Affliction Update

After agonizing here, here, and here about color choices for the Color Affection shawl, I finally realized that world peace was not going to depend on my yarn choices, and I happily cast on with Socks that Rock in Winter Solstice and Jasper, and a skein of Tess Sock.

Well. This is a lot of garter stitch. And a lot of stitches. Still, it's pretty obsessive. Just as I got tired of increasing the plain gray, I got to stripe in the purple. Just as I got tired of the two stripes, I got to add a third, and whoo! short row as well.




But, you know, because I am me, I have to complicate things. It's Mad May, a celebration of Madelinetosh yarn, on Ravelry, and I am entering the Color Affection Plus KAL contest. My current Affliction isn't eligible, so I am starting a Stripe Study by the same designer in Madelinetosh Sock in Candlewick and Tern.


God help me, this is a lot of garter stitch.

Spring Cleaning: Finished Project #1

Centrique by Carol Feller, knit with 3/4 of a skein of Socks that Rock Mediumweight in Rook-y.

It's impossible to capture the gorgeousness that is a Raven colorway from Blue Moon Fiber Arts. Underneath the black shimmers tones of blue, purple, and green. The shawl was a super-quick knit. I thought at the time that I didn't like the way the increases are just left in stockinette until there's enough for another repeat, but it blends in beautifully in the finished shawl. I may make another one, but knitting a larger stockinette portion and possibly a third repeat.

My intention is for this to be a Mother's Day gift, but I may, just may, keep it for myself.

Color Affliction

I know I can't be the only one feeling obsessive about the Color Affection -- or as I call it, Color Affliction -- pattern. I look at the finished projects almost every day on Ravelry, thinking about all the possible color combinations.

Because this is the New Austerity, I cannot buy new yarn for the shawl. I shopped the stash came up with this:



From left to right, Tess Supersock, Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Lightweight in Winter Solstice, and Miss Babs Windsor Sock in Field Mouse.

Thoughts? I'm wondering if the gray and the brown are too close together. I will twist them together and see. Lisa has suggested an orange in place of the brown, which would pop more, but also "de-neutralize" the finished piece.

See why I call this Color Affliction?

Car Knitting, and Yes, I am Still Here

So yeah, it's been awhile. Travel, illness, sleep deprivation, and a mobile baby all add up to blog neglect, but we are still here, still knitting.

And I still haven't bought any yarn in 2012.

Speaking of travel, I needed something mindless to work on during a recent drive to New York City. I also discovered that I lack a plain, non-lacy, gray neck-thing in my wardrobe. I dug out my not-small stash of gray fingering weight yarn and chose a skein of Colorful Yarn Merino Sock that I'd purchased on a trip to Philadelphia years ago...let's just say Henry was still The Toddler and he was in a stroller when I went to this store.

I cast on for Nimbus, a part of this amazingly beautiful, simple collection of gray knits. I love gray. Have I mentioned that before? The pattern, once set up, is easy to memorize and perfect for the car. Off I went!

And off we went! I have one very enthusiastic City Mouse:

And someone who is undecided, but leaning toward Unimpressed Country Mouse:

Deepest Stash

I have, inadvertently, been knitting from my deepest, darkest stash lately. I bought one solitary skein of Brooks Farm Four Play, a wool and silk blend, at the Pittsburgh Knit and Crochet Festival at least three years ago. The put-up at 270 yards per skein is generous, but the "perfect" project never came along, and it's been languishing ever since. The yarn has a delicate sheen from the silk, and the tonal dye is beautiful and subtle.

On Oscar night, I decided that I was just going to use this yarn, and I cast on for 198 Yards of Heaven.  Because I had extra yardage, I did an extra pattern repeat, but ran out halfway through the edging. I also realized one row into the edging, that the pattern made no sense, and when I checked Ravelry, I saw that the pattern I'd printed out a year ago had been revised with a completely different edge. So much for printing and organizing patterns when I see them. I ran out of yarn halfway through the edging, but I like the final results better than the original edging, which looks heavy and takes away from the main motif.

iPhone photo

The whole thing

Obligatory Hipstamatic Shot

Unfortunately, because it's only 270 yards, it doesn't count for 11 Shawls in 2011. Still, other than the pattern discrepancy, it was a quick and easy project and an excellent match of Deepest Stash to pattern.

On the Third Day of Christmas

I finished the Christmas knitting! Truly, it's a new record for me. My father's World War II Watch Cap was actually completed on Christmas Eve.

 

I finished knitting my mother's Traveling Woman on December 26. This meant I actually handed my mother a gift bag with the project still on the needles on Christmas Day.  Oh well. After a few days of tearing apart my so-called "yarn room," I finally found my blocking pins. With The Preschooler at Bubba's, I had some peace and quiet this morning to block out the shawl.

Finally, yesterday, I went to the jeweler's, with moral support from Steven, to have my rings cut off. I haven't been able to get them reliably on and off for over a year, and with last weekend's Christmas basically serving as a Festival of Ham and Salty Snax, my fingers swelled up to painful proportions. Because I'm pregnant, I knew it would get worse before it got better, so off they came. Steven insists I show you a picture of the immediate aftermath.

Happy Mother's Day

This is what I made my mother: a Shetland Triangle in Madeline Tosh Sock in Oxblood.

 This is what The Preschooler made for me. I love the "mixed-media" piece.

Just because I'm not acting like a crazed weasel...

