Narcissistic Yarn, Acts of Desperation, and Other Random Thoughts

Today I added a few photos to go with the ramblings on of a distracted mind. Here's my completed "Smooshy Socks" aka Socks for Veronik. The yarn lives up to it's name. soft and smooshy! I wore them yesterday and got gushing raves everywhere I went. That's pretty impressive for socks. With each pair of socks I knit, I learn something new. From the smooshy socks I learned how to knit socks that would fit around my curvy calves and still fit at the ankle. At last I can knit a sock with a longer leg, right? Not so fast.... They fit just great, they just don't want to stay there. Chalk another one up for gravity as the socks retract comfortably to just above where all my other socks sit. Some battles just weren't meant to be won. Back to knitting 4-5" cuffs.

I knew I had to go to the doctor's office yesterday and with no "current" socks OTN I needed a project to take with me. So I resumed work on Daddy's Christmas socks. I knit the heel flap over the weekend and got all the stitches picked up for the gusset. Lots of stitches since these are big socks for big feet. I was testing the limits of my favorite KnitPicks needles with all those stitches. Desperate times call for desperate acts. I knew I couldn't just pitch these socks into my purse and go without losing stitches everywhere, so I grabbed my 32" KP circular and started knitting a la Magic Loop style. My stitches are saved from drop-offs! It's pretty awkward in that you have to fight the natural curvature of the cable, even if it's a super flexible cable. Messing with the loop is fiddly and I'm not yet convinced this is superior to dpns. I am knitting in all stockinette at this point, so that's pretty simple, but working in pattern may be more tricky. Magic Looping does demand the use of stitch markers, things I never used on dpns as the spacing of stitches across the needles served to mark where you are at in the pattern. I may switch back to dpns once the gusset decreases are done, but for now it's magic loop time I guess.


My last photo is symbolic of how my day has gone today. We had terrible wind storms last night, I didn't take my usual sleep med (forgot to get it refilled) hence I didn't sleep too well. So I'm not in my best form when my four-legged friend came to see me this morning. Miss Emme, aka Her Royal Majesty of Supreme Rottenness, decided it was time to be picked up and put into my bed. Dachsies are short, my bed is tall--enough said. Emme has her favorite way of occupying my bed, and this morning's offering was not up to her expectations. It was a rough night, after all, so there weren't many blankets left on the bed. I was trying to knit on THE SOCKS (they will be done this year, Daddy, I promise!) but NO! I must move. I must fix the blankets. I get up and start to make the bed, but before I can crawl back in She took over. Rotten I tell you, rotten. Parked right on top of my heating pad. I know when I have lost. I relocated to the recliner with my knitting, sans the heating pad.

This should have been a sign portending things to come. I picked up a new shawl pattern while I was at the Yarn Haven yesterday. Oh yeah, I hit the LYS! I bought another skein of Araucania Ranco to knit socks for my sister for Christmas (or her B-day if I don't get done in time). While I was there I thumbed through Sandy's pattern collection. She's been expanding these things and I was happy to learn she is carrying FiberTrends and HeartStrings patterns. I've been looking at HeartStrings patterns for awhile, but didn't have a convenient source--until now. I loved Jackie's Scotch Thistle Stole design when she released it last summer. Others liked it too, as there was quite a rush on the pattern and dyed-to-match Schaefer yarn that was meant to go with the pattern. When I saw it at TYH, I knew it was my answer to what to knit for Mother for Christmas.

After careful deliberation and review of finances, I opted to forgo buying new yarn and use some cashmere from the stash. This is the pretty brick red yarn that I ordered hoping for a ruby red. Sweet Richard at ColourMart found some ruby red and sent me both cones. The Brick is perfect for Mom, and if used double stranded, is perfect for the Thistle Stole. No problem, right? I'll just wind off half the cone with my trusty ball winder, then knit from both for the stole. I've done this many times without a hitch, but not so today. They say yarn has personality. Different yarns say different things, like "Hey. look at me! I'm bright and sassy" or "I'm soooo soft and sweet, don't you want to pet me?" The brick cashmere has a personality all right, a narcissistic personality. It's very fond of itself. It's also quite flighty, as in flying off the spindle when I had about 40g wound off. That means the ball gets to sit on the floor next to the partially unwound cone to go through the winding process all over again. Bothersome, but not problematic, right? Wrong! I've heard folks whine about yarn barf before, you know, the big globs of yarn that spew forth from center-pull balls to crate havoc and knots while you work. Yarn Barf! I'd never had any bad barf before, but this self-absorbed stuff puked constantly and didn't want to be separated into one long line. Bad yarn! I hissed my way through rewinding and now I have yarn ready to knit. I hope it behaves better while knitting. I put some nice hand cream on while rewinding the yarn in the hopes of discouraging it's stuck-on-self ways in the future. And here I thought narcissistic people were difficult to deal with. Who knew yarn could be too!

