauls from NYC:

 

Oops, toe snuck in there.  Anyway, NYC was great. The family did not share my feelings regarding the city. I would move there tomorrow, but they don’t ever want to go back. I like it, as I think I should never be bored there. There isn’t much greenery, but Central Park is nice enough and there are so many people. You would almost never feel alone there are so many people. 

I’m drying the Broadway hat right now. It looks really, really hippie. This is not the kind of thing I generally wear, but then I don’t generally wear hats. When it’s fully dry I’ll get a picture. 

As for the design elements, my usual drop down a needle size made the fabric rather tighter than usual. I’m reknitting the hat, this time writing down the instructions, on a size 8 with light gray yarn. All the better to knit, I mean, see you with my dear.

Return from NYC

NYC was fantastic. I went everywhere and did everything, including yarn shopping. I also found a new hat to design:

 

It looks what might be referred to as “hippie dippie”. I rather like it. It will be a kind of slouchy beret thing. I have purchased yarn at a new store I found nearby in light gray so that the stitch patterns will show better. Anyway, I still need to unpack!

Hap Shawl Part II

It has been an almost criminal length of time since I have posted. I have excuses, and all of them are just that, excuses. NYC in 3 days has got me reeling at work, at home and school. However, I have made some pretty nice progress on the mini hap shawl:

I am now working on the chevron edging. While watching Dollhouse.

Not a Pun

I was going to use a pun. But I’m not. The Hap shawl is ending up to be more of a model for what I’m knitting now rather than a recreation. Instead of a big gartre square, I cast on 8 stitches and increased 8 stitches every other row, at the beginning and end so what I get is a growing square of stockinette. I find it more satisfying than that garter square, and also less self-harm inducing. I can’t beleive I didn’t stab myself in the eye with my needle. Ugh. Here is a pic, but this red seems to bleed terribly:

I am thinking that a dark background  might improve the picture. Anyway.

I am moving away from the hap concept the further I get with this. I don’t think that feather and fan is going to look particularly good with the lines I’m putting in. I was going to remove the yarn overs and go for a chevron border. This thing is going to look very sharp.

In other news, I finally did the taxes, and will hopefully get a little refund just in time for NYC. Less than two weeks until the trip! The closer I get, the more excited I get. I get the horrible feeling that once I go I will want to move there. Would it be worse to go and never want to come back, or to come back never wanting to go again? 

As well as the knitting another of my old novels has cropped up again, and is being rather pushy about brain space. I’m somewhat hesitant, the afterlife is rather delicate and somewhat overdone…Husband says I would make a great TV show writer. He insists that I do “the Dresden Files thing”. I should prefer my series not to be cancelled, though. Still, worth a try I suppose.

Hap Shawl: En Bout

I have been a very neglectful blogger. School work, and now dog-sitting are rather eating up my free time.  Then Ysolda sent out the next pattern in her WLK series, the Hap Blanket. I am generally not a fan of knitted blankets, they are too thin in stockinette and the fluffier garter bores me to knit.

But I fell in love with the concept of the hap shawl, and also with dark grey and lipstick red. So, off the the LYS did I trot. And I came home with:

The gray yarn is Berroco’s Ultra Alpaca Fine, and the red is Plymouth Yarn’s Alpaca Prima. They say they are fingering weight but I would call them light fingering  going on lace. Between them I have about 1300 yards, enough for a shawl. I am using  a size 8 32″ circ, 108 stitches cast on. I plan to knit a boring gray garter square, and find an edging that seems suitable. To be honest I am leaning towards not the feather and fan pattern. I’ll have to see what I feel like.

Sock Yarn Diet Fail

I have bought no sock yarn since before X-mas. I should correct that, I had bought none until today.

Then when I stopped in my LYS for some worsted for my shrug, I finally caved and bought something I’ve been coveting since it came out: Lorna’s Laces: Franklin’s Panopticon. I also bought this genius 9″ size 2 circular needle for baby hats or fingerless gloves or even maybe….socks?

As for what I got for the shrug? 5 skeins of Berroco’s Cuzco. It is 50% alpaca and 50% Peruvian wool. I may not have mentioned this but alpaca is my favorite fiber. 100% alpaca doesn’t have the drape I like, so I usually get a mix of fibers, but boy do I love alpaca. It’s so soft and warm.

New knitting goal: get this shrug done before NYC on Feb 28th. Need to start, um, now.