So Much Knitting

I doubt that anyone who reads this blog at all regularly skips past all the knitting content, since that must be half of what I put up (maybe more?), but if in fact that is you, congrats, you can skip today: it's all knitting-related content (well, a little ties into Grandma's upcoming birthday, but that still has a knitting angle). It's also going to be kind of random order: you've been warned!

I am still working on the lap blanket, and recently joined the fourth yarn ball, so it's officially more than three-quarters done. I really like how the colors are pooling; sometimes pooling is the kiss of death in a project, but in this one, I find what it's doing fun!

Next, I finally, finally got around to framing two items, one of which is knitting-related (the other isn't, unless you count periods where sloth overcomes accomplishment in knitting, but I love it, too).

The yarn-sea print is one I got on etsy, and the ekatearcher shop has a lot of other cool images. (The sloth came from Pickled Punks Plush, at the Apple Festival a few years ago.) Here they are on the wall at last.

Back to actual knitting. For Grandma's upcoming 105th (!) birthday, I knit her some flowers, as you do. The pattern is Flowers for Mam, and they were simple to make, and used up bits of leftover yarn. I like the touch of the stem being a knitting needle: I have plenty of old, odd needles, so why not use them for this?

As for a card, I found an artist on etsy, POPARTsculpture, who makes lovely cut-paper cards, and commissioned one from her. Since for some reason, of all the ages she had ready in her shop, she didn't have one for 105. Weird, right? She did a beautiful job.

It stands up, a little, and I hope Grandma likes it.

Back in January, I took a wild leap away from the Skyp pattern I always have going as purse socks, and cast on a Claire sock instead. I recently finished the first sock, and while I do like it, I'm not making the second one right away.

(The photo above is darker than the yarn really is; the photos below are lighter. Such is photography.)

It isn't classic second-sock syndrome; I just find the Skyp pattern pleasingly simple to have as carry-around knitting, so I cast on another of those, instead.

Using the Dream in Color Smooshy with cashmere I got from the Loopy Ewe in January. Lovely yarn. So simple.

I've made more progress on the little shawl I'm knitting, but it's (also) currently put aside while I ponder on how, halfway through the edging, it seems like it's going to leave me with a lot of yarn I won't use. Which isn't a huge problem, except that it's a small shawl, and if I could use most of the yarn and make it bigger, that would be better. But am I right? Am I miscalculating? Let it sleep while I consider.

Which means, of course, that I need to have something else to bring for knitting-on-the-plane. First, I started swatching for the Ty-Dy cotton top.

I quite like the look and feel of the yarn, but apparently it's a really good idea with cotton yarn* to wash and dry the swatch (something I honestly don't always bother with), since cotton grows. And I don't want to rush that process, being new to the whole knitting-in-cotton thing, so since the trip is coming up fast, that's going to wait its turn. I already know I want to make the top longer than the pattern states, but I don't want it to grow to knee length or anything. Math will be involved.
*Honestly, it's a good idea anyway, but apparently with cotton, it's crucial.

So what to knit, what to knit? I pondered this yarn and that, this pattern and that, not feeling the love for anything, and finally hit upon the Across the Waters non-shawl. Went poking through the stash for a DK and a fingering-weight, and really fell for this combination:

And here it is after one wedge (I finished another last night).

The blue yarn is Yaksi, from Blue Moon, which is a discontinued DK weight made of wool, yak, and silk. The green I got at the Scandinavian Weave and Knit booth at Apple Festival in 2016 (which I don't think they go to any more, but they do go to Rhinebeck*), and is a fingering weight of merino with cashmere and nylon. I love the colors together, the way they aren't multicolored but aren't just solid, either. Tonals for the win!
*and this year, so am I! have I not mentioned that? going with my friends! so excited!

All right, I think that was all the knitting-related stuff I wanted to catch up on. Whew. Congrats on making it to the end!