Drumroll, please…

It’s finished!!

Pattern: Aeolian Shawl by Elizabeth Freeman (Ravel that sucker!)
Yarn: XS-6 20/3 Bamboo from Habu Textiles; White

I bound off Saturday night, and blocked it on Sunday. The sun has finally come out today, so I’m going to get my boy to take some pics out in the sunlight.

I love the sheen of this yarn. It was so nice to work with, and the fabric it created is just glorious. I still have half of a skein left, which I already have plans for.

I’ve changed my mind about the yarn I want to use for my next Aeolian; I ordered some wonderfully yummy Merino laceweight yarn from The Woolen Rabbit, which I think will be perfect. It’s a deep purple, like the other yarn, but I think it will be interesting to do this shawl in a springy Merino yarn. I’m already swatching to determine what size needles to use, and hopefully I’ll be casting on tonight! Seriously, I think I need an intervention.

Almost there…

I’m getting soooo close to finishing my Aeolian! I’ve finished the first 24 rows of the edging, which means I have 22 rows left. I’ve been really good about inserting a lifeline along the way, usually at the beginning of every chart repeat, although I wasn’t so good about it when I first started. I had to rip back and start over a couple times, and once I finally started putting in lifelines at regular intervals, my mistakes didn’t require such drastic measures to fix! It’s funny how when you have lifelines you don’t really need them, but when you neglect to put them in you pay for it later! In this case, I don’t know if I was screwing up more in the beginning simply because I was getting used to the yarn/needles/beads/pattern, and now that I have the hang of it all I’m just not having many issues. That’s probably the case, but the superstitions about lifelines are still floating around in my brain!

After I finish this Aeolian, I would really like to make the smaller version. This one will still be with Habu Bamboo, which I have in a deep purple. I’m tempted to double up the yarn with the silk stainless steel that I have in a similar color:

I’ll need to make a test swatch and see how it knits up. I still want to use beads, just not as much throughout the shawl. I’ll probably only use them through the agave and edge charts, and maybe in place of the nupps. We’ll see!

Pattern: Lacunae Sock by Anne Hanson (Ravel that sucker!)
Yarn: Artisan Sock from Hazel Knits; Chocolatier

Amazingly, this is my first pair of socks knit up with Artisan Sock yarn, and I love this yarn!! Wendee has some amazing colorways, too, and I can’t wait to get my hands on some more.

Ok, one more picture of the shawl:

Baby!!

The other day at lunch I bound off yet another iPod sock.

This one is for my boyfriend’s buddy Kenny, who has a new iPod Touch.  Those things are wicked thin, wow! They’re approximately 5 inches in circumference, which is just a tad more than my BlackBerry. It was pretty easy to figure out how many stitches I needed to cast on, and I worked it until I figured it was pretty close. The next time I saw Kenny, we tried it on (while still on the needles) to see how the length was, and after adding a couple more rows I was ready to finish it up. I’m losing count of how many of these things I’ve made. My iPod is two and a half years old and has spent most of that time in it’s knitted sock, and it has hardly a scratch on it.

I also have a couple other FOs:

Pattern: Baby Surprise Jacket by Elizabeth Zimmermann (Ravel that sucker!)
Yarn: Painter’s Palette Premium Merino from Koigu; P117

Pattern: Saartje’s Bootees by Saartje de Bruijn (Ravel that sucker!)
Yarn: Painter’s Palette Premium Merino from Koigu; P117

These are for my friend Julia, whose first baby is due this Spring! My first Baby Surprise Jacket was just that: a surprise. It looks like a little blob of garter stitch when you cast off:

But once it’s folded together like a little piece of knitted origami, it all comes together:

And the little bootees are just too cute for words. I swear, my ovaries just about exploded while I was knitting these up!

I’m about to start a huge project that may just make me go insane before the end of it. Finding the yarn alone nearly did me in, but a quick call to New York had a package on my doorstep from Habu Textiles in just a few days.

Yeah, I have a feeling they’ll be sending me off to the looney bin before this is all said and done!

Thundering Boing!

I managed to finish my lace scarf just in time for Valentine’s Day:

Pattern: Boing! by Anne Hanson (Ravel that sucker!)
Yarn: Wasonga from Curious Creek Fibers; Plum Thunder

This scarf was such a joy to knit. The pattern was such fun, and the yarn was sooo scrumptious! When my boyfriend saw it for the first time after it came off of the blocking wires, he said ‘Wow, I can’t believe you made that!’

Heck yeah, I made that!

Scarf love

These last few weeks have been incredibly busy. I don’t think I’ve been home at all since before the last weekend of January, except to sleep! Everything I’ve been wrapped up in has been good stuff, with good people, so that’s… good! I always have some knitting with me, and right now it seems like I’m working on nothing but scarves. I haven’t started the second Lacunae sock yet, and I’m going to hold off on that until I get at least another of my scarves finished!

One scarf that has been finished is my Noro Striped Scarf:

Pattern: Noro Striped Scarf by Jared Flood (Ravel that sucker!)
Yarn: Silk Garden Lite from Noro; 2013

This is my new favorite scarf. The yarn is so soft (especially for Noro!) and I love the colors. I would love to do another one of these; same yarn, different colors. Most people alternate between two different colorways, but I didn’t with this one. While I love how this turned out, I think I will alternate colorways in the future.

