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!

Not a good week for knitting

Thus far I would say this has not been a very good week for knitting. It started off on Monday. I was up half the night Sunday finishing a manuscript that had to be turned in to finish of a class I got an incomplete in. The deadline for the corrected grades to be on file with the Registrar is Friday. No grade change, no graduation--it's that simple. So I head to campus Monday afternoon to hand deliver the paper. I stop by my major professor's office and she strongly encourages me to wait until the prof who is to receive the paper gets out of the class she's in at the time. This is smart advice and I know it, so I agree to hang out and wait for 1 1/2 hours to see to it the everything gets taken care of properly. The worst part, I forgot to grab any knitting on my way out the door so I had *nothing* to do but just hang out all that time. This was not fun! I was hissing about grabbing the paper and forgetting the socks.

Next not good thing is my current shawl project. I keep plugging away at the Spring Things Shawl even though I'm not loving it at all. I am motivated by being in the KAL and I know I'm not thinking clearly, so I can't really trust my opinions at present. Now that I've finished everything the University needs for me to graduate, I can allow myself to relax just enough to know I'm exhausted beyond recognition. When I'm this tired, I am cranky, grumpy, and otherwise see things cross-eyed, so why should lace knitting be excepted? Well, maybe that argument works, but not really, because even in a grumpy mood I love what I love.

So here are the latest pictures of said controversial shawl, currently being knit out of white Jaggerspun Zephyr, a yarn I also can't seem to force myself to feel positively towards either, on 3.25mm KnitPicks Circular needles (now these I love!). I'm putting up with the yarn because I wanted a lightweight white shawl to wear with summer things and I'm putting up with the pattern because 1)I like the bottom part of the lace design, 2)I coughed up $6.50 to buy the pattern, 3)I joined the KAL, and 4)I'm too darn stubborn to admit defeat! A reasonable person looking at these pictures would think the lace looks OK, some will think it looks really nice. Hey, I only have a few more repeats on Chart A before I move on to what I hope is the good part. If I still hate it then, I will swallow my pride, frog the thing, and move on to the new Bugs pi shawl which is about to start.

I 'm excited about the Bugs! I may knit it using yarn from my stash, *or* I may wait for some new yarn I just ordered from ColourMart to arrive. I ordered a cone of the blue iris silk and a cone of pale blue cash/merino/viscose. I'm thinking the blue would make for a lovely pi shawl and I don't have any blue shawls at present so that is a motivator. I still have a bunch of KnitPicks Shimmer in Turquoise Splendor which could be very pretty. I'm just not sure I want to do another variegated pi shawl. I have some Bare laceweight which could be really pretty too--just plain and natural, or the cone of screaming watermelon pink cashmere. I guess it just depends on what the lace patterns end up being as to what yarn I'll choose. The Mystery aspect of these Pi KALS make such decisions rather difficult because you don't know what's coming at all!

Ribbit, Ribbit

My mother and father went out shopping yesterday afternoon and came home with things to help "spruce things up" a bit on our favorite summertime living spot--our deck. Apparently this summer will be spent in celebration of frogs, or toads (which really do live on our deck in the summer), or whatever one chooses to call those hippity-hoppity little croaking creatures that knitters all know as Ribbits (aka Rip-its). My mother can bring home some dorky things on occasion, but this time she struck a home run as far as I'm concerned! I now have my own personalized froggy to stand watch over the frog pond.And since I've been spending a fair amount of time at the frog pond with the Spring Things Shawl project, I decided it was only fitting that I take a picture of the Mr. Ribbit with the a few of the cast-offs from the SpringThing (yeah, there were more).


I would like to blame all my problems with the SpringThing on being cognitively compromised by the Big D, but then I would be abdicating all responsibility for its failure and that wouldn't be fair. After all, mature people accept responsibility for their mistakes and imperfections. So I went through 3 needle sizes, four different yarns, and algebraic numbers of swatches/restarts and was about to give up in disgust when I got this bright idea. Not too bright, mind you, as all the other ones seemed pretty bright too, but this one said go back to the White Zephyr and knit the design as written (I had been improvising in my last several rescue attempts) using a 3.25mm needle this time. I'm up to the 5th repeat on chart A and I think I can live with it this time. I won't ever be in love with the lace pattern in chart A, but I'm sufficiently motivated by the $6.50 I shelled out for the pattern and the border lace design to knit on through the first section. It's not difficult to knit, or even remember the pattern sequence, so that helps. I figure in 2-3 days I'll be on to the better part. It better be better or I might lose it >:o(


What *is* better are the Lilac Socks. I've just turned the heel and picked up the gusset stitches on the 2nd sock, so it's pretty smooth sailing from here on out. I'll post **great** photos using my **great** new digital camera once the socks are done and on my little tootsies. I'm having a good time tinkering with my camera. I took an amazing close-up photo of my first peony blossom this afternoon and the finished pix was perfectly focused before editing. Just wait till I turn in my last paper on Monday, then I'm headed to the Smokies to capture the spring wildflowers with my new toy. Graduating is a good thing in more ways that one ;-)

The Unexpected

A lot of unexpected things have happened this week, and not just for me. Take for example the horrific shootings by a desperately disturbed young man on the campus of Virginia Tech University. On a seemingly ordinary Monday morning in a small college town just 4 hours from where I live, suddenly 32 innocent lives were taken. You can't anticipate such things ever happening. But they do, and it did, and we are left to mourn, then carry on taking with us fond memories and hopefully lessons learned that will help in the future.

