Still Knitting, BTW

After I finished the rainbow socks, remember them?

I would up another lovely rainbow:

And from this single stitch:

Socks will again grow.

Then, after finishing the Nixe shawl, remember that?

I grabbed this beauty:

To start another shawl.

Recently, I've been wearing the Valente shawl I made a few years ago, and it really does stay in place so well, unlike some shawls I've made. I decided another one was a good idea.

Nixe Shawl, Blocked

If you are a knitter, you know what blocking is: washing and shaping a knitted item. For some things, washing is enough, while for others, pinning it into shape is practically demanded. For me, Nixe fell in between. I wanted to see if I could spread out the bind-off edge, to make it a bit less ruffled, and also fix a gathered bit in the early part of the shawl, with the plain knitting that was between the patterned.

Laid out, pre-wash. These squares are two feet by two feet.

The bind-off edge.

The central ruffle.

So I soaked it in wool wash, then put it in towels to stomp the excess water out.

Knit burrito!

Damp and pinned out. You can see that it grew both wider and longer (as aligned to the blocks).

I pinned all along the bind-off edge.

And then on both sides of this part, to flatten it.

Ta-da! 

I can see much experimentation in my future as to how to wear it, but it is so soft and cozy (and warm!), who cares how it lands?

Finished Knitting x2

I finished two very different projects this week, one of which was started and finished in under a fortnight, and the other that took more than 9 months. Quite the contrast!

The long project is the Nixe shawl, which I wrote about working on last summer. I bound it off on Monday, but it needs blocking, so I'm not going to go into detail yet. But it's done!

The quick one was a hat, for which I used a baby hat pattern but bulky yarn, so it fits me nicely:

Although off the head, it definitely looks like it wouldn't fit, and would also be much too long. Such is the mystery of ribbing.

I actually knit it for an inch more than called for, so that it would cover my ears. This is for me to sleep in, so that the strap of the eye mask doesn't bother my ears, and I think it's going to work well. I'm also planning to make a headband, about three inches, for when I'm too hot for the hat but want the ear cover.

And there we are! I'll show the shawl blocking when I get to it.

Good Words

The Boston Globe today had the obituary for acclaimed knitter Barbara Walker, who died last month; I'm not sure why the delay, but they picked up the NY Times obit, with a good-sized picture, and kudos to the writer, Joanne Kaufman, for her vocabulary. 

Nice use of "kniterati" in the first paragraph:

And later, both "autodidact," which I had at least heard before, and "perfervid," which I had not. (Fervid, yes; perfervid, no.)

I don't mean to sound too full of myself when I say that I read enough that I don't often come across words I've never even seen before. And I love it when I do!

RIP, Barbara Walker.

A Little Scattered

Sometimes there are enough different things I want to write about that I somehow manage not to write about any of them. Fortunately there are no blog police and I adhere to my initial thoughts from when I started the blog, which is that I have to write for myself before anyone else. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that anyone else wants to read what I write! But it starts with me.

So, a few things with little detail and in no particular order. First, yes, those who guessed (or suggested) I open the yarn advent starting on November 1 instead of waiting until December, you win, that's what I'm doing. So far there have been beautiful blues revealed and I couldn't be happier. I took a picture yesterday:

Continuing on the yarn theme, my cousin L (who is actually married to my second cousin, to be specific; they've lived in this area longer than I have) was on a trip to Germany this summer and was inspired by all the yarn stores to bring me back yarn. She was in northern Germany, and said every village had a yarn store, and the larger town she was in had three, and she simply had to bring me back some. She has often commented on my knitting photos on social media, and apparently she showed some to the woman in the yarn store, to give her an idea of the level knitter I am! Look at this bounty:

Rainbow! Cashmere!

Naturally, I want to knit her something in thanks. I picked the Clove Hitch scarf pattern, as she said a scarf for Christmas trips up north would be nice, and she said her favorite color is teal, so I'm using these two from my stash.

It's hard to see in the picture, but they are slightly lighter and darker: it won't be a huge contrast, but I like it so far. Much better pictures to come, I promise, but I have started and so far, so good.

That's all well and good, I hear you say, but don't you have any cat photos? Newman? You know, the new guy?

Do I have any photos. Ha. Boy, do I. Here are a few.

Am I This Kind of Knitter

Believe it or not, there are things going on in my life that do not revolve around a certain orange cat!

I mean, he is the highlight of my week. But far be it from me not to use this space for my regular chatter, venting, and complaining!

After a cat photo.

In knitting, it's good to know yourself, and what kind of knitter you are. (This may extrapolate to other crafts--I wouldn't be surprised if it did--but I will stick to what I know.) Do you prefer making lacy shawls? Then ignore that sale on bulky yarn. Do you make a lot of sweaters? Then don't buy that single skein of yarn, no matter how lovely. That kind of thing.

