Pictureless Post

I'm swamped at work.  Dragging home to tend children and taxi them to and fro.  I took a week break from knitting on the blanket, am back at it, turned the 3rd corner of the cabled section and am flying down the 4th side to the final corner and then grafting.  You know how much I LOVE grafting...but I am looking forward to knitting miles of stockinette shortly.

I went to Yarnover last Saturday and enjoyed the market place.  It was very busy since I got there during the lunch break.  I found some roving, a natural reddish brown and then really splurged on 3 skeins of 3 Irish Girls yarn.  Can't wait to see what I end up doing with that.

Spring is in full force here in MN.  Much earlier than normal, so I really need to push on the blanket so I can try and finish it before I can't stand to knit with that much wool in my lap.  Considering I am in MN I still probably have a good six weeks before it gets really sticky here.

Sorry for the boring post.  But I hope to post at least weekly...so right now, this is as good as it gets.

Spring = startitis

As much as I love the blanket, I'm ready for a bit of a break.  So I worked on this, the Inga hat. I'm nearly to the decreases and think it looks great.  I'm happy that my fair isle is looking smoother and smoother and the floats appear just right.  A good soak when I'm done and it should be just right!

So after working on that, I realized I was going someplace smashing on Wednesday.  Someplace outside of work, even though I attended with my fellow workers, and someplace I could bring my knitting along for the ride. 

I went to see....yup....a Twins game in their new ball park.  And not just in any seat, nope we got treated to a suite!  Talk about a great way to watch a ball game.  And even though it rained off and on, sitting outside the suite means you are protected by an overhang, so I could sit and knit and watch people scramble back and forth from their seats as the rain came and left.  Although we did not win this game, it was a nice afternoon.  And this is where the startitis came in.  I couldn't drag the blanket to the game, just too big and bulky.  I have a sock nearly to the toe decreases, but I knew I would finish it during the game and I wasn't about to kitchner the toe sitting there, while I could have brought something to hold the live stitches and just cast on the second sock, that was WAYYYYY to easy.  Instead, I picked 4 somewhat compatible sock yarns, lonely single skeins or almost full single skeins that were longing to be something.  I wasn't exactly sure what, but I cast on with the vague notion of making a skinny scarf, in striped sections, maybe changing up the texture of each row.  And started knitting.  I started with an inch of garter stitch and then moved on to stockinette.  I did one inch of each yarn.  So a solid rust in garter, then a painted stockinette.  Got to the next solid section, a hot lipstick red, and I switched to seed stitch.  Then back to stockinette in a painted yarn.  Decided I would just go back and forth switching from stockinette to seed stitch.  Now I'm thinking just maybe this will be a pillow cover. 

I would do probably 4-5 strips, seam them together and create a pillow top, sew that to a backing of somesort and it will be a pillow!  I'm thinking of alternating where the seed stitch falls so it will be staggered when seamed together.  Yup, just what I need, another WIP.  sigh...I'm hopeless....

Falling down the Yggsdrasil hole

I've been working steadily on the Yggsdrasil blanket.  Still loving it.  Slightly tormented by it.  I love how the cabled border is turning out.  The yarn is great, showing good definition, not scratchy, will be a good blanket to curl up under.  Now I realize it is April and if I don't finish this in the next month or so I'll be sweltering under it while I work on it.  So in a way good incentive to keep churning along.  Two nights ago I reached a fearful section.  The corner.  The first part of the corner after a false start worked out just fine.  Then I had to basically turn the corner, that is where the problems crept in.  Let me say the pattern and charts are good.  Clear, simple and clean.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  However, I was at a loss when I got to the turning the corner bit.  I could see from the directions that I would need to increase back to the needed stitches to continue up the next side of the border.  But there were NO instructions on how to get there.  I stared at the charts.  I reread the written directions.  Nothing beyond work rows 1-42 for braid corner.  Sigh...now I do not consider myself a knitting newbie anymore.  I've been knitting seriously for almost 4 years.  Not a tremendous amount of time, but I've done so many things during that time, my skills are solid.  Yet to not have a single statement on how to add the increases just baffled me.  I checked all the Ravlery projects and no one said anything about the corner.  So it must be me.  There must be some reason I am thrown for a loop on this section.  But last night I hunkered down, staring down the chart.  And just started to knit.  I ripped it back 3 times and then just seemed to go with the flow.  The end result is this.

It isn't as smooth as I'd like it to be, but it isn't bad either.  So I will keep whipping along.  I'm hoping to finish the second side by the end of the weekend.  One person's Yggsdrasil on Ravelry was COMPLETED in five weeks.  Five weeks.  Lord she must have knit in her sleep!  I'm hoping to have it finished possibly by the end of May, but I'm not swearing to it. 

And just as a foot note, spring arrived in Minnesota way early this year, leaves are all ready budding on trees, the lawns are perking up.  I'm afraid to hope we are really done with winter, although the temp was 35 degrees farenheit this morning, I'm still sticking to my sandals.  My toes are free and loving it!