My unexpected events of the week may pale in comparison, but still they are powerful to me. For example, the phone call I answered yesterday that just so happened to be from my best girlfriend, Donna, who lives in Salt Lake. We haven't been together for 5 1/2 years and haven't even talked to each other for 2 or 3 years, that is until I called her on Sunday evening a couple of weeks ago to tell her I was graduating. So she called me yesterday to inform me of her decision to fly out and attend my graduation and spend a few days with me. I was both stunned and elated as I never dreamed she would come, even though I really wanted her to be here for the big event. Donna isn't particularly adept with technology, so I agreed to help look for a cheap airfare. I've always had good success on Travelocity so I went there first and was horrified to find nothing but expensive fares with terrible times and connections. So I headed on to Expedia where I found one, and only one flight with a great price. The catch was 2 layover and a very long flight time, but Donna was OK with it because the price was so cheap and it was a major airline. I know this was just another in a long line of unexpected miracles God has provided me in the last year that has allowed me to be facing graduation. He *does* create pathways to lead me where I could never go alone.

And now I have one last paper that I'm struggling to write. Things have not gone well today or yesterday because I've been having strange, several allergic reactions. What I'm reacting to is only a wild guess, because I really have no idea. All I know is I woke up from a nap yesterday afternoon because the palms of my hands were itching like crazy. I went to the bathroom a discovered that my whole face was swollen and covered with itchy red blotches characteristic of a serious allergic reaction. I was not having difficulty breathing so I didn't feel forced to go to the Emergency Room, but I took a big hit of benedryl instead. I was OK this morning, except for feeling very fuzzy that is, but the rash was gone. By afternoon I was itchy again, but the rash was still gone. I can't write on Benedryl, so I stuck with Allegra today.

On the knitting front,I did manage to get another repeat knit on the cuff on the 2nd lilac sock. I finished the last round of cables, so I'm almost home free. The only fiddly part left is picking up the gusset stitches, but that's not really all the bad. I do adore these socks and suspect they will see a lot of wear. I also knit another repeat on the Spring Things shawl. I still have my doubts about this one. The yarn is really a bit too skinny for my taste. It looks just fine, and it is very light and airy, which is desirable for a summer shawl, but I'm still not feeling the love for this one. I could frog and try knitting with the yarn doubled but I didn't like the doubled yarn when I tried that with the yellow Gentle, so doubling may not be the answer. I think I'll just persevere for now and see if I can get through Chart A. Maybe getting past this first lace pattern, which I don't care for, will help improve the situation. I hope I last that long ;-)

Presents

I turned my dissertation into the Dean of the Graduate School yesterday afternoon. It's DONE!!!!! So what's time is it now? It's time for the presents! I celebrated the event by stopping in at the Yarn Haven on my way home. My intent was to purchase another skein of CTH SuperSock yarn since I'm so happy with the socks I'm knitting from my 1st skein. The problem was I *so* tired I couldn't get excited by any of the colors I saw, or to be more precise, not excited enough by any one color to be able to choose *only* one (there were several I really liked). So I started looking around the shop and noticed Sandy had gotten in some new lace yarn from Skacel. Of course the pink caught my eye, but I didn't want to knit another pink shawl just yet as I need some diversity in my colors. Fortunately there was a very pretty soft lavender that appealed to me. The deal was sealed when I glanced up at the Crystal Palace Kid Merino that was the shelf right above the Skacel Merino lace--the Kid Merino was is a fuzzy melange of soft lavenders that matched the Merino Lace perfectly! Suddenly I knew that's the yarn I needed to knit the Spring Things Shawl--you know, the shawl that I cast-on and frogged umpteen times in different yarns with different needle sizes and haven't been happy with any of the choices to date? That shawl!

Well I cast-on yet again and this time I think it's going to work. I so hope I have found the right combination. I've never had this kind of trouble before. Usually it's just the opposite--I have more good choices available to me that the really decision is which one should I use first. I thought about this a lot over the last couple of days and have come to the conclusion it the specific lace pattern that is the majority of this shawl design. I've had troubles with this pattern before when I was trying to knit a scarf out of some lovely Habu Textiles Silk/Mohair kusa. I started and frogged this scarf 3 or 4 times before relegating this magnificent yarn to the frog pond for an extended visit (it's still there). I didn't realize that Spring Things used this lace pattern as I only really "saw" the lace in the border. Had known this in advance I would have chosen another shawl pattern I think, but I do like this shawl, so I'm hanging in there for now.

