Still knitting

I haven't posted for a few days, but I'm still here, still knitting, and still hanging out in my garden. The flowers are doing reasonably good considering we're having a horrific drought and I have to water every day to keep my transplants from dying. New acquisitions this week included a huge red and white columbine, a couple of blue salvias, and several smaller confetti lantana to fill in the space now accessible since I did a badly needed major pruning job on my Climbing Queen Elizabeth rose. The poor girl was very overgrown and not blooming much. What buds she did produce were pretty much wiped out by the Easter freeze. But the good news is shot up lots of huge new canes so I could whack away without fear of Lizzie dying on me.

I've been rather occupied with family things too, like playing "limo driver" for my dear father who finally came to the sad realization that he was no longer a safe driver anymore. Getting old and having your health fails is awful, but volunteering to give up the car keys was the hardest thing he's had to do thus far (Daddy has always had a thing for cars and took great pride in driving Mom and the rest of us everywhere). So I'm driving him to cardiac rehab 3x/week and running errands like going to the pharmacy and to the public library so he can check out tons of books.

I've been working on my jaywalker socks while waiting for daddy to finish his exercises as they are my most portable project at present. I'm still on the cuff of the 2nd sock, but should be ready to knit the heel in a few more days. When I'm at home I've been working on one of my various lace shawl projects. I showed the bugs pi shawl to a lady the other day while I was waiting to have my care serviced. That's when I had a terrible moment of clarity. You know, that sinking pit at the bottom of your stomach feeling? As I was talking with this nice lady I heard myself telling her that it was a good thing I was using such pretty yarn, because I really didn't like the design of the shawl. The night before I had been knitting on clue 4 and hissing at every twisted stitch (I'm sure there's an easier way to knit them, but I haven't looked it up yet). I finally stopped knitting and took the time to spread the monster out some and *look* at the thing--really LOOK AT IT! That's when I had my first inclination, affirmed the following day while talking to the lady at the service department--I don't like this shawl (aka "this looks ugly to me")
It was almost serendipity--and I felt guilty for even thinking such an awful thing about this design that my friend Mindy and the gang as EZasPI worked so hard to develop. But it's true, I don't like it.

I thought about frogging just the last clue, but I couldn't find a suitable lace design to sub in that would look compatible with the previous clues. And given the colors of the yarn (beautiful handpainted yarn that wasn't exactly cheap, but is sentimental since it was a graduation gift), it's hard to identify the flowers and insects. the dragonflies are sort of lost and the sideways butterfly, well, it doesn't look much like a butterfly in my version of the shawl. AAACK! Now what do I do?

One thing I have learned not to do is to frog based on a initial gut reaction. There's no sense wasting a perfectly nice project with many (MANY!!!) hours invested in it simply because I'm in a mood and looking at everything cross-eyed. No, I just left the thing alone for a few days and knit on other WIPs. But it's been 4 days now, and I still don't like the look of my shawl. I mentioned this to mother, whose sometime practical advice was "isn't it a good thing knitting can be ripped out and the yarn used for something else?" Yes, Mom. But there's something about the 2400 yds. of this yarn, all in one piece, that's makes frogging back about 80g of laceweight merino a bit intimidating. This may have to wait a little longer since I have my niece(almost 8yo)spending all of next week with me. Guess I'll be knitting on jaywalkers!

Sweaty Saturday

We've been in a serious drought here in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains this spring. This is not good for my lawn and gardens. We've also had remarkably low humidity--similar to that of Utah where I once lived. Low humidity has it's advantages because you don't *feel* the heat as much. But the rains finally came yesterday, and they brought the sauna with them. I just came back in the house for some air-conditioned relief after some serious sweating while planting my beautiful foxgloves into the flower bed just outside my bedroom window. They are just a glance away from the computer :-)


There were three big plants crammed into the single pot I purchased. I always look for such pots as they often provide the best value for the dollar. Armed with a serrated knife, I conducted surgery and soon had three beauties that I'm sure will be delighted at their newfound freedom. Surely plants, like people, love it when they are no longer crammed into too tight a space. I planted 2 outside my window before my energy gave out. I'm still debating where to plant the 3rd, but I suspect somewhere along the north fence will be nice. That's where I put the St. John's wort yesterday. The SJW promptly thanked me by popping open three fuzzy blooms.Oh my gosh they are so pretty! They look very similar to the ones I took pictures of in the high desert canyons of Utah and Wyoming.

