Two Day Wonder

The following is a true story:

Once upon a time there was a knitter named Carol. She got up Tuesday morning and wondered, “What shall I knit today?” She glanced at the three beautiful, partially-knit scarves in her knitting basket and thought, “I know! I’ll cast on a shawl.” And so she did. She listened to podcasts on her iPod and knit steadily, pausing only to eat, sleep, and browse her favourite knitting sites. When Wednesday evening arrived she snipped her yarn, drew it through the last stitch, laid down her needles, and proclaimed, “Wow, that was easy.” She blocked the shawl the very next morning and lived happily ever after. The End.

The Swallowtail Shawl, knit in Sunshine Yarns’ wool/silk in the “Stormwatch” colourway. At about 48" x 23" after blocking it's really more of a scarf than a shawl. I am giving it to my sister, Jeanine, for her birthday. To tell you the truth, I am not entirely sure if she will wear it, even though the soft blues will look great on her. She's rather (ahem) particular about her clothes and she may decide that she prefers a more conventional scarf to wear with her winter coat. In any case, it was fun to knit. I haven’t been feeling very well this week (some sort of virus, I think) and it was the perfect thing to work on while vegging out on the couch. The shawl incorporates three different stitch patterns, which were interesting to knit but simple to memorize. By the time I was beginning to tire of one, it was time to move on to the next. By now you know that I am rarely monogamous to one project but this one managed to keep my attention for two full days.

I've Got it Bad

This past week I came down with a major case of startitis, most likely a result of finishing my Monkey socks. For some reason I’ve gone on a scarf kick and have cast on three since last Thursday.

This one is the Party Lace Scarf, made from Haiku from Alchemy Yarns.

I can hardly express how much I love this scarf. It is light and airy and oh, so soft. My favourite part is the row of crystal beads along each end. I love how they sparkle when they catch the light.

This is the Tiger Eyes Lace Scarf, made from some Cherry Tree Hill that I had originally intended for socks.

It doesn’t look like much right now but blocking should reveal its large, striking central lace motif.

Finally, The Prismatic Scarf.

I fell in love with some Manos Silk Blend over the weekend and it followed me home. I wanted a pattern that would make the most of the yarn’s beautiful, variegated colours and went browsing Ravelry. To my delight, I found a pattern designed specifically for this yarn. It is simple, yet interesting, and features a very attractive I-cord edging.

On Saturday I bought a new, purple hoodie and was inspired to make some socks in the same colour—I just so happened to have some Hazel Knits in the perfect shade—so I cast on Stricken by Cookie A. This is my second project for September’s Sockdown. I happily knit away for about 2” before realizing that I had neglected to knit all the cable stitches through the back of the loop, as the chart indicated. Although the cables look beautiful as they are, they are much more effective knit tbl, so I really had no choice but to frog the socks. I immediately cast on again, just so I wouldn’t abandon the project completely, and will start all over again when I can stand to look at them.

My favourite acquisition this weekend was a new birdfeeder.

I haven’t put one up since 1996, when we got our cat, Misty. I didn’t think it was fair to invite the birds to dinner—with them as the main course. But now that Misty is older and doesn’t go outside in the wintertime as much as she used to, I decided it was probably safe to hang a feeder again. It doesn’t look like the birds have found it yet but it won’t take long until they do.

My least favourite acquisition this weekend is what seems to be the beginnings of a chest cold. I promptly put the remains of last night’s crock pot chicken to good use and made up a pot of soup. It is simmering away on the stove as I write and the scent of it is wafting downstairs. Pardon me while I hit “post” and go have a bowl…

Monkey Off My Back

In her description of her Monkey socks Cookie A. writes, “…the true driving force behind these socks was ADDICTION. There was no other way to get them off my back than to knit them.” Sadly, the driving force behind these socks for me was a sense of obligation (self-imposed, I might add).

