Chart E Done!

Yay! I'm on track. I didn't knit anything for the last week. I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows last Tuesday (don't worry, there will be no spoilers), but I spent some time at the gym and I hurt. So I spent too much time wallowing in my pain to knit :)

Anyway, it's the weekend, and for me, that means lots and lots of knitting time. So I spent yesterday and part of today plugging away at clue 4 and here it is:

I've been seeing chatter where people have been finding these little hexagons or cat's paws or whatever they are (they make me think of snowflakes, I'm Canadian what can I say?) very frustrating. Now admittedly, I still have a whole chart to go of them, but I love them. They make me happy everytime I get to the little O^O that finishes them off.

Here's another shot showing the bulk of the stole so far:

It may be noted, that I changed the colour of my lifeline. The blue was easy to see in photographs, but it was a bit of worsted weight yarn that I found lying around and used in a pinch at the cottage. It was far too bulky to use in this stole. The new yarn is a scrap of green fingering weight left over from my Baudelaire socks. Much easier to work around, even if it is harder to see in photos. That little ball of yarn you can see on the right of the stole is what's left of my second skein of yarn. I bought 4, so I should be alright for quantity. I'm a paranoid knitter. I always think I'm going to run out of yarn, so I tend to buy too much. I think I've mentioned this before. Oh well. I have things to do. I'm expecting company this evening and I'd like to get a start of Chart F before I have to do things like vacuum, blah.

I'll post again before the week's out, I suspect, but in the meantime, here's something pretty:

Yeah, I know. It's a bug. I like bugs. Especially the kind that eat mosquitoes. Later.

Quickie

So, I just wanted to post a quick progress report on the Mystery Stole. I've finished clue 3 and have printed off clue 4. Things are looking pretty good even if I do say so myself:

Again, the blue line is the beginning of the clue I just finished. This is supposed to be the 1/3 mark in length, and while I haven't actually measured it, I'd guess it's almost a meter long. I'm really looking forward to seeing how the remainder turns out. But right now, I'm on page 474 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and Doctor Who is on at 8:00 so, I'll leave it at that for now.

Back from holidays

So, before I ran off to the lake, I had mentioned that I had finished clue 1 of my Mystery Stole. So here are the pictures that I didn't have time to post:

The first clue is finished. It's pretty wide because I'm working with DK weight yarn, but I think it's still very usable.
Here's a closer shot:

I'm really loving this pattern. I'm actually thinking about making another one in a lace yarn. Maybe in a pewter colour, something silvery with black beads. This is like a drug. I can't get over how the lace images form.

As I mentioned, I spent the last week at the lake. I actually managed to get some knitting done. Here is my finished clue 2:

Not too shabby. You can see the blue line there. That would be my lifeline. Thankfully there have been no mishaps that would require its use, but I just know that if I hadn't put that in there, I would have been frogging away like mad. So, it will continue to mark my progress. I figure that it will act as the marker in the blog for where the clues begin. Works for me anyway. That lovely bit you can see past the stole? That's the big Rideau Lake. Our cottage is built on a hill so from the deck, you can look down at the water. Don't be too jealous, we came home early because we thought that staying might necessitate the building of an ark.

So now I'm on row 191 and am looking forward to finishing clue 3 in a matter of days. Not sure how long. I am also on page 134 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. So, I'll go back to the wizarding world now, and post about the non knitting things from the cottage sometime in the future. Hopefully, there'll be knitting progress then too :)

Mystery Stole

So. As I mentioned in my last post, I have joined the Mystery Stole 3 knit-along. So far, I've been so totally overwhelmed with the sheer volume of email I've been slogging through, that I haven't really had a chance to really interact with the group.

I did buy yarn. I went to two knitting stores here in Ottawa and could find absolutely no white or cream coloured laceweight yarn! There was black in one store, but I don't wear black as a rule, and knew that I would never use a black stole. So, owing to the fact that I was already behind by 2 clues, and it was Saturday, and I had no car, and it was raining, I opted for something a bit heavier. This is gorgeous stuff. Silk DK weight. It's impossible to get a good idea of just how luscious this yarn is from the picture. Hopefully, the sheen will show up in future stole shots.

I've never tried beaded knitting before. Mainly because I'm a big fat chicken. So when I saw that beads were an option for this pattern, I jumped at the chance to try it out. Let me tell you, for someone who has never played with beads, a place like the Sassy Bead Company is a little scary. Nevertheless, I prevailed. My goal was seed beads for this project and only this project. These are what I came away with:

Pretty peachy beads that bring out the warm peachy tones in the vanilla yarn. Hopefully I won't lose too many. I know for a fact that at least 2, if not three, have vanished into the black hole that tiny things like this get lost in.

So I got the yarn and the beads. But the yarn is bigger than the pattern calls for, so I did the unthinkable (for me anyway) and I did the swatch. Good thing too, because this is on 4.5 mm needles and it's still pretty dense. I like it though, the YOs are clear and the stockingette is not too tight without being messy. That's how I'm going.

Sorta, I did the swatch. I did the 3 rows of garter, and the pattern once but didn't bother with the garter rows again, and there was no way I was going to cast this off. I'm far too paranoid about running out of yarn. This is something I have been dealing with for as long as I've been working fibre crafts. It's why there are so many single balls of yarn sitting in my stash. If I ever get on Ravelry, that will become much clearer.

