Mot-less Monday: Pile of Lace!

FO: Gryphon in Repose

To prove I was Not Doing Nothing with the past couple of weeks, I present you with a wedding shawl!

 Ethereal [Rav] by Lakshmi Juneja; knit with a full skein of Spirit Trail Fiberworks "Nona" ~ Merino/Cashmere/Bombyx Silk in colorway Bacchus

 It's a free! pattern, as most of the ones I knit are, and I didn't want it to end!!... but I ran out of yarn.

 

I miscalculated the amount of Chart 2 repeats I could do, and ended up using 75% yarn with only 70% shawl knit.  The first math I did said that I could do 8 repeats... but that only worked using US3 needles.  Since my brand new ordered-for-this 40” needles were mislabeled and are actually size US4 (thanks, unnamed online knitting store!), the math got all messed up. And I wasn't about to buy new new needles, curse my miserliness frugality.  SO I redid math, and didn't rip anything out.  The new math had bindoff occurring 10 rows early (row 73)...

until new new math had to happen!  Yep.  Thank goodness for spreadsheets.  The new new math had bindoff occurring at row 67 of the final chart, so instead of super pointy border fun times, the edging looked more like cathedral arches or something.  Still pretty.

There's only one yard of this awesome awesome yarn remaining for just-in-case emergency snag repairs, and my friend looked beautiful at her wedding!  Such an awesome day!!

Mot-less Monday: Sweater at 72%

p.s. to those who have served in the military, to those on active duty, and to those who will be home soon -- thank you for your sacrifice.

Oh, It's All Going On, Honey

I've been watching a lot of drag queen TV lately, so excuse my sass.  Sometimes you just need to write a to-do list with stuff you've already done, just to get the satisfaction of crossing it off...

1. The Month of Cowls ✓

blocked, shipped, received -- love you, Mama!

2. Yoga Sock #1  ✓

plus a mini yoga sock to make a pair-- what, it's totally legal!

3. HPKCHC Hat Challenge -- almost done, with a vengeance...

seventh hat on the needles and I'm living for my Homespun stash

...but I have so many flippin SHAWLS planned, people
and I'm getting antsy!!

Two Cowls and a Pumpkin

And yes, it's exactly what it sounds like.

Eleanor Cowl [Rav] by Audrey Knight; knit with more than a skein of Knit Picks Shine Sport in colorway 2554 Leapfrog

MODS: knit on US6s and ended early, after full chart B (row 50, no switch to smallest needles, etc.) since it was definitely long enough

Abstract Leaves Cowl [Rav] by Deb Mulder; knit with less than a skein of Rowan RYC Cashsoft 4 Ply in colorway 430 Loganberry

Jack Be Little Pumpkin [Rav] by Elizabeth Murphy; knit with 15 yards of Knit Picks Comfy Worsted in colorway 6406 October and a yard of Knit Picks Shine Sport in colorway 2554 Leapfrog

And now it's November where I am... goodbye, craziest October ever!

p.s. I'm Knitting a Sweater

Hi guys.  No sense in burying the lead: there's a sweater happening.

I've swatched and washed it and everything.  AND apparently, even though swatches lie, I've got exact gauge.  This may be a sign of the impending apocalypse.

I have no clue why I decided to knit a large fancy shawl and an adult-size fitted pullover in an overlapping timeframe... that's not quite true.  I know exactly why.  I want a pretty badge from the yarncraft equivalent of a fictional wizarding school.  !!!

COVET COVET

This fiber is totally messing with my allergies, though; it's reeeeeaaaally rough.  Sometimes there's eye-itching, but this time there's congestion and throat gunk and eye burning.  And now I'm whining about ailments I've brought on myself.

Whatev, it's going to be beautiful.

