WIP Wednesday: Long Term Like Whoa

Those of you who have been following this blog for a while (hi, Mama!) may remember last year's vlog entry: my own and only video blog post as part of Knit & Crochet Blog Week.  And in that high-production-value fantastixtravaganza, I brought up my long-hibernating Spoke WIP, and I expressed hesitation and apprehension and all sorts of okay-I'll-start-this-again-but-I'm-not-sure-how-long-it-will-last feelings re: this sweater Of Doom.

HAHAHAHAHA I stopped working on it almost immediately! That edging was demoralizing -- fingers crossed I can finish this month.  Turns out this acrylic-merino blend is slightly more non-SW merino than my eyes can deal with.  Worsted weight and everything.

You said it, Oda Mae.

So as of four days ago, it looked like this:

Ooh  aah  curling.
Let's see if you can spot this week's contribution,
as of two days ago:

Boop!

Hint: the answer is there is now a sleeve and some.

I'm taking a break every other night because it's August and I can...
but I will get this done.  Soon.  Vengeance  Completion will be mine!

Sporadic, As Is My Wont

So!  Where were we?
... ... ... ... ...
... ... ...
OH!  Blanket!

mod of Half Square Triangle Blanket [Rav] by Lion Brand; knit with 8 skeins of Crystal Palace Panda Cotton Print in colorways Trail Mix, Muir Woods, Seascape, and Coral Sea

The bamboo-cotton blanket is bound off and bordered and on a bed.  Success!

 

I think I've finally gotten the hang of single crochet, though I'm still a little iffy on corners.  How many extra stitches should one use?  Three seemed like overkill, but two seems to be pulling a bit.  I dunno.

The FIFTH Maple Leaf is finished as well -- phew -- in three weeks.  That will never happen again.

Maple Leaf Knit Shawl [Rav] by Natalia @ Elfmoda; knit with half a skein of madelinetosh tosh lace (sadly discontinued) in colorway Flashdance

I will miss you, tosh lace.  :(

 

 

 

I think I'll be taking a leaf of absence (groan) from these shawls now and focus on some other stuff.  I've got some ideas percolating and some new yarn!!  Yarn gifts are amazing!

All the pretty Wollmeise will be joined in a stripy shawl with this new acquisition (thank you, Mama!):

And there's a test knit on the horizon.  And Christmas knitting plans.  And I want to finish at least one long-term WIP in August.  Plans!

Mot-less Monday: A Tale of Two Corners

 

Note to Self: It's Nothing Serious

The fourth Maple Leaf shawl is done and dusted, and I must say that I am thoroughly in love with Wollmeise:

Maple Leaf Knit Shawl [Rav] by Natalia @ Elfmoda; knit with most of a skein of Wollmeise "Pure" 100% Merino Superwash in colorway Mistelzweig

The wonderful commissioner of this shawl is allowing me to keep the leftovers AND has very generously sent me some Wollmeise miniskeins as further payment:

I am so looking forward to working with all these pretties!

I've been doing a boatload of crafting lately, using my commute rides in the mornings to single-crochet a border around the blanket I've almost finished...

...and spending my evenings shotgunning a FIFTH Maple Leaf at 5% a night, to finish by the end of next week, fingers crossed:

65.34%

All this copious evening knitting has been accompanied by marathoning House, M.D. -- the entire eight-season series -- and I find myself affected in more ways than one.  I've been experiencing twinges and weakness in my forearms, insomnia is back, and I've been dropping things more than usual (read: "usual" is frequently).  My husband is very sensible, so he thinks that between my arthritis, my eight-hours-at-a-computer job, and my minimum-three-hours-a-day crafting, something's gotta give.  My nightly consults with the brilliant Dr. House have me thinking it's probably early onset Parkinson’s.

I'd switch TV shows, but I've only got 18 episodes to go!  And break month is only a couple of weeks away.  I can do this, right?

FO: Where Are My Dragons?

My early mornings have children's television as a background, so as I'm typing this, a small yellow and green bear is helping random kids while acting like a secret agent.  Turns out he's supposed to be a stuffed animal, which somehow disturbs me more than if he was a real live bear...  which makes no sense, now that I think about it.

You know what I'd rather think about?  DRAGONS.

 Stormborn Shawl [Rav] by Kristen Ashbaugh-Helmreich; knit with almost two skeins of Verdant Gryphon Eidos in colorway Empedocles

 

 

Cyprienne of the House Ravenclaw, the First of Her Name...

The Game of Thrones MKAL shawl is finished and I love it and I'm wearing it to work today.

A Focused Frenzy

So there was this one time when it rained a lot and tiny ants overran my home and the kid got sick and the husband got a new job... we call these the Lost Days of Late Spring.  But what's a few weeks between friends, right?  Let us never speak of it again. 
Long story short: I've been making shawls and blankets.

There's a Maple Leaf or two!

 

Maple Leaf Knit Shawl [Rav] by Natalia @ Elfmoda; knit with half a skein of madelinetosh prairie in colorway Lowland

 

 

yarn is Wollmeise "Pure" 100% Merino Superwash in colorway Mistelzweig

And a mystery knit-along, inspired by Game of Thrones!  (my progress is far behind most people; the full pattern is now available)

Stormborn Shawl [Rav] by Kristen Ashbaugh-Helmreich

I'm beading each dragon scale, because I wanna.

And blanket squares!  Long-term blankets!  Brand-new blankets!  All the blankets ever!

 large squares: a modification of Norma [Rav] by Meghan Jones, each knit with 50yds of fingering weight yarn; blanket fish from A Recipe for Fish [Rav] by April Broken

a modification of Knitted Diagonal Blanket Square by KOGO [Rav]; this one is in Knit One, Crochet Too Handpainted Ambrosia in colorway 1934 Turkish Rug

The main blanket is a bamboo/cotton blend and it's a secret present for Punkin Q. Pie, the Small Girl Child.