Yesterday was still pretty rough in the aftermath of the migraine. But I did get back to my knitting. I decided to keep on knitting on the Alpine Scarf until I had enough of the lace pattern done to be able to fairly judge whether or not I needed to go up a needle size. Basically, I did this because I was too lazy to swatch with a 3.5mm needle and I didn't want to frog what I had already done, especially the carefully done crochet cast-on that would give me the perfect edge to my scarf. I'm halfway through the 1st repeat and am pretty pleased with how things look--maybe I made the right choice after all!

I also picked up the Bugs Shawl and knit 3 more rows. I love the yarn I'm using for this project, but gee, the dark blues and grays sure are hard on the eyes! I'm getting lots of practice making right and left twisting stitches (or 2 st. cables if you prefer). I discovered that the "bobbles" that I knit the other day were (as I suspected) not true bobbles, but were really nupps. I was watching an episode of "Knitty Gritty" on DIY and Lily Chin was demostrating different textured stitches. When she got to bobbles I watched carefully as she increased (as I had done), then turned the work and purled back, turned again and knit across,finally knitting all the sts. back into one st and leaving a nice raised "bobble". See, a knitter learns something new almost every day :-) Knit on!

Bugs Day 9

It's day 9 of knitting own my Bugs Pi Shawl and I'm at the point in the shawl where the rounds are LONG and the progress seems SLOW. Realistically, I'm doing well if I get 4 rows knit each day. I'm working on Clue 4, selection B and I just knit my first bobbles ever on row 13 yesterday. They weren't too difficult, but that's because of my trusty super pointy Addi-lace needles. I found I got the best look by creating the 5 sts (kpkpk) then knitting one more stitch into the back of the st. below (just as you would if you were doing a kfb increase). After that I just passed all 5 sts over the last k made to close the cluster and create the raised bobble. Pretty cool!

I'm on row 16 right now and I hope to get R17 finished tonight as well. That would keep me at an average of 4 rows/day which is good. I'll start in here shortly, but right now I'm too excited watching the Tennessee Lady Vols Softball team play for the national championship against the Arizona Wildcats. The Lady Vols won game 1 last without a problem and they beat AZ last week as well, but things are tighter tonight. The Lady Vols have had the bases loaded twice in the last 3 innings and weren't able to get the runs. AZ just escaped again---Yikes! If the Lady Vols lose tonight, they will play the deciding game tomorrow night, but I'd rather not have to see them need to go to a game 3. Wouldn't it be totally awesome if both the Lady Vols softball and basketball teams won national championships in the same year! Since I just graduated and created history by way of miracles, I don't see why not? GO VOLS!!!

I love June!

Can you believe it's June already? This year has simply flown by, but then I don't mind because June is my favorite month. It's my birthday in a few days, and my garden is in full bloom, and the weather is warm but not intolerable yet, and June is just so much fun! I updated my knitting with pictures yesterday so today it's the garden. Today's featured selections include the "Spicy Delight" rose (the dark pink one that looks like it's been "spotlighted" by the sun), a pale lavender clematis, the fiery orange-pink "Tropicana" rose, and a beautiful pink Calla Lily. Did you know that Calla Lilies came in many colors? I have white, pink, and dark raspberry pink Calla lilies in my garden. The funny thing is they grow from a tuber that looks like a russet potato. Who knew?