So. That's the start of my Mystery Stole journey. In all honesty, I just finished knitting clue #1 before I came on to write this post, but the light was gone. I'll take pictures tomorrow. I figure due to the overwhelming numbers of people in the blogosphere participating in this knit-along, there are zillions of photos of Mystery Stoles in progress floating around out there, so my plan is to blog about my stole when I finish a clue. Hopefully there will be other knitting happening as well to fill out the gaps. Now, I'm off to play with some string (aka acrylic yarn).

Still here

Warning: Picture heavy post!

Once again, I am a bad blogger. I have been knitting, and shopping, and sitting like a lazy slug on the couch which is nowhere near the computer. Poor excuse.

Anyway, on with the pictures. I have a couple of WIP's that have become so idle as to be mostly forgotten. The next couple of pictures were one of them. It's a short sleeved aran sweater designed by Michael Kors and published in the Holiday 2005 issue of Vogue Knitting. I love this pattern, but it's had a very sad and pathetic past. I started it sometime around holiday 2005, got about halfway to the armhole shaping, and noticed a big ass error in the berry stitches in the centre panel. Okay, rip back, pick up stitches, keep knitting. Those berries are really 3-stitch bobbles. I messed up, but didn't notice until the neck shaping. Then I abandoned it. Last summer I ripped it all out and started again. Got most of the back finished and abandoned it.

I finally finished the back and got 3 repeats of the diamond pattern done on the front. I'm nuts for this project right now. Hopefully that'll stay the same until the rest is finished. I'd hate for this to be rejected again.
Finsished back (unblocked)

Front so far


Next up: Socks. Summer is great for socks. But I haven't been happy with any so far.

On the left is Eunny's Bayerische Sock in Lang Jawoll. This picture doesn't do the colour justice, it's gorgeous! Unfortunately, I didn't read the chart properly, and have been doing the wrong twists for half the stitches. I've got a lot done that way, and the pattern still looks all cably and stuff and I can't bear to rip it, so I think they'll stay that way. At least I've been consistent.

On the right are a couple of single socks which may be ripped in the near future. The yellow one is Yellow Snow. It's Regia 3-ply and the pattern is great (it's actually Melanie Berney's Snowflake Lace Socks), but the cuff is too tight for my calves. I think I'll try and loosen the cast-on somehow. Not sure if it'll work. It might be ripped in the end. The other is Austermann Step in a simple stockingette stitch, but the toe is wrong. I might try and fix it too. Who knows?

Onward. This ought to be recognizable to pretty much anyone who might actually read this and who doesn't work with me (you know who you are. Thanks for reading btw). This is Icarus. Everyone has done it. It is my first lace and there are lots of errors, but I think they hid really well and they're mostly at the beginning where the rows aren't too long. I love this pattern, even if it does go on f-o-r-e-v-e-r. I think I'm over 400 stitches now. The end is in sight though. I hope.

The yarn is an old acrylic store brand fingering weight that my mom had started to make a sweater for my dad in. She can't knit much anymore, so she gave it to me to finish, but the pattern got lost somewhere along the way and there had been something spilled on the knit portion of the sweater. So I found a new use for the rest. I can't imagine my dad wearing anything in this colour anyway, the 80s are over.

Next: A mostly finished Jayne Cobb hat from Firefly as expertly modeled by Seymour. He was pretty happy to see the light of day until I covered his eyes up with the hat :)

So the hat is knit. I just have to sew in the ends and make a pompom. This is actually the second one I've knit. I made one for a friend last Halloween, and it totally made his costume! The yarn is Alafoss Lopi in gorgeous harvest shades of red orange and gold. I kind of imagine Jayne's mom living in a farming settlement on some outer rim moon raising sheep for fleece, then lovingly spinning it, dying it, and knitting it into warm things for her son to wear in the cold of space.

I know... I'm a big geek.

Onward, to stash enhancement. Sock yarn first, cause you can never have enough. On the left Dale Stork in a greyish blue. On the right, Regia 4-ply in a taupey colour. I think that it could be made into something for someone masculine sometime. Or not. It could be for me.

The blue has a purpose. I promised a very dear friend of mine that I would knit her 7-month old son some socks. I don't like knitting for babies in wool, so I was thrilled to find this at my LYS. 100% cotton sock yarn. He's not walking yet so the durability factor shouldn't be a problem and with teeny feet, one ball might even make 2 pairs. Coolio.

Emu Superwash DK in brown and green. This also has a specific purpose. My dad wants socks for his golf clubs. He wants them to be machine washable, but I couldn't bring myself to buy more acrylic. I have far too much of that already. Mmmm superwash wool. Hope he likes the green. I'm not worried about the brown.

Next is Estelle Mystik. This is planning on being Intoxicating from No Sheep For You. The pattern calls for silk, but my bank account can't handle that much silk, so I went for something a little less pricey, but with a great sheen all the same. This is a cotton/viscose blend. Very pretty.

Last pictures. This was an impulse buy, but I think I know what I'm going to make with it. I have 10 balls of it and paid $35. How could I resist. It's called Waikiki and is made by Stahl-sche Wolle. I googled the hell out of it, but couldn't find any mention of it anywhere. I hope that isn't a bad sign. But I knit up a swatch and it knits up really well. I love love love the colours and the fibre is perfect for summer. It's 47% cotton, 33% acrylic, and 20% linen.


So that's most of what I've been up to. I also got Fitted Knits the other day, and am looking forward to pawing through it lots. I'm not supposed to buy more yarn for a while, but I think I'm going to make a small exception. Mystery Stole 3 closes entries tonight, and I'm on my way to join now. I'll need some yarn to knit my stole out of. Shouldn't need too much though. Hmmm. July is cashmere month at Yarn Forward. There's a thought....

On that note, I'm off to join my first knit-along. I promise, it won't be so long next time :)