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!

The tree grows

I love working on this blanket.  I think it will be quite large.  And for once I think this will be for me.  Or depending on how Christmas knitting turns out, maybe for my mother.  I'm nearly done with the center panel, only 4 rows to go...however with each round over 300 stitches, that takes a wee bit longer than I expect it to.  When I'm working round the cable rows, I'll probably be longing for the mindless knitting of stockinette...but until then, I'm ready for some cables!

Although doing the tree branches and roots in all the little 1X1 cables was a bit daunting, I'm ready for a cable border.


I haven't been spinning much lately, too consumed in this blanket.  But I started working on my camel fiber.  Not sure I like the camel...but will reserve judgment until I've completed it.  I spun some baby alpaca and struggled during the spinning, but was totally surprised with the end result.  So who knows how the camel will turn out.   

Yggdrasil.....what?

Call me crazy, but I'm starting something that is decadently wonderful.  It is a pattern created by Lisa Jacobs, Yggdrasil Afghan (Ravelry link).  It is a sumptious blend of knitting and cable stitches.  Yggdrasil is an immense tree that is central to Norse mythology.  I fell in love with the pictures and all the cables, so I decided it was next on my to do list in the "huge" category.  Do others have different levels of knitting?  I have my "take along" projects, usually socks, sometimes mittens.  These fill in the gaps of doctor's waiting rooms, school functions, and piano lessons.  Nothing too hard, fills the time (and my mind) quite pleasantly, but not challenging since they are stolen moments found here and there throughout the day.  Then I have my home projects, either they are too large to drag around during my day or they are complicated and involve counting higher than 10, ok, five.  Sometimes these are the same projects, sometimes not.  My Yggdrasil is not a complicated project at the moment, although it clearly will fall into the too large cateogry soon.

What you see here is the center medallion.  That is the actual tree, there are four sections, currently you are looking at the tree branches reach out into the sky.  I view them as winter branches, no leaves, and they are gnarly branches.  That is because they are 1X1 cables, going back and forth against the background.  Crazy, itty bitty cable turned me into a big crabby mess.  But I got through them and as I'm a ways farther than what you see in the picture, I'm in purl land heaven filled with endless stretches of purling amid 6 stitches of knit to form the tree trunk.  And I love it.

I bought the yarn at the Double Ewe.  I ended up using Cascade Eco Wool, the color is pretty accurate in the picture, it is a light gray color.  It is showing up the cable work nicely.  And the cost made it a good choice as well.  Since I needed 3,800 yards of yarn.  Holy smokes!  I did the math and with the generous yardage in Eco Wool, I would need 7.96 skeins.  Now in the past, I would have thrown caution to the wind and believed I could get the afghan done with 8 skeins, after all I'd have a cushion of .04 yards of yarn left over.  But I couldn't do it.  The fear of getting to the last 3 inches of the final cabled border and running out of yarn was too much for me to chance.  So I ordered the extra 9th skein.  No use stressing during the knitting of this afghan over whether or not I'd make it with 8 skeins of yarn. 

And last weekend I had to grow up and let go.  My Anna, went on a sleep over with a couple friends.  They went to the movies (without a parent along) and shopping (with a parent but not me).  She did great, as I knew she would, but oh it was hard for me to see her world growing larger and expanding.  She bought a couple really cute outfits, including this.

My baby is growing up.  She is bright and funny and kind.  And she is confident in herself and her friends.  And she is beautiful.  Now I'm going to excuse myself as I wander through memory lane and watch my mind's pictures of our years together, from a strong willed fiesty laughing baby to a mature teen ager...not sure I'm ready for it, but I'm confident she is.

Ninja Wins

Well if you've read anything of mine from the last 6 months, you know I pitched a fierce battle with a pair of socks I named the Ninjas.  I fought so many things on the way to completing a pair of socks, if you added up the actual stitches I worked, I'd most likely have TWO pairs of socks.  But in the end I declared myself victorious.  Laughing in the face of those ninja socks.  Proudly, err loudly proclaiming that I overcame ALL obstacles and wrestled those socks into submission.  I finished the socks shortly before Christmas.  It is now 2 and a half months after Christmas.

I present you with the Ninja socks.

I'm not repairing them.  I'm bowing to the Ninja gods in defeet (ooooh bad pun, bad spelling).  I'm tossing the cursed socks in the trash.

May they rest in peace.

One Saroyan scarf done

I'm in the winter doldrums I think.  Everything seems gloomy and gray.  Work is work.  Nothing exciting there, which at times can be a good thing.  Children are children with all the resulting drama.  Permanent teeth are trying to come in on top of baby teeth who seem really happy to remain tightly in place.  Not a good thing, dentist appointment for older daughter is now scheduled. 

Had drama involving my prayer shawl for a friend over the weekend.  Now I'm the one needing prayers.  I attmepted my first grafting of anything more than toes of a sock.  One extra exuberant pull of the needle and lace yarn prompted the needles to fly out of my hands and stitches to come tumbling off of them all helter skelter.  I sat in disbelief at what just took place in a mere second.  I'm pretty good at fixing mistakes.  this?  not so much.  I sat and cried.  Looked at the mess and cried again.  Got my tiny steel crochet hook out and slowly worked through the tangled mess and got the approrpirate stitches back on the knitting needles, but in a poor imitation of the actual pattern.  I took a deep breathe and starting from the other end tried a different grafting technique.  Success!  Until I realized in complete mind numbing paralizying horror that this particular form of grafting does not move or give.  Nope,  not moving one tiny inch, it is completely solid.  So my shawl which will block out to at least twice its width, is now trapped by this one imovable row of firmly bound off stitches.  More crying.  I put the shawl into a basket and promptly took a 3 hour nap.  Talk about exhaustion!  Did I mention I cried?  Later that night, I painstakingly worked and slid my knitting needles into the stitches in the row below and above the now horribly in flexible row.  Where once I've sufficiently recovered my wits, I will undo that row and end up once again with 2 separate pieces of knitting.  So oh yes, I can go through this torture all over again!  Lord help me, why do I love knitting?  sigh....and no pictures.  I couldn't do that. 

I did finish this.  My Saroyan scarf is complete.  It is getting rave reviews at work.  (Please avert your eyes from the papers piled under it and next to it.....that was the biggest "open" space I could find at my desk.)  You can't really appreciate the silver threads that run through this Dream in Color yarn.  I especially like how it looks in the evening, with the silver glinting off the waning daylight.  Ok, so we have no "waning daylight", it just gets dark.  But I do like how it looks at night in the soft glow of my Ott light!

and just so I can really try and remove the horror of tangled white lace weight yarn from my mind, a close up of the pretty leaves...that is the ticket...focus on the leaves....