My garden has had a rough spring, what with the unusually warm March followed by the awful Easter deep freeze and complicated by neglect from the dissertation-distracted gardener. But the good news is my rose garden has never looked better. The bushes have finally matured beyond the "will it survive" stage and the floribunda roses are getting quite tall. I have more blooms this week that I've ever had in TN--more like the blooming i had in my roses in Utah where they thrive on benign neglect! Neglected hybrid tea roses in Tennessee die of black spot, fungus, aphids, and Japanese beetle infestations. In Utah all you *had* to do was water, and that's what sprinkler systems are for :-)

On the knitting front, the new clues for the Bugs KAL are up! It looks like I'll be knitting some praying mantis' and earthworms for this section. Now that's will be an adventure! This chart covers 80 of the 96 rows in this section of the Pi shawl. Yup, this is the section that goes on forever! But I've already knit 4 rows and have set a goal to knit at least 6 rows a day. It would be very cool to be finished by the end of June, but that's pretty ambitious.

I have one more exciting bit of knitting news--I finally placed my order for the 1st two Barbara Walker Knitting Treasuries. I had intended to get them from KnitPicks as they always sold them for a little less money than everyone else, but they are no longer listed on their website. The only book KnitPicks had from Walker was the Mosaic Knitting book. So I went to the next best place that I know I can rely on--Amazon! Not only did Amazon have all the Walker books for sale, but 3 of the 4 treasuries had been discounted a tiny bit ($1.50). Hopefully the books will be shipped on schedule and I'll have them in 1-2 weeks. It's been a long wait, but I just can't survive without them any more. I'll buy the other 2 books as soon as the budget allows. It's always a tough choice--do I buy yarn, lace needles, books, magazines, or patterns? It's always a carefully thought out choice for me and I've put off buying the $$$ books, but now the time has come to add to my library instead of my stash :-)

Catching Up

I've been without internet access for a few days, so I'm playing catch-up on things like emails and blogging. I spent most of my time last week doing things like sleeping and just trying to recover from all the events surrounding my graduation, so I have *lots* of catching up to do. I should be writing thank you notes and such, but Mindy has been asking for folks to post pictures of their Bugs KAL projects, so I figured I comply now that I have a great digital camera that allows me to shoot clear, detailed photographs. this first photograph is the shawl with 3 clues completed.

This second picture gives a clearly view of all three clues. I started out with Peas in the 6-row section and sunrays in the 12-row section. I love the way these two lace patterns flow into each other. In the 24-row section I knit selection B: Dragonflies and Midges. This was one place where the handpainting of the yarn obscured the detail of the dragonfly body/tail. I've tried sketching out my own dragonfly lace pattern using a diagonal placement, so I know how tricky that is (I didn't quite succeed at my initial attempt). A diagonal dragonfly would have worked out better for my yarn choice, however. I guess that's why Mystery KALs are such an adventure!

These next two photos are detail views of the clue 3-selection B (48 rows). In the first one is the large flower and the second one focuses on the profile view of the butterfly. This section was fascinating to knit because you never really knew how things were going to turn out as you were knitting. Oh, I knew what I was supposed to be knitting, but it wasn't until afterwards that things really looked like butterflies and flowers.

In this 48-row section I was really happy I chose to use a painted yarn as there wer significant sections of plain stockinette that were enhanced by the blnding of the blues and greens in teh yarn.

And this last photo is a little more clear of an overview of the entire shawl up to this point. I'm totally loving knitting this project. I spent five days knitting what you see here. I wonder how long it will take me to knit the 96-row section? Hopefully Mindy will be able to post the next clue sometime this week (if her computer decides to behave itself for a few more days). I am *so* looking forward to what surprises are coming up next!