Chart 1 is done

It only took me what, 16 days of knitting to finally finish all the repeats of Chart 1 of my Icarus shawl. I still had almost half of my yarn left, most likely enough to add a second repeat to the extra one I've already knit, but the mere thought of doing another repeat was more than I could stand last night. I am moving on! After counting to 7 ad nauseum, now the mantra is only 3. Nevertheless, I still catch myself counting to 7 on occasion and I have to stop and tink a couple of stitches before proceeding. Even still, I feel like the end is in sight and what's left is all the fun stuff--the lace!

Maybe, if all goes well, I will be finished knitting Icarus by next weekend. Surely that will be enough notice for Regenia to knit the last few rows of her shawl so she can beat me to the "finish first" prize. Well, not exactly a prize really, but more like bragging rights :-) I think Regenia already has her prize (wink, wink, smile).

The first clue for the Secret of Chrysopolis KAL is out and I must admit I really like what I see. Even though I hadn't anticipated knitting this project anytime soon, I may just change my mind and cast-on after Icarus is done. If you are interested in joining the KAL, sign-ups remain open through this week and the link is in the sidebar. While the group is a German language group, the clues are given in both German and English, in chart and text form, and the leader, Moni, is fluent in both languages. In short, don't let language stop you! There are plenty of English speaking knitters participating to help you as needed.

I added to the yarn stash this past week with another package from Richard at ColourMart. This time it was a cone of 65%/35% cash/silk in my favorite BonBon pink. Oh this is yummy stuff! It has the lovely sheen of silk with all the fluffy softness of cashmere. All this and the yarn is still on the cone and hasn't been washed yet. I've petted this cone everyday, but I have yet to decide what project to knit with this yummy yarn.

My other yarn acquisition was a couple of balls of Panda Wool in shades of teal and blue called Ultramarine. Sandy at the Yarn Haven just received a new shipment from Crystal Palace restocking the Panda Cotton and adding Panda Wool to the mix. I've already cast-on a pair of socks, but I'm not sure my gauge is right. I'll let you know more once I make sure I can get the cuff over my foot! Until then, Knit on!

Saturday Update

Another week has rolled past. The Vols are playing Arkansas State at Neyland Stadium tonight--not a big enough game to be on the usual TV stations so I'm listening to the game on the radio. It's a trade off not being able to watch the game...it's much more fun to be able to see what's happening but I get more knitting done tuning in to the radio broadcast. I much prefer our UT announcers over anyone else, so that's a big advantage to following the game on the radio. No matter, the bottom line is the Big Orange desperately need a seriously good win after the shellacking we suffered at the hand of Tim Tebow and the Florida Gators last week. No defense! Things are looking good as they just scored another TD with 1 min. LTG before halftime. Leading 31-14 at the half sounds a lot better to me!


I took a few more pictures of my garden this week. It's still terribly hot and dry, so the garden looks kind of ragged. My roses are filled with blossoms and I've never had such an abundance of lantana before either. They look more like shrubs than flowers and they are covered with big fat fuzzy bees and a multiplicity of butterflies. Miss Emme, the wonder mini-wiener dog, is fascinated by those bees and she gets irritated with me for not letting her go after them. Children!!! I planted some bronze tipped golden mums out by the lamppost and in a few flowerpots this morning. It's still kind of hot for mums, but as long they get plenty of water they'll be OK. I was pleased that several of the little lavender mums I planted last year came back and are blooming quite nicely too. Gotta love those perennials :-)


I chose to share photos of 2 of my favorite plants today. The first is a blue hybrid passionflower. This flowering vine really takes off and starts to spread and bloom in August. Mine is a little late this year because I moved it to the back of the backyard where there would be more room for the vine to spread. I love the complexity of the flower and it's delicate features. It's amazing that a wild vine can produce such spectacular blooms! The other picture is native wildflower here in the Smokies that blooms in the late spring, fades in the summer, but returns with new foliage and flowers again in the fall. The native pink bleeding heart (Dicentra eximia) loves a moist shady location which makes it a bright spot under the trees.