Always Know Where Your Cowl Is

Just popping in to show off some cowl craziness that's been going on so far this month...  it's so much more satisfying than Socktober!  #Ihateknittingsocks #hashtag

Dayflower Cowl [Rav] by Doggrell Designs; knit with 3/4 skein of Debbie Bliss Rialto 4 ply in colorway 04 Grey

MODS:  9 inches square after blocking

• 102 st CO
• 6 garter rows before pattern
• 3 pattern repeats
• 6 garter rows after pattern

it's not this bright in real life!

A Noble Cowl [Rav] by Emily Kausalik; knit with most of a skein of Knit Picks Stroll Sport in colorway Winter Night

MODS:  7 inches tall x 9 inches wide after blocking

• cast on 96
• mostly symmetrical decreases a la zarestky [Rav]
• adjusted all shields with two center columns a la me [Rav]
• shortened to 1 repeat + 18 rows
• my 5th Noble Cowl!

Mama, these will be coming your way at the end of the month!
Unless you don't care for them.
Then I'm keepin' them cowls!  :)

HPKCHC September Roundup

This marks my second term at Hogwarts for the Harry Potter Knit and Crochet House Cup and I'm on staff this time around, so YAY for that!  I've been doing a little bit of writing over at the Ravenclaw Aerie blog (unofficial motto: we have graphs!), so I've felt super engaged with the process all month.  There was so much going on...

Detention
This is where works in progress get finished and submitted, so I got the chance to earn points for that bobbly baby sweater I started in August.  AND I got a really cool limited edition badge!  Rav bling!

Ancient Runes
Last term, they offered Care of Magical Creatures as a class, but that's been scrapped for the return of Ancient Runes this term, soooo yeah, that's cool. I made some fingerless gloves with the rune gebō all over them... it's all in the Xs.  The pattern calls for fingering weight yarn, but I modified it to work with DK weight:

Quilted Lattice Mitts [Rav] by Jennifer Elaine; knit with less than half a skein of South West Trading Company Bamboo in colorway 138 Purplexed

Charms
The charm of the month was Meteolojinx Recanto, cancelling the effects of extreme weather.  I made a mild-mannered cardigan pattern into a giant kimono to ward off tsunamis:

Abalone [Rav] by Beata Jezek; knit with almost 800 yards of Lion Brand Wool-Ease in colorways Fisherman, Natural Heather, Blush Heather, Rose Heather, Dk Rose Heather, Burgundy, and Oxford Grey

Defense Against the Dark Ages
Tracking was on the docket for DADA -- alert readers will recall the Sweater of Many Ends from earlier.  And there's a hat, too:

Fan Lace Hat from Two Lace Baby Hats [Rav] by Heather Tucker; knit with 61 yds of Lion Brand LB Collection Superwash Merino in colorway 174 Spring Leaf // Puerperium Cardigan [Rav] by Kelly Brooker; knit with yds total of Lion Brand LB Collection Superwash Merino in colorways 107 Sky, 141 Wild Berry, 170 Dijon, and 174 Spring Leaf

Flying
This is where I turned in the bobbly earflap hat that went with the bobbly sweater, since the prompt was all about flying in circles (hat in the round, with all those round bobbles).

Herbology
Herbology = plants = trees = wood = wandlore.  My date of birth in the Celtic calendar corresponds to Vine as potential wand material, so I -ahem- decided to make a wine-colored shawl with a picot edge (symbolizing grapes) and a mesh border (which represents the latticework to which the grapevines cling):

Eiku [Rav] by Reeta Korhonen; knit with most of a skein of Cascade Yarns Heritage Silk Paints in colorway 9958 Vino

Potions
The prompt was about being silly, so I linked to the B52s "Rock Lobster" video and made a blue rock lobster to go with it:

Knit Lobster [Rav] by Molly Lincoln; knit with over half a skein of Karabella Yarns Aurora 8 in colorway 8167 Blue

Since one can only get base points for 6 of 8 classes each month, I didn't do History of Magic or Muggle Studies.

Quidditch
I wasn't at all interested in Quidditch last term -- mostly because I knew nothing about it -- but the first challenge for this month was about organization, so of course I went crazy with taking stash pictures and weighing everything for accurate yardage counts.  Stop judging me, I'm awesome.

