For the Queen of My Family

Every now and then, when I get around to actually finishing something, I am reminded of and once again surprised by the amazing transformation that projects undergo when they are done. The errors that you've spent the whole time eying, the little bits of unevenness, your concerns about pattern/needle/yarn choice, all disappear after the finishing touches are done. Your project becomes a thing that has a life separate from your hands and needles, and it becomes a whole other beast. How nice it is to finish!

And every now and then, even more rarely, I get to put those magical finishing touches on a project that went off without flaw to begin with. And that's a transcendent knitting experience.

I give you: the finished Queen Anne's Lace shawl.





I am in love with this. I could point out some things that I'm less-than-pleased with in terms of my execution, but I won't. I think this is the loveliest single object I have made to date. Mom, I love you! You are Queen of Everything, every day.

Close to Me (Remix)

What beautiful weather we've been having in Boulder! The amazing tulips on the Pearl Street Mall are finally over, but there have been plenty of other pretty things to take their place. After an unseasonable wet period, the wildflowers on my drive south and into the mountains were numerous, lush, and astonishingly vivid. They've moved on as well, but the plains still have this indefinable look of "growing" about them.

It's so beautiful that it's becoming hard to sit inside and work all day. I compensate by leaving all the windows open, all the time, which at least gets some fresh air in here -- and the cat has finally figured out she can escape from windows that don't have screens. It took her a while. I also console myself by taking breaks here and there to work on my QAL shawl. Line by line, it grows - and it's lovely! I've been knitting in a tighter gauge than I normally do lace, because I always find my lace is too open after blocking. Hopefully this one will open equally, because I'm afraid it will end up too small.

Anyhow, I'm on row 138 of 160. The last push will take a while. I'll be sure to post pictures as soon as I can spread it out flat!

A long time coming

Alright, it's been a while.

It's been a long while.

I took a hiatus, primarily from posting but also (a little) from knitting itself. Something about the weather changing made me not want to work on wool sweaters and mittens, and something about my life changing made me not want to work on all those projects I enumerated in the last post. But I've picked up again, and we're back to business.

First, the WIPs: The greenwood vest? Body is done. I cast on for sleeves, after laboriously calculating what the set-in caps should look like, but I ripped out after shaping the first one because it looked like it was going to be way too snug. I have to increase the circumference of the cap and also (probably) the bicep measurement. It'll get there, though.

And a new one: the Queen Anne's Lace shawl by MMario, which is gorgeous, fun to knit, easier for a number of reasons than the Cap Shawl, and (get this!!) does not have a damn vandyck border. NO INTERMINABLE FINISHING! I'm at row 98 of 160. I am not making the mistake this time of calculating how many stitches I have yet to go - and this one, with only eight increases (ostensibly) per increase round and actual pattern of 32 increases per every four increase rounds, in a rather unpredictable manner, would take some doin', so.



Things change. Taste changes. The season changes. It's spring here in Boulder. I finally believe it won't snow any more - though as little as two weeks ago, it did. With the warmer weather, my experience of life changes. I wear less clothing, bike more, am getting tan. The song "Summer's the Worst" by Anthony Leviton comes to mind. I clean my room, it gets messy again; I feed the cat, and the cat gets fatter; I cook food and I eat it; the lace grows. Someday I'll get back to all those socks and sweaters that need my attention.

Taking Stock

Yes, it's been a while. I blame HatAttack... all that waiting around, adrenaline and bloodlust pumping through my veins, only to be killed a day before finally (weeks later) receiving a WIP for a second hat.

But it also seems to me I'm having a little trouble sticking with any projects these days. I've been holding myself back from starting any (large) new project, since I know I have plenty to work on, so bear with me while I think out loud about the WIPs hiding in my closet:

1. Fairisle sweater
Status: on hold until I a) figure out what kind of cast-on to go with, ultimately; b) resign myself to the fact that it's larger than I meant it to be

2. Greenwood Vest
Status: progressing slowly, maybe 50% done. Planning on making it a cardigan, not a vest. My TV-watching project, slowed by the fact that I don't have a TV.