...doesn't mean I'm not thinking like one. I may not be casting on, but I sure do have the itch to start new projects.

Yesterday my mother came in to Natural Stitches with The Preschooler in tow. (And to those who were in the store, I'm so sorry if you weren't amused by Steven and a small child playing KABOOM! in the chunky yarn section. They are apparently BFFs now.) She'd asked me last year for a small black shawl, but we both agreed that we didn't want to do it in a "flat" solid black color. We'd originally planned on Socks that Rock Rauen, but when she saw my finished Hederas, she thought the color was too brown. After much consultation, she chose Madeline Tosh Sock in Oxblood for a small Shetland Triangle. It's a Mother's Day present. Surely I can cast on for a Mother's Day present?

A few weeks ago, my mother, mother-in-law, and I went to Phipps Conservatory to see the Spring Flower Show, where I fell in love with this color.

I've been thinking about making a "Wandering the Moors" shawl in this gorgeous Road to China Light for awhile, and when we got in this new pink colorway, it seemed like the perfect match to the flowers that had been dancing in my mind. The sheen and halo of the fiber seems appropriately textured while the dusty pink acts as a homage to the early Victorian sensibilities of Jane Eyre. But I'm not going to cast on.  Nope.

Then just this week, we got this new color of Dream in Color Smooshy in. I have pink on the brain. But no, I won't cast on. 

Happy Easter!

Henry did some modeling of finished projects for me today.

Kirsten Kapur's Pembroke Vest, from the original issue of Petite Purls. The vest is made from Brown Sheep Superwash.

Henry also offered to model my Olatz Shawl, made for Malabrigo March in Malabrigo Worsted in Sealing Wax.

However, I think my mother did a more accurate modeling job.

Malabrigo But Not March: Textured Shawl

Yarn trends may cycle in and out, but at least for 2010, I'm turning back to my old friend Malabrigo. I mentioned during snOMGpgh that Malabrigo Silky Merino was turning into my drug of choice: so soft, so shiny, such depth of color, and such great value for the price.  With just two skeins of Silky Merino in Indicieta, I made a version of Orlane's Textured Shawl. I used the garter tab set-up for Feministy's Yvaine, then knit sixteen rows of stockinette, sixteen rows of the texture pattern, eight rows of stockinette, four rows of garter stitch, eight rows of stockinette, another sixteen rows of the texture pattern, eight rows of stockinette, four of the texture pattern again, and then garter stitch for four rows (or, in other words, until I ran out of yarn and the gold medal hockey game was over).  The finished project is now on display at Natural Stitches for the Show Us Your Shawl Extravaganza this weekend.

A Monogamous (and Ruffle-y) Malabrigo March

An odd thing has happened. In the past few weeks, I've become, mostly, a monogamous knitter. It started with the Knitting Olympics, but I have been pleasantly surprised by how I've been able to stay on track with projects. Yet truth be told, the two projects I've completed so far for Malabrigo March have been done because I hesitated to put them down, fearful that I might not be able to bring myself to pick them back up again. These projects feature an awful lot of stockinette, and an awful lot of, well, stitches.

Laura Chau's Just Enough Ruffles, in Malabrigo Worsted in Velvet Grapes:

Citron from Knitty, in Malabrigo Sock in Boticelli Red:

Ulmus

Technical difficulties -- meaning my camera and my laptop both basically chose the same time to give up the ghost -- have made me a bad blogger. But it's about time I recorded my Knitting Olympics Project. I wasn't going to do the Ravelympics: too complicated, too many rules, too many teams, etc. But when The Yarn Harlot posted that she was going back to the original Knitting Olympics, I was in, along with my teammates at Natural Stitches. 

The Knitting Olympics ask you to challenge yourself, trusting that you know what you can accomplish in 17 days. For this goal, I challenged myself to "get on with it already." I've loved Kirsten Kapur's Ulmus from the minute the pattern was released. I fantasized about what two colors of Malabrigo Sock I'd choose for my own Ulmus. I bought the pattern. I looked longingly at the other Ulmuses (Ulmii?) on Ravelry. But I could never bring myself to start. The Knitting Olympics seemed like the perfect kick in the pants.

I chose Malabrigo Sock in my all-time favorite Malabrigo colorway, Stonechat, and paired it with Turner, a green that goes from acid to muddy and back again.

Once I figured out how to count to three, the garter and slip-stitch body went fairly quickly.

The lace portion flew! I cast-off on Saturday, one day before the torch went out. Yvonne kindly blocked it for me, and here's a picture of the lace detail.

Here's my medal!

I'm rather amazed at how quickly the project came together. Perhaps these monogamous knitters are on to something? When you don't flit from project to project, you actually...finish. Go figure!

Multnomah

Although yesterday's "Creative Time" was abbreviated due to massive piles of laundry, I did manage to block out my Multnomah Shawl. This doesn't count for the 10 Shawls in 2010 because I started it way back in September. It had been in time out because, in spite of it being the stitch pattern that new knitters cut their teeth on, I cannot manage to do Feather and Fan to save my life. Apparently, I cannot count to six with any kind of consistency.

The yarn is Creatively Dyed Tradewinds, a superwash fingering yarn in the Sour Orange colorway. I blocked it a little too severely, and the scallops look more like points; I've softened the edges somewhat since taking it off the blocking wires. Blocked, it looks like a Cylon Raider, doesn't it?