One thing that's true for me is that generally, I prefer to know what I'm getting (into). I don't want to do a mystery knit-a-long, because I may not like the project. I don't want to get a mystery grab bag of yarn, because how do I know I would like the colors? Like that.

So it is perhaps inexplicable for me to have ordered a yarn advent set. 

If you're not familiar, some yarn dyers will create a themed set that one opens from December first as a countdown to Christmas. (I believe that some people will plan to knit a bit every day, so that they have a finished object by Christmas, though goodness, that seems ambitious to me, with everything else going on in December.)

The reason I ordered it anyway is that I was beguiled by the inspiration photo that Purple Lamb put up. Are these my colors, or what?

(The image is fuzzy, but you get the idea.)

I couldn't resist. Well, I didn't resist, anyway. And the order was delivered this week. I was eager to see what the colors actually are, because I had kind of forgotten the whole point of it being an advent. I opened the box, and:

Ah, yes. Little daily boxes. Of course.

So what it comes down to is this; I have a few options.

1. Open them all now. So far I have managed not to do this, even though I want to know.
2. Wait until December 1 and do it the way you're supposed to.
   2a. Possibly give the box to a friend to hide for me until December 1.
3. Start opening them on November 1, instead.

I'm leaning toward 3, as you may have guessed. Because waiting until December?

What would you do?

Found It!

As my long weekend wound down, I was pretty sure I was going to have to report back that I wasn't able to find the yarn I was looking for, and thus wouldn't be able to bring the socks I wanted to on my trip. Frustrating, though not the end of the world. But I decided to look one more time.

This yarn, Urth Uneek Sock, comes as a kit, meaning it's wound into two matching balls and comes in a box. Like this:

So that's what I've been looking for, the box with one ball of yarn in it. But today, looking again, I found ... the box.

Hmmm. Armed with this new info, I went back to the place I first thought it should be, the shelf with my other rainbow-colored fingering-weight yarn (yes, I have a whole shelf of that, hush). And this time, instead of feeling around in the back and corners for a box, I started pulling it all out. I didn't get half of it out when, viola:

Hello, my beauty!

So now I have two weeks before the trip, plenty of time to finish the toe of sock one and start sock two, ready to go. Whew!

It's an interesting lesson to me to trust my instincts. There's a Dick Francis book where the main character is looking for something in his father's study, and muses on how he follows his father in the principle of putting things in the first place you would look for them. It doesn't matter if your system doesn't make sense to others as long as it makes sense to you. 

This system is not without its flaws, clearly: I once went to pick up a library book and my card was not where it belonged, leaving me with the unsettling feeling that that meant it could be anywhere else on the planet...but I found it in the end. And I found my yarn. Yay.

The Real Plans

The first day off the long weekend has been very peaceful for me, full of lots of reading and wonderfully low-key. I keep thinking it's Saturday, but no, only Friday. Ahhh. Now I'm spending a little time thinking about my upcoming trip.

For me, a big part of any travel planning involves knitting projects, so of course that's what I'm thinking about for Key West. In general, I want to have more than one project with me, and it's often a shawl and a sock, both being things I make frequently. 

For the shawl, I've been working on Nixe, which I apparently haven't written about other than when I started it in May. Oops? It's a very thoroughly written pattern, which absolutely works for me, though it does mean it's potentially awkward as carry-around knitting: lots of pages. But each row is pretty simple once started, and I think I'll be okay pulling the pattern out and putting it away, for instance in the car, even though I'm used to spreading it out.

It starts out with the cream-colored yarn, simple knitting with yarnovers.

And then the colored yarn is brought in and the magic of slipped stitches does this:

I even like it held up to the light.

So, yes, I'm enjoying it too much to put aside. It comes with.

As for the sock project, well. For one reason and another, I actually have multiple socks-in-progress, so I pulled one out to see when I had left it. It turns out that sock one is almost done:

And I have time to finish it and start sock two before the trip. But. BUT.

Where is the other ball of yarn...?

Um, it must be here somewhere.

So. We'll see if I can find it this weekend. If not, I'll pick another option.

Sigh. Disorganization strikes again. I have to admit that it's kind of driving me crazy trying to figure out where it got to.

A Lazy Knitter's Way Out

I wanted to wind yarn to start a new project (because no, none of the projects I have going were crying out to be picked up again now), but I was too lazy to pull the swift and ball-winder out from under all the assorted crap piled in the corner.

So I took a look around and made it work another way.

The arms of the chair were the perfect size. And before you knew it, there was a tidy ball of yarn ready to go.

And after an evening hanging out with knitting friends, I had this.

Much more to come! In time.