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting

I spent most of last week with my Addis flying to catch up knitting on my Bugs Shawl, the KAL most of the others have been working on for a month now. I'm all caught up and the next clue hasn't been posted yet so I'm waiting, waiting, WAITING!!! Not knitting on the bugs yesterday felt a little sad, but two days with no bugs is awful! I don't want to appear impatient, or insensitive to the busy lives of Mindy and her team of test-knitters, or any such unladylike behaviors, but please HURRY!!!
I probably shouldn't be whining as I could be doing other things, like sending graduation announcements to my long-distance friends and family, or attacking that list of Thank You notes that need to be written, or even getting my paperwork in order to start job-hunting, but that's not what I feel like doing. I feel like knitting BUGS! So yesterday I knit some on my flamingo pink striped Jaywalkers (2 more inches before I can start the toe decreases on the 1st sock). But I was having a very bad fibro day so I switched to knitting on a long-standing ufo, the Lavender Leaf Lace Shawl from Nancie Wiseman's book that I'm knitting in a Coral Zephyr. I have promised myself to finish the ufo shawls I have piled into baskets surrounding my recliner.

I wasn't up to working knit-on sideways edgings in fuzzy mohair (fir cone)or alpaca (Shetland Tea Shawl) but the LLLS was a perfect minimalist project. Actually this is a good beginner's lace shawl project. It starts at the bottom point and progresses up toward the top/neck line so you can easily knit the shawl as small or as large as you choose. That was a great option for me as I had one ~600 yd. ball of Jaggerspun Zephyr that I will knit until I have just enough left to do a garter stitch border before casting-off. I figure this will be a good-sized triangle scarf or a small shawl and just right for spring and summer accessorizing.

So, since I'm not knitting on Bugsy, I spent a little time catching up on my favorite blogs. In the process I found a nifty online retailer for sock yarns called, of all things, yarn4socks. They have tons of cool hand painted and hand dyed yarns at usual market prices. Oh I fell in love with several! In addition to a great yarn seller, I also found a nifty KAL called Summer of Socks 2007. The deadline to sign-up is soon, but the start day is in late June. As a part of the KAL there will be some competitions with prizes, none of which I'm likely to win, but I decided to join in the fun anyway. The start time should come close to the time I'll be finished with the bugsy thing. So here's the blog button. I'm in!

Knitting a Graduation Present

My knitty friends on the EZasPi Group cast-on for our latest KAL a couple of weeks ago. This time around you could choose to knit a pi shawl or a sweater, each using teh same mystery clues to the theme "Bugs in Your Garden". It didn't take me any time at all to decide to knit a shawl as that's what I had been anticipating and looking forward to knitting. Deciding what yarn to use for this project, like all my lace projects this spring, has been excruciatingly difficult. I guess that's only fitting, as nothing has come easily this spring--not the dissertation, not the every day life stuff, and not even knitting. I've purchased several skeins, hanks, and cones of lace yarns in fibers from merino wool to baby alpaca, cashmere, and even silk but none of them seemed to fit my shawl projects.

I cast-on twice and knit clue one for this pi shawl and both times I felt the yarn was too fine or the needle size too big. But it was time to celebrate my graduation, so I put the lace projects aside and knit on my jaywalker socks in the few moments I had to spare for knitting. I have learned that in knitting, just as in life, when things aren't working out, the best thing to do is to put it aside and be patient. The solutions usually present themselves in time, and this pi shawl project is no exception. My answer arrived in the form of a graduation gift from Sandy at the Yarn Haven. A few days after Sandy's card arrived in my mailbox I went over and picked out the lace yarn I had been admiring for 2 or 3 weeks, but had refrained from purchasing. With Sandy's gift, I was able to afford the yarn you now see pictured here. Thanks so much Sandy!!!

So, on to the Bugs Shawl. The Yarn is the Merino Lace from Cherry Tree Hill in the Green Mountain Madness colorway. Now Cherry Tree Hill Yarns is located in Vermont, hence Green Mountain is a perfectly fitting name for this yarn handpainted in shades of blues,teal, and greens punctuated with charcoal gray. I didn't like the gray all that much when the yarn was in its enormous 8 oz./2400 yd hank, but once the yarn was wound into a ball I saw the beauty of the dark grays against the blues and greens. To me, the colors look like the waters of the Tennessee River, or the Little River that flows out of the Smoky Mountains, so it's a perfect backdrop for lace bugs. I am using US4 needles to achieve a fairly tight knit since there are large areas of stockinette stitch surround the butterflies, dragonflies, and gnats.