The first actual Quidditch match involved craft something related to one or more specific letters -- G, H, N, R, and/or S (for the four Houses + the Not-Quite-First-Year designation).  I made a 6"x6" Han blue Square with a Garter stitch border and my own octopode design done in Relief.

knit with less than half a skein of Karabella Yarns Aurora 8 in colorway 8167 Blue

p.s. all these patterns are free! on Ravelry
All right, that's enough dorkiness for right now... until next month!

Bittersweet Shawl Starts

I was so excited to find an awesome yarn (Cascade Heritage Silk Paints in Vino, YAY love it) to make this shawl I've been wanting to make forevah (the gorgeous Haruni [Rav], by Emily Ross)!!!  So thirty minutes after I finally got the needles I needed (32" size US4 addi Turbo Lace), I cast on:

...it so didn't work.  :(  The color changes interfered with the pattern and everything got muddled together.  It's a little hard to see in the above photo, but I gave it 30 rows before frogging.  Sigh.

So this is happening instead:

Not as fancy and fun--  HOWEVER, it definitely shows off the yarn to its full advantage without being super boring to knit.  I'm going to keep this one.  And I'm going to keep my future Haruni, whenever it happens.

Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

On Friday night, I had the brilliant idea to cast on a cardigan in my busiest knitting month of the year so far:

 

It's for a knitalong, but I'm less interested in the -along-ness of it and more concerned with just trying to gitterdun.  The miles of stockinette are broken up a little bit by the stripes; I hope it flippin fits.

In other news: birthday yarn!  These arrived in today's mail and I just couldn't wait for better lighting:

 

100% baby alpaca laceweight, courtesy of my brother B --
w00t w00t, thank you, kind sir!

Shawls > sweaters.  Officially.

It's Official: I Win at Life

I would just like to say Happy Birthday Week to me and, as Martin Freeman would say...

Nah, just kiddin.  I'm 30.  :)
30?   30??

Yes.  And I'm super excited about it, as you can tell.  I've been waiting for 30 my whole life, and I actually never thought I'd make it this far, so this week, this month, this whole flippin year in fact...

As always, I would like to thank my parents, without whom this personal party would not be happening.  I would also like to thank my husband and my daughter, for reasons.  Now everybody eat cake!

Purple roses are for love, love, love

New GLEE Tonight!

Sorry, guys, I'm a Gleek, so you have to deal with this right now.

The new season starts tonight!  And there's at least one hat!

Fox image ᔥ Entertainment Weekly

They're making a big huge deal about Rachel's "edgier" style, but I'm not seeing how this sweater-short skirt combo is much different from every other similar combo we've seen from her for years.  Maybe that's just me.

Anyhoo: free! hat patterns!  Just add a pom-pom and adjust for maximum slouchability.
Cabled Beret [Rav] by Darlene Dale
Moss Cable Stitch Beret [Rav] by PolarKnit
Quick Cable Slouch Hat [Rav] by Azure

FOs: Bobbles for Baby B

Baby shower for my friend at work today, yay yay yay!

Bobbly Flaps, "designed" by me; knit with 1/4 skein of Lion Brand LB Collection Superwash Merino in colorway 174 Spring Leaf

Leo [Rav] by Martin Storey; knit with over a skein of Lion Brand LB Collection Superwash Merino in colorway 174 Spring Leaf

Fan Lace Hat from Two Lace Baby Hats [Rav] by Heather Tucker; knit with 1/5 skein of Lion Brand LB Collection Superwash Merino in colorway 174 Spring Leaf

Puerperium Cardigan [Rav] by Kelly Brooker; knit with 150yds of Lion Brand LB Collection Superwash Merino in colorways 

107 Sky, 141 Wild Berry, 170 Dijon, and 174 Spring Leaf

Dark and Stormy

It got really gross here, all of a sudden:

So since we've been warned not to travel, there is leftover pizza for lunch and cheery baby knitting on the needles:

Neat and tidy -- little did you know...