I have really enjoyed being a member of Ravelry’s Sock Knitters Anonymous and taking part in the group’s monthly Sockdown challenge. Through it I have been exposed to new designers, patterns, yarns, and—best of all—knitters. Furthermore, knitting to a deadline has provided great motivation for me to finish a pair instead of giving into the dreaded SSS. When I learned that Cookie A. would be the designer for September’s Sockdown I was really happy because it gave me the opportunity to finally knit Monkey, a pattern that had been in my queue forever. I had even found the perfect yarn for them this summer, some beautiful teal/jade Koigu KPPPM, one of my very favourite sock yarns.

I happily cast on for these socks at the first opportunity on September 1st and worked through the cuff and a few pattern repeats fairly quickly.

And then I stalled.

I knit a few rows here and knit a few rows there but I couldn’t get into them. Eventually I found myself grafting the toe of the first sock and promptly cast on the second.

And then I stalled.

I can’t explain it. I’d wanted to knit these socks for a long time. I love the yarn. The pattern is simple and easy to memorize. Why was it such an effort to stay focused?

I still don’t know the answer to that question. What I did know was that I needed to get this particular Monkey off my own back. It was weighing me down and preventing me from completely enjoying the other projects that I was working on.

And so on Tuesday night I picked up the second Monkey and I knit and knit. By the time I went to bed I had finished the heel turn. Yesterday morning I picked it up again and did not let myself knit anything else all day, finally finishing about 7:30 last night.

I love these socks. I love the colour. I love the pattern. I love the way they fit. I am pretty sure I will love wearing them.

I am only sorry that I did not love making them.

Three Weeks Later...

So much for my resolve to blog more often. The last couple of weeks have gone by in a flash. Thanks to a long spell of good weather, much of that time has been spent outside painting the trim, doors, and stairs on our house. A week ago Sunday Cameron and I had a marathon painting session and I didn’t knit a stitch the entire day. Believe me, that doesn't happen very often.

With most of the outside work now out of the way I have once again gone back to my knitting in earnest. In about three days’ time I managed to finish one afghan block and crank out three more. This one would have been done a lot sooner if I hadn’t screwed it up and had to rip back about 35 rows.

But it was well worth it since I think this is my favourite so far.

Despite how complex it looks, this square by Kathy Zimmerman knit up quite quickly. I really love it too but then I am a sucker for cables.

I’ll admit that I wasn’t really inspired by how this one looked in the book but I actually enjoyed knitting it and like it a lot more in real life.

And finally, Square #10. I'm kind of ambivalent about it.

Ten down, fifteen to go. There are a couple of good ones coming up in the next row. Although I didn’t start out planning to knit them in order, after a while I decided I needed some sort of system so that I wouldn’t do all the good ones first and be unmotivated to finish the less inspiring ones. So I’m doing them row by row but not necessarily in the order they appear in the book. So far this seems to be working.

Sockdown 08-09 has now begun and one of September’s challenges is to knit socks by Cookie A. Even though the pattern itself is not very challenging I am doing Monkey, since these are socks I have wanted to knit for practically forever but never got around to until now. The pattern is very simple so I expected to be done long before this but for some reason I seem to have lost my sock mojo and they are taking an eternity. Maybe, just maybe, it’s because I keep getting distracted by other projects like this.

I fell in love with the Autumn Rose Pullover as soon as I saw it and immediately sent away for the kit. Although my swatch has been done for over three weeks, I only just got around to casting on for the sweater a few days ago. I don’t have much experience with stranded knitting but so far I am enjoying the challenge of holding one yarn in each hand, knitting English-style with my right and Continental-style with my left. The most difficult part was working the purl stitches of the ribbing with my left hand but eventually I got the hang of it and was able to build up a rhythm.

I had really hoped to have my Berry shawl done by the time I receive my new Year of Lace shipment at the end of this month but I don’t think that’s going to happen. I still have four more repeats (80 rows) to go before reaching the halfway point, with each repeat taking about 2.5 hours. At one time I thought I could manage if I did one repeat a day but I just haven’t been able to maintain that focus—there are so many other wonderful things to knit!

Speaking of, have you seen the latest issues of IK, VK, Knitty, etc.? It’s a conspiracy, I tell ya.