Once armed witht eh perfect yarn for my shawl, I cast-on and knit like crazy to catch up with the others in our KAL. I cast-on Tuesday night and knit through row 8 of clue 2 that night (the top photos). On Wednesday I graduated from dpns to a 24" circular needle and knit to row 4 of clue 3. Then yesterday I knit into the wee hours and made it up to row 18. I took a white pillowcase and my shawl outside this morning and stretched it on 2 circs to take the last several pictures. I'm afraid those will be last distinguishable photos until the end as the shawl will be too big to spread out flat. But hey, my new camera sure does take great close-up photographs!

So I'll end with a photo of the big honking ball of beautiful Tennessee River water yarn. The bugs are constantly in and on and over the water and I can't wait to see this ball shrink as my shawl grows into another major accomplishment in my life that I can treasure forever. Knit on!

Got my Hood!

It was a big day today. I went to the University Bookstore this afternoon and picked up my Doctoral Hood for the graduation exercises on Thursday. I am so excited!!! My best friend Donna arrives tomorrow night and I'm not even close to having the house ready for her. I guess I'll scrub the bathtub tomorrow afternoon as I'm too tired to do it tonight. A quick trip with the vacuum and a shove a bunch of stuff in the back of my closet and that'll have to do. It's a good thing Donna isn't picky :-) I need to put away all the sewing machines and stuff in the den before the party on Saturday, but that can wait until Friday if necessary.

I stopped by Lilly's Bead Box on the way home and picked up a couple of strands of freshwater pearls, about a 4x6" rice pearl in a natural cream color, to whip up something to go with the new yellow linen suit. I need some earrings and a new watch, depending on which ensemble I decide to wear. It's a good thing this stuff assembles fast! I'm too tired to do it now because I opted to spend a couple of hours working in the yard and cleaning up the patio. The patio was a mess and since Mom plans on putting the drinks out there for the party, I *had* to do something. My hand hurts after that sweep/scrub job! I hope I don't a get a blister.

On the knitting front, I tried out the new 2/28 cash/merino/viscose yarn I ordered from Richard. I've knit up to the 12 row section on US 2/3.0mm dpns because this yarn is *very* fine. The tension looks perfect, but I'm not certain I want to knit a big Pi shawl on 3.0mm needles. I'm afraid I'll have to knit more than the complete 96 row section in order to get a shawl that is wide enough, and I'm not all that keen on the idea of knitting 1100+ sts/row for 40 of 50 rows. Nope, not for this particular project. So, I'm headed back to the beginning of the Bugs shawl again and still in need of a better yarn choice. Sandy at Yarn Haven has a gorgeous CTH handpaint laceweight that has about 2300yds for $40 which tempts me, but I'm concerned about a variegated yarn obscuring the little dragonflies and butterflies I'll be knitting into this shawl. I could just go for the natural look and use the KnitPicks Bare I have in the stash. I do want a cream colored shawl, so that would work even though it seems a bit boring. I did knit a swatch out of the bare and it was nice knitting. I guess I'll be postponing this decision for a while longer, since I'm kind of busy right now :-)

Finished, Finished with, and a Fresh Start

Now that I have finished my dissertation and everything required of me for graduation, it's time to get to work and finish some knitting projects. I have decided my UFO list is entirely too long and must be dealt with one way or another. I started things off by finishing the Lilac Socks. I am *thrilled* with how they turned out! I love both the pattern(Jeanie Townsend)and the yarn(Cherry Tree Hill). I also love how I can actually take a crisp, clear photo of my wonderful new socks with the new digital camera I received as a graduation present. Check out that detail shot taken with the Macro lens--Wow!

And speaking of digital photography, I had to shoot the latest flowers in my garden--a hot pink single peony and Spiderwort (a wonderful shade-loving wildflower/perennial). The spiderwort blooms last just one day, but there are oodles of them. The plant is a great investment too--you buy just one and watch it spread all over the place. I dug out a bunch of divisions early last spring and could have done the same again this year if there had been time. The fascinating part about spiderwort is that the plant completely disappears once It's done with it's late spring/early summer blooming. By August there will be no trace of it visible to the eye.