The ends are coming for your soul!

I'd also like to keep working on this bright blue lobster thing...

...but I cannot find the sandwich baggie of fiber fill to save my life.  Seriously.  It's not where it was last time I saw it, back in the beginning of June (effectively a hundred years ago in my stash-and-dash organizational system).  Sooooo no lobster yet.

FO: Mariquita

SO!  Apparently now I'm just casting on and binding off fairly large projects with nary a word in between!

Annis [Rav] by Susanna IC; knit with less than a skein of Cascade Heritage Silk Paints in colorway 9942 Misty Blue

There were quite a few pattern modifications for this shawl:

• eyelet bindoff gleaned from another's brilliant mind
• cobalt 2/0 Czech glass beads on every S2KP on row 5 of lace repeat (29 in all)
  
• went up a size on both sets of needles (US9 and US11)
  

I discovered that nupps (done correctly this time, no cheating as before) are slightly easier to deal with if one uses a crochet hook, but they're still painful.  I'm now exactly halfway to meeting my goal of 12 shawls in 12 months for 2012... which means I totally need to step it up, since the year is more than halfway gone.

And here are a couple more photos, because I said so.

 

LYS Trip: Yarn Soup

So in all the Ravellenic madness, I forgot to share one of the coolest parts of my trip...  a visit to Yarn Soup, the LYS in Dubuque, Iowa!

I wasn't able to get any photos of the inside, but there are a couple of good ones on the website that give one a sense of the coziness of the place -- there's some serious cozy going on there, even with the high ceilings and open floor plan.  The shop itself just opened within the last year (I think), but the decor inside and out fits in so well with the space and the rest of Main Street, it feels as though it's been there forever, in the best possible way.

Ahem.  Cascade Heritage Silk Paints in colorways 9958 (Vino) and 9942 (Misty Blue).  I know what I like and it was a dollar cheaper than my nearest shop at home.  So yeah, I got some yarn...

and Sara the Awesome Shop Owner (I believe that's her official title, but it may have Honcho in there also) dangled info for the Eastern Iowa Yarn Hop [Rav link] in front of me.  I was thisclose to driving to Manchester right away, but I had my mom and daughter with me, so I had to be on good behavior.

AND THEN!  My mama was all, oh look over there, a bookstore, I'm going to kidnap my granddaughter! so there was nothing to be done except settle into the über comfy seating area and work on Trip Project #3 and listen to some quiet aria and talk about those ruffle scarves that everybody wants.

Such a lovely place; if I lived closer, I would be there constantly.

In related news, I cast on a shawl pretty much the second I got home:

...so you'll be seeing progress for that coming up.  Another beaded shawl!  Apparently the only thing keeping me from beading everything in sight is the scarcity of beads within arm's reach.

FO: The Path to Sixty

So this happened last night...

...and I'm so pleased to be finished and so proud of my work!!

It was a long journey from cast on to border bindoff:

slow and steady

fun during Blog Week

reclaiming yarn

trying out different patterns

seaming nightmares

cross country road trip

Better pictures later, possibly.  For now, here are the stats...

free!  Pathways Blanket [Rav] designed by Frankie Brown
cast on Apr 14 2012, knitting done Jul 6, border finished Aug 21 2012
108 4" x 4" garter stitch squares with single crochet border (6 rounds)

knit in 2329 yards of worsted weight superwash merino wool
all yarn from stash! all originally bought from Knit Picks!

main color is Knit Picks Swish Worsted in colorway Squirrel Heather
body = 9.29 skeins = 464 grams / 1021.9 yards
border = 2 skeins = 100 grams / 218.9 yards

contrasting colors are:
Knit Picks Merino Style (disc.), colorways Dusk, Eggplant, and Storm
Knit Picks Swish Worsted, colorways Caribbean, Cobblestone Heather, Dublin, Indigo Heather, Lawn, Marine Heather, and Royal

And now: to ship it to its recipient -- I sure hope she likes it!