Ditzy

Baudelaire are now done too.

And it's almost cold enough today to wear them. Almost.

Specs:
Pattern: Baudelaire by Cookie A from Knitty
Yarn: Zarina by Filatura Di Crosa, purchased at The Wool Inn
Needles: 2.25mm

Totally enjoyable knit, gorgeous socks, what's not to love?

So I started some new socks, again by Cookie A.

Monkey socks, from Knitty. The yarn is Kraemer Yarns Sterling Silk & Silver, which I purchased at Stitch Cafe in Los Angeles. It was hand dyed by the staff there, and Emily pretty much swooned when she saw it, so these socks will be hers. It also seemed appropriate, seeing as David frequently refers to her as the Wild Monkey.

Past experience says she'll wear them once or twice before she somehow loses one of them.

Yesterday I had a total ditz moment. Em had a doctors appointment in the afternoon, and she also had sports at the local gym, so I gave permission for her to come home straight after sport. That means she gets home at around 2.30 instead of 4pm, but she actually prefers not to come home early, because she likes to socialise on the bus with her friends.

Anyway, I was watching the clock, and when I figured she was about 10 minutes late, I started to worry. I tried calling her mobile phone, but there was no answer. I mentioned it to David, and he tried to call her as well.
No answer.
10 minutes later, I was really working myself up. I didn't know whether to be angry that she was dawdling with her friends, or worried that something had happened. The gym is less than 10 minutes walk away, and it's literally just around the corner, on busy streets.
I walked out the front and looked up the street for her, but still couldn't see her. So I jumped in the car and drove up to the gym.
I noticed the buses out the front of the gym and wondered what they were still doing there, they should have headed back to school half an hour earlier.
Then I looked at the clock.
It was 2.02pm. I'd thought it was 3pm.
She wasn't late, I was early.
Then I had to explain the missed calls and the text messages.

I guess I know where she gets her ditziness from after all!

Charlotte!

Charlotte is the first project finished! Here's how she looked pre blocking.

And blocked and fringed.

The first time I knit Charlotte, I added a knitted lace border rather than the fringing, but I think I like the fringing. Mind you, it took ages to cut it all up and add it.

The pattern says to cast off at the end of the knitting, then to do a row of single crochet, and then add the crochet loops for the fringe. I decided to do it a little differently. I can't crochet to save my life, and American crochet terminology is different to Australian crochet terminology. Apart from that, I wouldn't know a single crochet if it came and bit me on the butt.

So I just did a crochet loop bind off, which I also think gave it a little more stretchiness than a knit cast off edge would. I'm not a fan of cast off edges on lace.

Done, in 8 days. Quite a contrast to the Shetland Shawl!

Buttercup is continuing. At the moment I'm still working on this.

The never ending tie. It needs to be 140cm long, and it doesn't seem to matter how much knitting I do, it's just not getting there! Other than that, Buttercup is nearly done. It's blocked and seamed, all it needs is this tie, and crochet loops on the sleeves for the buttonholes.

In Twinkie news, yes, she is still slim and sleek, although you wouldn't know it from this angle.

She's keeping in shape by dancing.

Whenever Emily practices her dancing, Twinkie likes to come in and show her how it's done.

Next year, it's So You Think You Can Dance, rabbit style.

Endings

All my projects seem to be closing in on their respective finishing lines.

Charlotte is racing along.

This was exactly the right lace project to follow the Shetland Shawl. Fingering weight on 3.5mm needles feels like chunky yarn on broomsticks after cobweb on 2.5mm needles!

Buttercup is a bathing beauty.

All done, and blocking. All I have to do is seam her up, and finish knitting the garter band for the bottom. That bit is really, really boring, so it's taking a while.

And the only other project currently on the needles is the Baudelaire socks.

As per usual, I have three projects going at once. A lace project, a garment and a pair of socks. Once they're done, I can start three more.

What's next? Not really sure yet, but this arrived yesterday.

Oh.My.Gravy. It's heaven in a ball band. Filatura Di Crosa Superior, 70% Cashmere, 30% silk, 100% droolworthy. Not a hint of scratchiness, it's just lush. I think this will hit the needles in short order.

All Charlotte, all the time

All Charlotte, all the time.

Nothing but Charlotte! As you can see, I didn't rip it, I left it as is and the more I look at it, the more I like it. I do wish I'd swapped colours 1 and 2 around though. I think the two greens were too close in colour, and a little bit of contrast would have been better, but I'm not so bothered that I'm going to start over.

Poor Buttercup has been ignored. I'm blaming the weather. Sydney has had a sad lack of decent weather this summer. If we were having warmer weather I'd be more inclined to pick it up and finish it, I think.

And just because she's had a lack of blog air time of late, here's Twinkie.

She's soaking up the sunlight and my adoration in equal amounts.

Thank you!

I love you people, my imaginary friends! Every one of your comments made me smile, thank you. My family smile and admire my knitting, but they don't "get" it the way all of you do.

So, in the wake of finishing the Shetland Shawl, I suddenly find my knitting future wide open. I did pickup Buttercup and make one sleeve.

I had to incorporate some pretty big modifications in that sleeve. Fortunately I took notes for the next one! I'm knitting the size small for myself, and that fits just fine in the body, but there was no way those itty-bitty sleeves were going around my upper arm. So I added a few stitches and readjusted the armhole shaping to make up for the additional stitches. It seems to be fine now, we'll see how it goes.

So all that remains of Buttercup is one more sleeve and a tie. I could have that done in a few days!