So, back to the knitting front and finishing things. I finished chart A of the Spring Things Shawl and started knitting on the next lace section on Chart B. I was hoping to like it better, but didn't. That's when I decided it was time to get real with myself. Life is too short to knit lace shawls from patterns you don't love out of yarn you aren't all that crazy about either. I KO'd this project from my list and ma moving on to better things.

While I was at it, I also KO'd the Branching Fern Socks KAL from my list as I never did get around to knitting the socks and am not in the humor to start them right now. I did decided to go back and pick up my first Zephyr project, the Lavender Lace Shawl from Nancie Wiseman's Shawls and Scarves book. I got kind of bored with it and didn't love the yarn, so I put it aside last fall to knit other things. Now that I've resumed work, it's not so bad. The bright coral Zephyr is pretty and the yarn is in much better condition than the white I've been knitting with (which was sort of ratty if you ask me--more like a mill end or second than full-price 1st quality stuff). The LLS pattern is quite intuitive so it's easy to knit with only a rare peek at the charts. I'll use it as my portable project for now. I also found the Ribbed Cuff Socks and finished off the toe of the 1st sock. I'll cast on for the 2nd sock and also tote it for almost brainless knitting.

With all the finished and finishing going on, it's also time to start something new. Yes, it's time to go Bugsy! Mindy posted the 1st clue for the Bugs in Your Garden Mystery Pi KAL. I grabbed some size 4 dpns and the "Screaming Watermelon Pink" ColourMart Cashmere I had in the stash and cast-on for a shawl. The twist in tehis Mystery KAL was the choice to knit a shawl or a top-down sweater. The idea of a sweater intrigues me, but I'm not in the humor to do all the figuring to get a proper fit and I don't have any suitable yarn for a sweater. I will take notes though, and consider knitting one later, but for now I really had my heart set on another Pi shawl so that's what I'm doing. The first clue included ladybird/ladybug lace motifs so I'm already a happy camper!

Bugs and Spring Knitting

Is this not the cutest KAL button you've ever seen? The knitty gang over at EZasPi are gearing up for this years' spring KAL which is a sequel to the Pi shawls we knit last year. Last spring the Mystery Pi KAL had a garden theme where folks could choose from flowers, veggies or just green foilage lace motifs to create their own unique circular shawl. Mindy, the wonder designer, has been coordinating these KALs and has done a marvelous, mammoth job of keeping everyone going in circles. The Garden KAL was my 1st pi shawl and after that I started the Shetland Tea Shawl from A Gathering of Lace (which still needs an edging). I went back to triangles and rectangles for awhile, but now I'm ready to knit another pi shawl. This time the group decided to use Bugs in the Garden as the theme since most of us really like ladybugs, butterflies, dragonflies, etc. I have no idea what Mindy and her helpers have come up with this time, but we're supposed to get our pre-start instructions on yarn selection, etc. sometime in the next week or so. I'm still debating on what yarn to use, but I'm awaiting further instructions from our fearless leader before deciding to knit from my stash or buy something new.


It's a good thing I still have a little time before the Bugs KAL gets under way as I have to finish my Lilac Socks and the Spring Things Shawl first. I still haven't cast-on for the STS for real, but I have ditched several swatches. I'll try again later this week, but right now I'm totally smitten with the Lilac Socks. I'm working on the instep of the 1st sock now, and I swear the thing gets prettier with every row! I *so* love this Cherry Tree Hill yarn! I never thought that I would be happy to see the Knit n Purl close, but with it's absence and the opening of 2 new LYS, I now have ready access to yarns I never would have seen at the KnP. I've learned that each yarn shop has it's personality and each owner buys what they like, or what they and their customers like, but if the owner isn't interested in a line of yarns you are pretty much out of luck. And right now I feel pretty darn lucky!