Various projects waiting for the size 1 dpns -
3. Gryf mitts
Status: frogged, colors are not right, may turn them into socks instead

4. DK hat
Status: off the needles, yarn sucks, no plans

5. Random purple socks
Status: going quickly, but not for any good reason, just nice and portable. Afterthought granny heel sounded like a great idea - except without the heel shaping, socks are so boring!

6. Random self-patterning socks
Status: not even started! Good lord, I need more dpns!

7. Thrummed mittens
Status: on hold, it's not cold enough right now to be thinking about mittens


8. Cap shawl
Status: god damn vandyck border

9. Very Tall Socks
Status: ... is it ever realistic to expect to finish these? They're from so long ago, I haven't the faintest hope of gauge being the same without some hard work

10. Pkt Creatures
Status: three just need finishing


Damn. Gotta get motivated. I haven't been doing nothing these past weeks, just not a lot. I'll post some catch-up pics soon.

Hatty Doom

Very clever of you to find me, Mr. Bond. I've been waiting for you.

Above you see the deadly weapon that I whipped out and into the mail less than five hours after the inaugural Hat Attack began last weekend. The pattern is the one provided by the organizers. It's called Binary. 10 points to whosoever may point out why (who doesn't also have access to the Ravelry discussion of the pattern!). The yarn is Lamb's Pride Worsted, of which I've formed no opinion yet, though I love that it's unplied.

And below you'll see what I did with my time when, five hours later, I was still amped on killin' hormones and had nothing to do but wait for the USPS to do its job. Which it still hasn't.

Yarn again is LPW (got two whole caps out of it!) and Malabrigo color X, again salvaged from the doomed Matrix mittens. The pom is ridiculous but entirely necessary.

I'm having mixed feelings about Hat Attack and am debating whether to sign up for the similar but better-established Sock Wars that's coming up. It's a really fun way to connect with people internationally.. But it's been a lot of waiting, a lot of reading and posting to the forums, and not a lot of actual knitting or getting knitted presents. I'm worried my target may have just decided to stop playing.

Some yarn thoughts:


This is the Araucania Nature Wool Chunky (minus one hank that I was swatching from). It's interesting stuff. The color is actually kind of pretty, and the yarn is soft enough, but the dye job is pretty inconsistent. And on top of that, the hanks come actually a little felted together, which to me might indicate sort of poor handling. I'm still toying with the idea of making Durrow with it, but I'm concerned that the cabling might not look good with the variegated effect. But then, I don't think anything looks good with variegated yarn. Oh well.

Weekend WAR

Just a heads-up: Don't expect a big post this weekend. Hat Attack is ON!

This Week's Progress and Dreams

Work continues both in real-life and in knitting land. Had a mini-review at my wonderful job and got some very nice feedback and now am back to plugging away. Also still plugging away at various projects. I'm not pushing the tempo at all, so I'm only through a repeat and a half of the diamond pattern on the Greenwood Vest, which post-blocking should translate to about three inches of entire vest. Also discovered that a co-worker is about to have his first baby, like, immanently, so I've joined the crowd making Saartje's Bootees - so cute!

I had this weird dream last night.. part of it was about cleaning toilets (maybe it's time to clean house? I did notice a little ring this morning). Part of it was about fleeing the city from some kind of society-wrecking disaster. And the rest of it was about stopping in on the yarn store, and trying to convince them that since the world was ending, they should let me take some yarn so that I'd be able to keep my family warm in the future. They grudgingly allowed.

So I was standing there, in the dream, and really doing some intense calculations. I knew I could only take what I could reasonably carry on my back with all of my survival gear - this was a serious dream! So I had just about decided that, although it would be less efficient weight-wise, it would be a better idea to take bulky yarn, since it knits up more quickly and I'd have a better chance of producing multiple sweaters. But by the time I started making a move to grab any, the entire store was swarmed with other people having the same idea: rabid knitters whose desert-island scheme was yarn, and lots of it. In that confusing way that dreams have, I kept putting things aside and then coming back to find them gone, and in the end was left only with cotton DK novelty. Bogus.