Of Knitting, Christmas and Otherwise; Cute Animals, Too

Hey, I never went into any detail about Christmas knitting, did I? That was because I was making something for my mother, and wanted it to be a surprise. In fact, the shawl I made for my grandmother was the same pattern, which is why I mentioned that but never went into detail. Time for detail!

I got the yarn for my mother's shawl at Coveted Yarn in Gloucester (love that store). The first one was from a local dyer, Toil and Trouble in Salem; the colors caught my eye, and the softness kept my attention. Then I found some Malabrigo in a complementary rose pink, which I thought would go nicely. I had a shawl in mind, a vague idea of a little shoulder covering for the cooler nights on the lanai when you just want a little something. Shortly, my search brought me to the pattern Piper's Journey, which intrigued me enough to pay for it--only $5, but there are so many good free patterns out there that I don't often pay for one. I was intrigued by the construction of this shawl, though, and I'm glad I decided to try it.

One factor in most shawl patterns is the need to either cast on a lot of stitches to start, or bind off a lot of stitches at the end. Then there are some patterns that also require picking up a lot of stitches at some point, and having just done that with the Bigger on the Inside, I was not eager to do that again! Piper's Journey is simple, though: you cast on just a few stitches, then knit along increasing every other row. It's simple garter stitch, so that part is excellent social knitting, and at least in the yarn I chose, the occasional oops is not very visible (ahem).

When the shawl is wide enough, you cast on a few more stitches at the end (this is where I switched to the other yarn, but you could certainly do it in the same; I just liked the multi for the garter section and the solid for the patterned border), then start the border pattern. You're continuing on the 18 stitches you just cast on, but every two rows you pull one of the live stitches from the shawl body into a decrease, so you end up using them all up along the way, until you finish by binding off those 18 stitches and boom, done! Very neat.

I was still smitten when I finished Mum's, and since my grandmother had admired it in progress in October, I decided to make her one for Christmas. It went fine too (other than the little running out of yarn issue, ahem ahem), but I felt no lure to cast on another right away, making this a very short jag. I can see making the pattern again one day, though.

The socks are progressing. The second purse sock is just past the heel, as of last night.

And the bike sock is also past the heel, moving down the foot.

I'm loving the California Dreaming shawl in the mink yarn, which is maybe half done. Someone at knitting the other night asked if it was about done and I said God, no! Then had to clarify that yes, it's getting to be a nice size for a small shawl, but I am using every bit of this wondrous yarn, so I'll just keep going and make a big one. I'll have to lay it out sometime, to see how it's looking, but for now, I just keep knitting.

I'm having lots of yarn and knitting thoughts lately, on top of all the things I already want to do "sometime" like the second TARDIS mitt* and TARDIS socks and fiddlehead mittens and sweaters with the yarn I have enough of, and so on (the Ravelry queue, it is not short).
*I think what's held me back on that one is my gut feeling that the first one needs to be redone. What I should do is make the second one the way I want to redo the first, and make sure it works out, before I rip the first one. We'll see.

Other thoughts I've had recently are

• that it's time to make Grandma's cat a new mouse; 
• that I want to look at the pattern for the mitered square blanket, with an eye to starting that after the shawl; 
• that I want to make some knit cuffs to wear under my gloves to cover the gap at the wrist, and that the leftover yarn from the cashmere socks I love might do very nicely for that (I didn't make those socks tall enough, a lesson I've now learned, but it leaves me with about 25 grams of quite nice yarn sitting around); 
• about the blue-face leicester yarn I bought at Rhinebeck last year. I've looked at patterns for that before, since I loved the idea of using it in a pattern that has maple leaves. The idea suits the colors so well! But none of the patterns I saw on Ravelry looked right to me. I'm thinking, though, that I could make a basic shawl pattern and incorporate a maple leaf square pattern like this one, and I might just like that! Early days yet on this idea, so we'll see how it progresses, but it's bubbling lightly on the back burner.

Seems like my stove has a lot of burners right now, doesn't it? How many does yours have? Knitting or otherwise.

In conclusion, I bring you some cute animals other than Carlos, for once. I watched the Bruins game at Mary Ellen's last night, and got pictures of her two (cute and friendly) cats, and one of her guinea pigs (didn't get a good photo of the other one, unfortunately).

My favorite: I got out the camera to capture Finnegan's blissed-out expression while he was getting scritched, and instead got the classic "Ooh, what's that?" shot.

I love cats.