 

Half Square Triangle Blanket [Rav] by Lion Brand Yarn; knit with Crystal Palace Panda Cotton Print in four colorways

That's it for now.  On with your lives, citizens!  And thanks for making a pit stop here with me.

Mot-less Monday: I'm Back

 

 

Looking Back, Looking Forward | 5KCBWDAY7

Look back on last year's Day Seven post / look forward again to one year from now.

Too many balls in the air kept me from posting yesterday -- but this one writes itself: I have officially completed 2.5 of the 3 goals I had for myself last year at this time!

WAYBACK MACHINE SAYS:
* Finish 12 Shawls in 2013, and be on track for a similar feat in 2014...  DONE!

The specifics for 2013 are here, and I'm at 50% shawl progress while at 37.5% year progress...  I wish Present Me could tell Past Me that there are definitely practical applications for math in my adult life.

* overcome my fear and steek something... DONE!

 

I steeked a thing!  It was horrible!  I'm never doing that again unless someone pays me!  With alcohol, if possible!

* Track down all of the knitting needles I supposedly have in my house and come up with an adequate organizational system...   
um, IN PROGRESS!

I've been working on this, recently and in earnest, but it's not ready for today as I hoped it would be; you can track the current status with the label "projectneedles", because there's no way that name could ever be misinterpreted.

And on that note, my goals for the next year are as follows:

* finish up what I started with #projectneedles, complete with whiteboard!  No barcodes, though, too sexy.

* publish my first original shawl pattern.  #TNOFTW   
It's about time.  Actually, it's about space.  And Hawaiian mythology.  You'll see.

* begin to teach my kid to knit.  That's a good idea, right?  #childsplay

* finish 12 Shawls in 2014, and be on track for a similar feat in 2015.

*  *  *  *  *

I want to thank the incomparable Eskimimi for organizing this fantastic intarwebz event yet again!!  Finding new crafter-writers to follow is always a highlight of my year.  Good times were had by all!
And thank you to everyone who stopped by, first-timers and familiar friends, especially those who have left comments for me this week -- it means the world to me -- and thank you, as always, to my family for sticking with me offline.  :)

To read other posts from those taking part in Knitting and Crochet Blog Week, simply perform a Google search for the tag 5KCBWDAY7, or click here.

Something A Bit Different | 5KCBWDAY5

Adventures in Yarn YOUR CURRENT WIP COLOR VACATION SPOT ADJECTIVE NOUN PET`S NAME COUNTRY VERB INFINITIVE ADJECTIVE ROOM ADJECTIVE

To read other posts from those taking part in Knitting and Crochet Blog Week, simply perform a Google search for the tag 5KCBWDAY5, or click here.

Conversations Between Workers | 5KCBWDAY4

Write a few short paragraphs from the point of view of one of the 
tools you use for your craft. Then write a dialogue 
between yourself and this item.

A twiddle of wire, that's all I be
And nobody knows what to do with me
My true purpose hides until you are needing
An easier method to do all your beading.

I really don't know why I keep you around.

I'm useful, admit it! ...when I can be found.

But when I can't find you, it's really frustrating!

Then make a new model, it's faster than waiting.

Ugh, stopping to put all the beads on is slow.

But once they're all loaded, it's go-go-go-go!

And what if you stretch out, you silly old scrape?

Just pause work and crumple me back into shape!

Alright, I give up, you can stay on my desk.

Ooh, look, a dust bunny on the floor!

What?  .....hello?
...
(Honey, have you seen that wire thing?)

        (wah waaah  wah waah-wah?)

(The beading gadget, it's like a curly wire thing...)

        (waah-wah  wah wah)

(I swear I haven't moved, it was just here!)
(Let me know if you see it.)

Dagnabbit.

To read other posts from those taking part in Knitting and Crochet Blog Week, simply perform a Google search for the tag 5KCBWDAY4, or click here.

Experimental Photography And Image Handling For Bloggers | 5KCBWDAY3

Photography takes a key role.

My usual photography for this blog is serviceable at best...

• Show the knitting!
• Make sure there isn't tacky stuff in the background!  
• Adjust everything for inconsistent lighting conditions!
• And always watermark your images because the internet is full of dead-inside digital thieves who steal shawl photos just to feel something!  (HA!)

the usual (undoctored except for watermark)

But this photo challenge inspired me to try some new angles.  My wedding photographer told me about the photography golden hour many years ago, so last night, armed with my current WIP (yes, Maple Leaf #3), I took the guesswork out of the lighting situation and focused (!) instead on the macro setting on my tiny point-and-shoot.

Macros in computer science terms means mapping input to a transformed output -- this is not that.  Macro-, the linguistic prefix, means "large" or "inclusive" -- this is not that.
Macro photography is just a fancy way to say super close up....

MACRO POWER!

undoctored -- ooh, so textural

I took some photos of the yarn ball itself and messed with some of the settings...  what I lack in imagination, I make up for by zooming way in.

Single-ply laceweight can look vaguely like a bale of hay:

right side is "desaturated" AKA grayscale

 A punch of color adds a little bit of zing to the zoom:

right side is "color balanced" with extra cyan and green

 Lightening up the center of a center-pull ball reveals hidden depths:

right side has both the brightness and contrast pumped up

My favorite photo of the shoot happened when a strand of curly green ribbon got unceremoniously plopped onto my head:

undoctored

Lesson learned:
Yarn is pretty and everybody needs to take pictures at dusk!
Exeunt.

To read other posts from those taking part in Knitting and Crochet Blog Week, simply perform a Google search for the tag 5KCBWDAY3, or click here.