But I let temptation beguile me, and resurrected a long, long dead project.

It's the Charlotte's Web shawl! My friend Jill sent me this for my birthday back in 2004. I knit it up, and then it sat, for ages, waiting for an edging. Then I edged it, blocked it and it was huge. H-U-G-E. SO I frogged it in a huff and threw it aside.

But last night I decided that a triangle shawl in fingering weight is exactly what I need after a square in cobweb, so on the needles it went.

Alas, it may soon come off. I'm not sure that I'm happy with the colour combo I went with this time, especiaslly after looking at the way I went last time!

Happy dancing!

Much dancing of the happy variety has been happening.

The Shetland Shawl is done, done, done.

Unblocked.

Blocking.

Blocked!

Blocked! Blocked! Blocked! That spells finished!

I also think that now that it's blocked, the dyelot differences are not especially obvious, so I'm not sure I'm going to dye it. In some of the close up pictures you can see it, but I'll show it to a few people and see what they think in person before I make a definite decision.

Here's a better picture of the whole shawl.

It's big, but not enormous. Finished size is a bit under 140cm (54"), which is exactly what the pattern said. Here's some detail shots.

Specs:
Pattern: Shetland Shawl, by Hazel Carter from A Gathering of Lace
Yarn: Jamieson and Smith 1ply cobweb in White, 8 balls (200g, not the 140g recommended in the pattern!)
Needles: 2.5mm Addi Lace circs.
Time taken: 10 months, from start to finish with a generous amount of hibernation in the middle.

Sense of Satisfaction: Priceless.

So close

The end is in sight.

I've done nothing for the past three days except knit. And it's paid off. I am so glad to be this close to finished.

But now the doubts are starting to set in. The pattern calls for a technique called "Lengthening the edge" and the corners seem really long. And I used way more yarn than the pattern called for. Maybe it's going to huge.

Just call me paranoid. You wouldn't be the first!

No knitting here

Nothing interesting knit wise to report, but I thought I'd let you know that I've uploaded a bunch of wedding photos to Flickr, and you can see them here.

My favourite of the bunch isn't one of David and I, but one of Em and I.

Behind

I'm behind on my blog reading. I'm behind on my email, I'm behind on phone calls, and even more behind than usual on my housework. I'm behind on my blogging, but I don't have anything new to blog about.

But I'm ahead of schedule on the Shetland Shawl.

Way ahead. 10 days ahead. It should be done in plenty of time.

And not a minute too soon, I want to work on something different. Even endless miles of stockinette would look good at this point.

I do occasionally do something other than work on the shawl. Like work on a sock.

Baudelaire number one, done.

Another project planned for the future is some quilting. I'm not normally a quilter, but while we were in Hawaii, I fell in love with the gorgeous Hawaiian quilts I saw. The one I really loved was a big enough for a queen size bed, but I thought that might be a bit ambitious, so I settled for two tiny little ones to start with.

One is a turtle, and one is a traditional symmetrical design. I'm itching to play with these!

And finally, one of my favourite people had a milestone birthday yesterday. Go wish Jussi a happy 40th!

Done

The third border is done and grafted, complete. One more to go.

And I've started that one, too.

Mind you, I will never, ever, ever make a shawl with this construction again. Grafting is possibly worse than vacuuming. Or cleaning the bathroom.

At this stage, I'm nicely in front of my schedule to get this done, and I'm starting to worry about the dyeing!

In other news, I've been nominated twice for the You Make My Day Award.

Thank you so much, Cathy and Rachael! I really feel awesome when I gt nominated for these things!

However, I'm useless at re-awarding them. I subscribe to somewhere in the vicinity of 300 blogs. And you all make my day! I check in on Bloglines several times a day, and I love all of your blogs. I don't read blogs I don't like!

Can I nominate the Knitting Bloggers webring?

And via Bells, I put my hand up for the Pay It Forward dealie thing that's been making the blog rounds of late.

I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

I love mail! Love sending it, love receiving it. Don't' know what I'll send yet, but I promise to try to make it something nice :)

Finally, school is back

I love Em to bits. But I sure am glad that school finally went back after our extended summer holiday yesterday.

She's going to be 15 next month, and yet she still takes up a not-inconsiderable amount of my time and attention. Time and attention that I could spend knitting. After six weeks of holidays, we're each happy to get back to our respective schedules. Or lack thereof!

So yesterday, I planted my butt on the couch and I knit. But then I had to stop, because it got far too hot and I couldn't bear it any more. But today is much cooler, so I got going on the knitting again.

And the Shetland shawl is flying! I'm hoping that this birder will be done and grafted this weekend. I probably shouldn't have said that. Sssh, don't tell it, or something bad will happen.

So let's change the subject.

Just in time for the 30C+ weather we've been having, I finished Em's So Called Scarf.

Perfect for a heatwave with a cotton sundress! (She didn't keep it on for long, trust me)

The yarn is Lorna's Lace Shepherd Worsted in Child's Play, purchased from The Point Knitting Cafe while we were in New York.

This really is a great pattern for variegated yarn, although if you look at this picture, you can see that the colours aren't exactly random, and there's an odd sort of cross hatch pattern going on.

I like it! The pattern is easy to remember, and travelled a lot with us while we were driving around in the USA. I love the yarn, too. It's soft and not at all scratchy, but it's very loosely spun, and did have a bit of a tendency to split.
I love to knit a sweater or cardi from it, though!

Hopefully, my next post will feature a three bordered Shetland shawl.