The scarf that I’m working on religiously right now is this one:

I would really like to have it finished by Valentine’s Day, since I bought the yarn with the gift card my boyfriend gave me for Christmas, and also because I think it will look great with a little black dress. I consider this my first real lace project, and it’s also the first time I’ve used a lifeline. I haven’t had to rip back to my lifeline yet (knock on wood) but I know that if I don’t use one, I will regret it! The pattern calls for 22 repeats of the chart, and so far I’ve hit 25 with plenty of yarn left to continue. I like long scarves, and while I don’t think this one should be as long as, say, the Noro scarf, I think several more chart repeats are in order. The pattern is pretty intuitive, and actually quite addicting. Typical Anne Hanson; I’ve found her patterns to always be beautiful and fun! I am absolutely in love with the yarn, and how the colors and stitch pattern play off of each other.

Since most of my knitting has been in public, I’ve had a lot of random people come up to ooh and aah over the colors. The other day I had two knitters stop by my table at Panera Bread to nearly drool over the yarn. It’s gorgeous stuff!

The love affair with scarves can’t last forever, though; I have one friend who is awaiting the birth of her first little sprout, and I want to try my hand at a Baby Surprise Jacket. Luckily, I still have some months left before she pops little Hunter out!

A Christmas Hat

My Christmas knitting (what little there was) is done!

Pattern: Lacunae by Anne Hanson (Ravel that sucker!)
Yarn: 4th of July from Briar Rose Fibers; 7130

If the recipient doesn’t like it, I will be more than happy to keep it for myself.

Christmas knitting

Oh, my poor dear blog. How I keep neglecting thee. My needles haven’t been neglected, even though I’m not doing as much Christmas knitting as I thought I would this year. I’m only gifting two knitted things, and one of them is already finished. I don’t have good pictures of it (it’s already wrapped) but I’ll try to get the recipient to model it on Christmas day. It’s the same hat that I just knit for myself:

Pattern: Bounce by John Brinegar (Ravel that sucker!)
Yarn: Merino Worsted from Malabrigo; Vaa

I don’t have many good pics of this one, either, but you can take my word for it that it’s super cute and comfy! This is my first time knitting with Malabrigo, and I now understand why so many people absolutely love this yarn. However, I couldn’t find any Malabrigo Worsted in a color that my friend would like (it’s a little hard finding Malabrigo since the fire at their warehouse) so I opted for Manos del Uruguay in several lovely shades of purple. Not as soft, but still comfy and very pretty!

The other Christmas pressie I’m working on is made out of this:

4th of July from Chris at Briar Rose Fibers. This big fat skein is 550 yards of Merino goodness! There will be more than enough leftover to make something for myself, which is awesome.

I’ve also been working off and on with my Noro Silk Garden Lite, which has been sitting in my stash for quite a while. I finally broke down and started a Noro striped scarf, which really is more fun than your regular k1p1. It’s just so exciting to see what the yarn will do next, I can’t put it down!

I have more than enough yardage for the scarf, so I’m making a matching hat using a pinwheel beret pattern.

I have a couple other things in the works, of course, which I’m trying to hold off on until the last Christmas present is finished. I’m so bad about having several projects on my needles…

A Rather Purple Unoriginal Hat

The weekend before we hopped on a plane to England, I needed some instant gratification. I have several projects on my needles that need some serious time put into them, and I wanted something that I could start and have off my needles and on my person pretty much immediately. Plus, some of my Rowan was calling to me from my stash…

Pattern: An Unoriginal Hat by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (Ravel that sucker!)
Yarn: Big Wool from Rowan; Wild Berry

This knit up so fast, and the cables gave it plenty of spice. Have I mentioned lately that I love cables?

(Yes, that’s a Shaun Alexander jersey that I’m wearing. We miss him up here in Seattle.)

Take me out to the ballgame…

My boyfriend survived Stitch n’ Pitch, and the Mariners actually won. It was a good evening. We were surrounded by hundreds of knitters, hookers and even a few people doing cross stitch. Loads of glorious yarn and other goodies were to be had at the booths, and I ended up walking away with this:

Artisan Sock Yarn from Hazel Knits in the Hometown Baseball colorway. I’ve been itchin’ for this yarn for ages! I’ve wound it up into a ball already, and I’m trying to decide which pattern to use. I would love to do something like Spring Forward, but with these colors I may be better off with a simpler pattern. We shall see. There were several other skeins of yarn that I picked up and fondled, but I held off on spending any more money. My stash really doesn’t need much enhancing right at the moment!

And now for my FO:

Pattern: Cable Rib Socks by Erica Alexander (Ravel that sucker!)
Yarn: Socks That Rock from Blue Moon Fiber Arts; Carbon Dating

This pattern was simple enough that these things flew off my needles (when I actually had time to work on them) but the cables down the sides add a little pizzaz.

The yarn pooled and striped in all the right places, and were the same on both socks. I am so happy with how these turned out!

The legs are really long, and I was worried with the STR’s yardage that I wouldn’t make it. I went on Ravelry and found another knitter who used STR with this pattern, and she said that she left one cable repeat off of the legs and she was just fine. I think I had about two yards of yarn left after stitching up the second toe. Phew!

Socks and flowers

I’ve dug into my stash of Socks That Rock, and started a new pair:

Can I say again how much I love this yarn? It just feels… neat. The colors are fabulous, as always, and I love the little bit of pooling I got at the top when I decided to switch to a smaller needle earlier than the pattern called for. I can’t wait to see what the colors do at the heel and foot.

I also have a Finished Object; well, a piece that was mostly finished quite a while ago, but I was just lazy about weaving in the ends.

Pattern: Garden Scarf by Michelle Ameron (Ravel that sucker!)
Yarn: Aurora 8 from Karabella; Orchid, Plum & Beige

I finally got them all taken care of last week, and gave it a light blocking on Saturday to flatten the flowers a bit. My boyfriend took one look at this thing and said “You’re crazy.” Why yes, yes I am!