Moving on to the knitting front, I've been focusing all my attention on the Icarus Lace Shawl. Regenia has taken me up on my throwdown so now I really want to finish fast! The pattern calls for 5 repeats of a 24 row section of chart 1 before moving on to the more interesting lacy stuff. I'm working on that 5th repeat but I'm concerned about the size of my shawl and how much yarn I still have left over. The original used 90g of Fino, which is a little bit fatter than the Lace-a-licious I'm using. They are both baby alpaca and I'm using the same size needles, but I'm at about the half-way point and I've only used 20g of yarn. That ain't very much folks. I've pretty much decided to add an extra repeat and I might even add a 2nd one depending on how things look after 6 repeats. A bigger shawl is good, a smaller shawl would be disappointing, and since I have plenty of yarn I'll just knit on!


I love the way the colors of this yarn are working out in this design. Icarus is well-suited to a subtly hand-painted fiber--something you can't say about most fine lace shawl patterns. I just received another cone of new lace yarn from Richard at ColourMart. This time I purchased a blend of 65% cashmere/35% silk in my favorite "BonBon" blush pink. I already have some pure silk yarn in this colorway in my stash, but I was unprepared for how stunning this cashsilk would be--all the softness and halo of cashmere with the strength and sheen of silk. Wow! I think I might like this blend even more than I love pure cashmere. I'm considering patterns for this yarn, but am leaning towards knitting one of the Shetland Sampler Stoles from either A Gathering of Lace or Victorian Lace Today. Of course I have lots of time to change my mind while I finish Icarus, but right now Hazel Carter's Stole in AGOL is in the lead. Oh yummy!

Arrrgh!

Arrrgh! That's the word today. I got it from a reliable news source (Al Roker on the Today show) that's it's International Speak Like a Pirate Day. And you thought I was about to tell you about some huge knitting mistake didn't you? HaHaHa...... Actually things are pretty quiet around here. It's been almost a week since I cast on for the Icarus Shawl and I've made steady progress each day. Today is officially Day 7 of knitting and I'm starting the 5th repeat of Chart 1. I'm up to 250+ sts. OTN and the knitting, while certainly not challenging, hasn't been nearly as tedious as I had anticipated. Pretty much this section is about not goofing up the yo, k1, yo increases that start anew with each pattern repeat. The rest is just count to seven, knit, knit, knit.

But with simplicity comes relatively rapid progress. It would be really cool if I could be finished with the knitting by this time next week. I might even finish my Icarus *before* Regenia finishes hers (gasp!) So how's it coming along Reg???? At least Regenia has a special occasion to wear her Icarus while I'm just knitting it to knitting another shaw out of great yarn. The Lace-a-licious has been a delight to knit with even though it is super skinny stuff. The size 3 needle I'm using is just about right--a 4 would be too big for sure.

I've got several KALs casting-on next week and I've added a few lace yarns to the stash in anticipation of my next projects, whatever they may be. Richard at ColourMart has been posting new yarns lately and I've succumbed to a couple of temptations. I received my 1st order on Tuesday, an Italian cashmere/cotton blend in a yummy deep amethyst purple. Even right of the cone this stuff is wonderfully soft. I'm knitting a bookmark swatch right now to see how is washes and blocks before committing the yarn to a shawl project. A few days ago Richard posted some more cashmere/silk blends in lots of colors. I opted for a cone of a soft pink that should match some 100% silk yarn I already have. I feel totally spoiled to be able to have such beautiful fibers at a price even I can afford...on occasion :-)

Knitting on!

