Restless Knitter

Extra yarn arrived, shawl finished.  Finally.

It’s still too short for my tastes so I’ll likely never use it.  I don’t have time to do it now, but I’ll add the specs here and to Ravelry when I get back from my visit to Small Town.

I tried and tried to knit the baby sweater out of scraps.  If you counted all the swatches I made you could say I’ve knit this little thing twice.  Especially considering that when I got to the second side, I realized that I left out a repeat on the first side.  Or so I thought, now I’m not so sure.  Being as I haven’t actually ripped that one out yet, I’ll go back and verify if I did or didn’t leave out a repeat.  But, because I had to order more KnitPicks, I also ordered some yarn to make the little sweater in a solid color.  It only took a couple of days and I finished it before I tackled the bind off on the shawl.

The ties aren’t on it yet.  I’m taking it with me to Small Town tomorrow to see if daughter wants a loop and button, or the ties that are in the pattern.  I do plan to make this again, only I’ll use the multiple colors.

I need your help.  Tell me which picture best shows the shawl on your monitor.  On one computer, one looks better.  On the laptop, the other one looks better.

Or at least get a feeling.  The shawl is near completion.  I felt like the shawl was going to be on the small side so I knit a few extra repeats.  When I got to the end, I had a feeling that I wasn’t going to have enough yarn so I tinked the latest row I did and stopped knitting with 4 rows to go.  Then I sat it aside for a couple of weeks, hoping the yarn would grow with time.  Unfortunately, that didn’t work.

I have 2 choices; I can either undo the bind off I’ve already completed and do a regular bind off instead of picot (omg I will never do a picot bind off on a shawl again!), or I can order more yarn. Being as I’m 2/3 of the way through, I chose Order More Yarn. Why is it that you can’t place an order with KnitPicks and just get what you need? I mean, you just have to buy enough to get that free shipping. It has to be cheaper than one hank of yarn and shipping for said hank, right? The good news is that KP is having 40% books right now, which I hadn’t even gotten the email notification yet, so I bought a couple of books, one which was sold out at their last sale.

Yep, I did have a birthday a couple of weeks ago. (Thanks for the shoutout La!) I have to share a few things I got.

All of this is from Donna, with the exception of the stitch markers.  Bella thought that the Koala was for her.  Sorry pup, it’s mine!  The card is adorable, the yarn is gorgeous, the socks are to die for.  I’ll confess, at first glance I thought the soap (below the socks) was candy and I couldn’t wait to eat it.  I didn’t.  The stitch markers (so pretty) are from a contest I won at SpinKnitUp .  They weren’t for my birthday but since they arrived the day after, I’m considering them a birthday gift anyway.

I’ll most likely have most of a skein of KP Gloss Lace (color Bluebird) up for grabs soon.

Another yarn store is closing, which means there is a sale.  Being as everything is marked down to 50% off, I drove down to check out what sock yarn they have left.  I didn’t find what I wanted (more on that later) but I did find 2 other balls of sock yarn that were cute colors.  They had some Mirasol Hachu but it wasn’t marked so I asked the girl at the register to check the price for me.  It was $75 for one skein!  But hey, it’s 50% off.  No thanks.  I looked up the yarn after I got home and I think the $75 quote was wrong.  People are making socks out of this stuff, there’s no way.

After leaving the yarn store, I noticed a Barnes & Noble and stopped in to check for the latest Handwoven magazine.  They didn’t have that, but they did have 2 new knitting magazines.  The first is Debbie Bliss Knitting Magazine.  I’d only just read of this magazine yesterday so I was a little surprised to find it.   I have to say I like it.  There’s not a whole lot I want to knit but I like the magazine as a whole.  There are a couple of pages of ads, which look nice.  Then there are a few book reviews, an interview with Melody Griffiths, a few Q & A’s.  Then comes the pattern section.  Very well photographed in my opinion.  No black sweaters on black backgrounds, white on white, etc.  There was only one little blanket that I think could have been better displayed in the pattern section, but it does show it fully in the instructions section.  As you’d expect, everything is knit in DB yarns but they do give you full info on the yarn in the instructions so it wouldn’t be hard to make substitutions.  Another thing I like is that the patterns are written completely in one section.  None of that -half or most of the instructions on page 70, the rest on page 80 good luck finding it in the middle of other continuations-.

The second magazine is called Love of Knitting.  It’s not really my thing. I love color as much as the next person, don’t get me wrong.  I just don’t like the yarns and notes for the instructions in different colors. While I suppose it does break things up, I like my print in black.  That’s not the thing that makes it not for me.  It’s just the patterns and pictures in general.  Just because it’s not for me doesn’t mean it’s not for someone else though.

You all know how often I knit socks.  I’ve knit a whole 2 pair in my knitting life.  That doesn’t stop me from loving sock yarns though.  I collect it like it’s baseball cards or something. (That’s not entirely true, some of you have more sock yarn than I have in my entire stash.  I envy you because you have the goods!) So it was sort of a surprise to me that I didn’t have the sock yarn I needed.  Most of my sock yarn is girly, and if I’m going to use my sock yarn to make a little jacket for my next grandson, I can’t be using the girly colors.  Yes, it’s another boy.  This (Ravelry link) is the pattern I’m using.  Look at the projects others have completed too, so cute!  It calls for around 100g of scraps.  I started with a ball of sock yarn, intending to use it for the whole sweater, but I didn’t like it.  It just wouldn’t have the same effect.  Then I remembered that I DO have leftover sock yarn from when I made Charlotte*.  There are some tinges of pink in some of them so we’ll see how it turns out.  I’m trying to use the least amount of girly colors as I can.  Being as the yarn shop that is going out of business was having a sale, I didn’t think it would hurt to buy more yarn if the colors were right.  As I said, they didn’t have anything that would work, but I did get some yarn and new magazines so not a total loss.

I am on the home stretch of the shawl.  I may only have something like 11 more rows to go but they are getting loooong.  It’s taking at least 20 minutes for me to finish one row at this point and with as many yarnover increases you add in every other row, I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes me an hour to finish the last one.

*Speaking of Charlotte, not the shawl but the city, The Man has been there for the last 2 weeks.   He was home Friday night but left again Sunday morning and will be home this Friday.   He thinks he may have to go there once a month or so.  Living in different time zones again, what fun.

It seems the key to finding my mojo is 1) posting that I lost it, 2) buying a magazine for a friend, then hijacking said magazine and knitting something from it. I flipped through the summer Knitters at the bookstore, didn’t see anything that would make me want the magazine for myself, brought it home, flipped through it again. And now I have an Amaretto Gold Lace Fichu (I need to learn how to make that Ravelry button, when I’m not being lazy) on the needles. Only it’s in blue. I’m using Knitpicks Gloss Lace in color Bluebird. I used the recommended needle size on the pattern even though I know I always have to go up a needle size, and I also know that I like this weight on a US 5, so now my shawl seems a little too small. I’m going to add some repeats I think.

In case you haven’t heard, the La of JenLa has opened an etsy store with some gorgeous hand dyed yarns. If you’re lucky, there will be some left. Really, go look! Then you can do like I did and pout in the corner because the color you wanted is gone. I have it on good authority there will be more though, so my pouting is over.