I have a couple of pictures of my new yarn acquisitions and the latest start of the Spring Things. I know, it looks pretty OK, maybe a little too lacy as the Skacel Lace Merino is *very* fine yarn, but it's OK. It's doesn't look like SPL's shawl in the pattern, but it's still OK. But what is noteworthy is.... (drum roll please!) the crisply clear, close-up photo! It's my graduation present which was delivered yesterday too! I told you I got *lots* of presents yesterday;o) It's the digital camera of my dreams. All the options I deem essential in a good camera. It's a Fuji FinePix s700, which has a 10x optical zoom in addition to the customary digital zoom features and it has a 2x macro feature which allows me to shoot an object as close as 4" away and be in perfect focus. This will be awesome for taking pix of wildflowers and knitting, two of my favorite subjects. The price was fantastic too (<$300) thanks to a today's special on HSN. So this means I'll have lots and lots of pictures to enhance my otherwise wordy blog. Presents are a good thing!

Happy Easter

I love Easter! It's my most favorite holiday and spring is my favorite time of the year. Even the record cold temperatures (low's in the 20s YIKES!) couldn't damper my spirits on this, the most significant day of the Christian year. I admit to getting a slow atart as I've had a migraine since yesterday afternoon, but fortunately for me church doesn't start until 12:30 so I was able to get things drugged and under control enough to make the Easter service. One of the unique things about being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (aka Mormons) is that multiple congregations (called wards) meet in the same building (called a meetinghouse). The Wards take turns as to gets the morning or afternoon schedule. It's not so bad here in TN when there's never more than 2 wards in a meetinghouse, in Utah it's common for there to be 3 or 4 and you could be going to church from 2-5PM. Not being much of a morning person, I always look forward to being on the afternoon schedule :-) If you are curious, you can find out more about the church here.

Mother suggested I stay home from church, given the migraine and all; however, I couldn't help but entertain the possibility that it might be my Father's last Easter on this earth (his health is so fragile, who knows?) and I knew I could not forgive myself if I wasn't sitting next to him singing "Christ the Lord is Risen Today." The threat of death is a strange motivator I suppose. I dug in the back of my closet and pulled out a heavy spring sweater, one that doesn't get enough wear here in TN, and then in a moment of clarity, I wrapped up in my Garden Pi Shawl, secured with a bunny pin that was a gift from my dearly departed best friend Laura Lee, and headed off. I sang with my father and felt only marginally guilty about not singing in the choir again this year--I had a very good excuse this time :-) The choir was wonderful. It doesn't hurt that Phil and Caryn, our aspiring opera singers, have elevated the sound of the choir to an all-time high. But the highlight of Sacrament meeting was the talk given by my dear friend Mitch Borden about Christ and the Good Shepherd. He talked about shepherds and sheep and told of the history behind the text of Psalms 23 as a part of his Easter message. This information was new to me and held special meaning in light of my newfound interest in sheep and wool and my knitty friends who raise sheep. Mitch promised to send me a copy of his message. I'll try to post a copy when I get it if I figure out a way for folks access it online.

As if listening to Mitch Borden's wonderful message wasn't enough to lift my spirits, my friend Elaine, listmom of the EZasPi group, sent the endorphins soaring. You see she posted a darling photograph of a laughing little boy and a lamb from Diana Cooper on the group homepage then asked group members to come up with a suitable caption. In a moment of Dissertation-induced delirium, I submitted my idea. You can see the photo and caption on Elaine's blog, Out of Hand. Apparently Elaine likes puns, so my caption was named the winner! How cool is that??? Diana responded by saying "Seems I'm destined to illustrate Kristina's words...congrats, Dr. K." These girls are just the best kind of friends!

While I was trying to find my equilibrium this morning (do you like that phrase? That's what my mother calls becoming "conscious" in the morning) I cast-on for the Spring Things Shawl. I nixed the plan to use the white Zephyr, as I have 3 balls and want to do something bigger with it, or at the very least knit the Estonian Lace Shawl with it. I didn't have enough of the Habu textiles silk mohair yarn and I didn't want to knit with the KSH I have in my stash as it's a smoky teal color (wrong color for the season). I could use some ColourMart cashmere, but I have enough for a big shawl and didn't want to "waste" it knitting a small shawl. I finally settled on a new lace yarn I just purchased from the Yarn Place called Gentle. This stuff is really cobweb wt, not the laceweight it is labeled. A 100g ball has 1350 yds. which, when doubled, would be just the right amount for the Spring Things shawl. I purchased 2 colors, but chose the butter yellow for this project thinking it would be perfect for a lot of my summer things. I rewound the ball using my ball-winder so I could pull one strand from the inside and one from the outside to knit the shawl without making a permanent commitment to double-stranding the whole thing-- just in case;-) I cast-on using my new Addi-Lace needles in a US5/3.75mm as suggested in the pattern but after knitting just a few rows into chart A I can see the look is a bit too lacy, so I'll frog it and start again with my old reliable size 4 needles. I want to use the new Addis, but they are already in-use so I guess I'll quickly knit off the last few rows of the Shh! It's a Secret Shawl so I can have the needles I really want. How's that for motivation to finish a project?

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).