Thank God for Knitting, part 2

It's been a horrible, long week. I don't know how I would have survived without my knitting and the kind words of others who have reached out to me via my knitting. I dragged my Little River Socks with me, from one Doctor's office to the next and through 2 days at the hospital as I tended to the needs of my father and mother. It took the cardiothoracic surgeons a long time, but with patience and persistence they were able to remove the occluded stent in a major coronary artery, clear all the plaque and calcifications, and place 2 new stents to restore perfusion to his stressed heart. It was exactly what I had hoped for and Daddy came through the procedure like a rock. I *know* miracles happen and the Lord just delivered our family another one.

After spending Wednesday going to doctor's appointments (1st daddy's, then my own) I was quite dissatisfied with having to untangle my knitting from everything else in my purse. I've seen those cute little bags for on-the-go knitting, but I just don't have $20+ to invest in such things, BUT, I do have a great sewing machine and a serger and a fabric stash that exceeds my yarn stash. So I dug through some remnants leftover from other projects and started cutting and folding, stitching and pressing. No measuring needed for this simple project.
It was 10PM when I sat behind the sewing machine and whomped up the cutest little knitting bag I ever saw. Do you like the FROGS? I couldn't think of anything more suitable than frogs...besides, I needed cheering up! I put pockets on the inside-one big pocket on one side that can hold a paper pattern and any notions like cable needles and scissors or a measuring tape, and 3 long pockets on the other side to keep my dpns sorted by size. In the middle is enough space for 100g of sock yarn (balled or partially knit :-) The froggy bag performed perfectly on its test drive at the hospital yesterday so I am pleased.

I took a break after daddy had been transferred to his room and came home for an afternoon nap. I was thrilled to find a package from the Loopy Ewe in my mailbox! I've been surfing the specialty sock & lace yarn retailers online for months and finally decided to splurge and try one out. I had heard good things about Sheri at the Loopy Ewe from, of all people, Sandy, the owner of The Yarn Haven, my just-across-the-street LYS. There were oodles of yarns I wanted at the Loopy Ewe, but I narrowed it down to one sock yarn, a beautiful hand paint from Apple Laine, and one lace yarn from J Knits. Not only were my yarns beautiful beyond words, but they were meticulously wrapped in tissue paper before being sealed in a plastic bag and sent speedily to my door. I felt like I just got a present, and frankly, I needed one :-)


I have knitting progress to report, but I think I'll save it for another post as I'm pretty wiped out. Thanks to all of you who sent your well wishes and offered prayers for my family. I know they made a difference :-)

Spring Things Shawl

I just stumbled on a nifty new lace shawl pattern from Susan Pierce Lawrence called the "Spring Things Shawl." I really like this one, so of course I purchased it immediately! I'd show you a picture of it, but it's "strictly prohibited" so you'll just have to go look at it yourself. It's a triangle shawl similar in form to Kiri or the Flower Basket Shawl. You can see the details and purchase the downloadable pattern here. Although this pattern is truly "hot off the press" there's already a KAL forming, which I am joining right now!

The shawl is medium sized (30x60") and can be knit with ~550 yds.of a fine mohair (she used 1 ball of Karabella) or one 2 oz. ball of Zephyr according to the pattern. I think you could probably knit this design with a very subtle ombre yarn, but I'm not so sure about a variegated one. I have some white Zephyr that I just purchased that would be wonderful for this shawl. I could really use a white shawl to knock off the chill in church this summer. I don't know why it is that the coldest place on earth seems to be the chapel. I swear they keep that cold so the devil won't try to invade the flock, if you know what I mean ;-D On the other hand, I may have just enough of the pale green Habu Textiles silk mohair that I recently pitched in the frog pond. It would be pretty, but maybe not with nupps. Deciding which yarn to use is half the fun of knitting.

The upper border has nupps in the design, which look cool. I've not knit them before, but I'm armed and ready to learn with my new Addi-Lace needles. If the nupps don't work out, the designer provided an option to use beads instead, or you could just skip the nupps and beads altogether and just leave the center of the leaf-thingies just plain. After all, designs were meant to be tampered with

I'm coming oh so close to being done with the Big D. When I shut off the computer last night, after a 12 hour marathon of writing and revising, I could finally see the end is in sight. I should have most of the work finished tonight and ready to go back to Sandra (my *wonderful* professor) on Monday. As soon as that's off, then I need to rip off a quick manuscript for a journal article to finish an incomplete I've had hanging out for way too long. I'm going to write up the study, so it will be a useful exercise in writing to meet a class requirement. I ordered the graduation announcements from Jostens and mother is making plans for the party we're throwing the Saturday after graduation. I keep reminding her it's the "wedding reception" I never got the opportunity to have (and most likely never will).

