It's a Monster!!!

My 60" Addi circular arrived in the mail from KnitPicks on Tuesday and I resumed work on the pi shawl. At 1152 sts., about 1400 yds, and at least 60" not stretched out, this thing is a MONSTER!!! I pretty much have to work on it inside under the influence of air-conditioning (and diet coke) because it's too big and too warm to knit on it outside. I couldn't even lay the shawl out flat when I had both the 32" and the 60" needles in place during the transition/doubling process. Well, I said I wanted it to be big (just in case I never endure something like this again) and BIG it is! ROTFLOL

I've been keeping up with all my groups and email, but I haven't really been able to post this wek since I got bit by the unsavory, worm laden, email that attacked yahoo on monday. I had just opened a yahoo email account 2 days before the attack and the only people on my address list were my yahoo groups, which was fortunate in that they were the only ones that got the ugly mail sent from some lesbian source in my behalf. Of course the unsavory character that sent it was taking advantage of a loophole in the "new & improved" yahoo stuff that was implemented last week. Yup, that's progress for you! And most of the folks in my groups all hate the changes. Personally, I'm neutral at this point as to the improvements but I hate that I was attacked by the worm even though I never opened the email. I just trashed it and reported it as spam from the get go. The only good thing was that it didn't get to my other email accounts and I don't think it ever infected my computer. I'm sick to death of running scans for virii, adware, & spyware. The reality is, none of them are worth a hill of beans until after a worm like that is unleased on you. Then they can go write a program to fix the problem or prevent it from getting someone else in the future, but if you are in the targeted group, you are just SOL. period.

I've signed up for another lace KAL which starts in July. Melanie at pinklemontwist is offering another mystery stole along. Since I didn't knit lace last summer when she did the 1st KAL--Leda's Dream--this will be another new adventure for me. Oh boy! Better yet, I will be done with the pi shawl so I don't have to feel guilty about creating more ufos/wips. I finished one wip while I was waiting for my 60" needle, the Holly's Socks knit in KnitPicks merino. I'm still not in love with knitting fancy patterns into my socks, but this was only my 1st time doing it so hopefully it will grow on me. For now it only seems to increase the amount of time it takes to knit a pair of socks. My previous attempts all resulted in socks that were too big, either a little bit big or really big, but my holly's socks fit snuggly. I haven't washed them yet, but I think I probably want just a smidge more room for my feet. The best part is I now have the perfect match of sock yarn, needle size, and stitch count to achieve that perfect fit. It does take a little trial and error to get to this point. Somehow all the math in the world just doesn't quite do it.

I've also pulled the N Wiseman Shawl out of the ufo basket and started to knit on it again. For now, this is my portable project as the pi shawl is too big to be portable. However, with all the experince I've gained knitting the pi, I am more comfortable with this shawl and the Zephyr yarn. Zephyr is a 50/50 blend of wool and tussah silk and it is one of the most popular laceweight yarns out there. The price is reasonable and the yarn comes in a zillion colors, both solid and hand-dyed multicolors, and it does have a nice touch of a sheen to it. But the yarn is not a stretchy and elastic as the merino I've used or as supersoft as the baby alpaca or kid mohair I've knit previously. I just didn't love the feel of the yarn at first and the zephyr was finer than the other things I'd used. But I've adjusted to fine threads from using the gossamer and now the zephyr doesn't feel so foreign to my fingers.

Many folks will be using zephyr for the mystery stole, but I'm still debating what I want to do. I just got a bunch of natural merino laceweight from KnitPicks. I love the natural cream color although most folks buy this stuff to custom dye their own yarns. Then there's the 2 cones I bought from Colourmart. Melanie say it's not a wide stole and you can't alter the pattern to make it wider so if you want a more substatial stole you should knit it in a fingering weight yarn. I could double the dusty aqua cashmere which will make it about a fingering weight, but then I would have only 1150 yds and that might be just a tad shortof the 1200 recommended for the project. Running out of yarn on the border would be awful and I can't get more, so I probably won't do it. I have some alpaca cloud in "tide pool" which would knit up very nicely. The bonus is this color matches my new Coldwater Creek trousers perfectly, so I have a great wardrobe option from the start. Hmmmm...this sounds good. Decisions, decisions, decisions!!!!