And miles to go before I sleep...

Well, I did it. I successfully defended my dissertation late Monday afternoon. The presentation went as well as I could hope for. Everyone was in a good mood and my committee was absolutely fabulous both in their support for me as a person and in their feedback of ways I can improve my work. The presentation was too long, something I knew going in but didn't know how to cut it down without omitting something important. From developing the presentation I saw some pretty glaring mistakes in my last chapter and some bugs with the way I had thematized my results. Let's just say that I got so caught up in the trees that I forgot to step back out again to look at the forest! I sort of forgot that the focus was on hope, and not all the other stuff that caught my attention ;-) I got some good help in the discussion with my committee afterwards, help I desperately wanted! I still need to read all the notes in the manuscripts before I can proceed with rewrites. I need to get started but I've been miserably sick all day so that's been a problem. I figure I can read and brainstorm and takes notes tonight, then start the revisions in earnest tomorrow. Let's just say I have miles to go before I sleep-- many miles.

When I got home form the University on Monday evening I was greeted with two surprises--well, that is in addition to the smiles and hugs from Mom and Dad;-) My dearest friend Wendy Shea-Messler called my folks to report on my successful presentation as she was driving home so they knew a bit of how things went. I thought that was incredibly sweet of her! Wendy's baby, Mason, also sent me good wishes and baby kisses for luck in the form of a tiny stuffed Winnie-the-Pooh bear. Pooh sat at the head of the table next to my notes and presided over the proceedings. I sure hope my other bestest pal Peter Rabbit wasn't offended by being left at home! Surely such things as this could only happen because a preemie nurse was presenting!

But... I am digressing, aren't I? I had 2 surprises waiting for me. After I got home I quickly changed clothes and slipped on my gardening clogs and headed out to the yard the breathe and cry and offer my thanks to God in prayer. Gardens are good for these things, so I wandered out. We've had strangely warm weather and everything that normally blooms in April is already in bloom in the 3rd and 4th week of March. It seems as if my perennials double in size literally overnight. But on Monday night I walked out and was surprised to find the first blossoms on one of my bleeding hearts. I couldn't help but be struck by the irony of the timing as I stood shedding tears of gratitude for coming through such a momentous life event. I thought it rather quite symbolic of everything I have been through these past 9 years.

My other surprise was the two packages of lace yarn that arrived in the mail. The first I had been waiting on for a couple of weeks, 3 balls of white Zephyr from The Knitter in CO. I figured the delay was related to demand as many folks want white lace yarn this time of year, and with free shipping I wasn't about to complain about yarn taking more than a week to arrive. I think I do get spoiled sometimes by fast shippers and besides, it wasn't like I had time to do any new knitting anyway! As expected, the yarn isn't pure white, but is rather a creamy white color--the color you would expect to see in fiber that had been bleached. I think it will make for a lovely intricate shawl or stole, although I haven't decided exactly what to knit yet.

The second package of yarn was from the YarnPlace in CA. Now they shipped it out speedy fast! I bought 2 balls of Gentle, a 5% cashmere/95% fine Australian Merino blend. Gentle is a good name as this stuff is exquisitely soft and beautifully spun. It's also very, very fine--cobweb weight fine. It takes 2 strands of this stuff to make it laceweight. I played with it a little and knit a couple of rows on 2.75mm needles. It's tiny, but very easy to work with. I'll have to think on what to do with this pretty stuff. I bought one ball in a rich buttery yellow and the other is my favorite blush shade called Ahhh Pink. Each 100g ball has ~1350yds which is enough for a modest sized shawl. I may consider ordering a second ball and double stranding one of the projects though, as this stuff is just so fine I might be knitting forever to finish a decent-sized project. I don't want to spend the time it would take to tat a shawl to knit one I suppose.