Laceweight update day ? and designing thoughts

I updated my Ravelry page today with some new project photos. Among them, are Steph's mitts, which I cast on for last night. I hope she likes the design, bc it's a really cool construction and I don't often get the chance to do something different on DPNs besides boring stockinette and stuff.

The pattern is the Nautilus Mitts. They are worked by casting on 6 stitches and increasing. Then, doing the same for the palm of the mitten, stitching them together, and working a garter edging for the top and bottom. Cool.
This is also my first time using a linen blend yarn. It's 50/50 cotton and it feels really cool. I expected it to be stiffer, but its quite smooth. I think it'll feel nice on her hands. Also, the yarn is totally cool (in the literal sense) so it won't be awkward to wear them during the summer. Hopefully, I can finish these puppies up today or so. Shouldn't take long. Speaking of which though, Zindrizzle, email me your address so I can get them out to you.

Laceweight Progress:

I've been working off and on between this, Devin's socks (one of which is blocking and appears to have grown to a normal human size), Steph's mitts, and the scarf design of Andrew and I.

As you can see, the laceweight is huge for laceweight. I mean, we're talking about someone who has never got past 4 rows of laceweight previously. For the life of me I can't get a camera to accurately represent the color of this yarn. Suffice it to say it's greener than it looks above. I'd call it mint or something, but Water Green works I guess. I'm almost done with the increase, then I'll probably do the sleeves (on 9" circulars!!!) as per some ravelers' suggestions, because then I can make the body as long as I feel like without worrying about the sleeves being too short. (Also, I'm semi opposed to knitting sleeves with a full sweater on the needles--too heavy.)

Finally, here's my designing so far:
It basically looks like a sloppy, sloppy mess. Way too many stitches for the thickness of the yarn. However, I just got to the decrease section of the pattern, so I'm hoping this means that I can still see whether or not my planned decreases will give me the desired effect. The chart appears to be working well with the mirrored instructions I gave for it. However, once I finish this swatch, I can tell that seaming up the bottom is going to make it way too thick. Therefore, assuming I get the decreases/increases to work, if I actually submit this pattern as a design, I'm definitely going to consider doing it in fingering or sport yarn. That should be interesting, because I rarely see fair-isle patterns at that small of a gauge, especially for scarves. I've already discovered some problems with the stitch count, so if either of you want to swatch along with me, let me know and I'll tell you what needs changed.

Designing

I decided that since I'm not doing anything this lovely Memorial Day weekend, I'm going to work on the scarf design that Andrew and I concocted while I was still in the horribleness that was the winter and the education program. I was too stressed and sad at the time to really feel motivated by creativity, but Andrew designed the chart and I did manage to write out some written instructions for it. Which is good, because I probably wouldn't remember at this point what I had intended it to be like.

So I busted out some testing acrylic yarn, in a purple and white, and I'm going to just go through the chart one time to see if it works. I *feel* like it should, but who knows with knitting. If you ladies would like to give it a try now too, that'd be cool.

I'll post a progress report on the laceweight soon. I finished up one of the socks I was knitting, since I was really close and it was cooler today. It's a little small, but hopefully it'll block bigger. Otherwise uh, I guess it'll be for me. The laceweight is looking fantastic though. Almost done with the 31 increase repeat section.

Little Arrowhead Shawwwwl

My goal is to make this:

turn in to this:

using this pattern and this (Classic Silk) yarn.

I like the way the yarn feels. It has this rustic quality to it. I'm hoping after I block the shawl, it'll look more like the picture from the pattern. We shall see.

Clapotis 2

I realized I hadn't done a post about my second Clapotis, in which I used Noro Silk Garden.
Like I say in my project notes, I had 5 skeins of 1 dye lot, and 1 skein of another. Because I'm weird like that.

What I did to prevent it from seeming weird, was knit in the pattern with one full skein of the original dye lot, knit using a quarter of the odd-ball skein, then one full original dye lot, and so forth. I think it adds random spikes in the color that are pretty effective. At the very end, I used a tiny bit of yarn from my handwarmers I made out of Silk Garden. It's a weird collection of colors, but I like it. I had put in a lifeline, but figured, ah, what the hell? and I finished out with the old yarn (thank goodness I'm a yarn packrat). However, I would still suggest putting in a life line (I did for both Clapotises that I did) in case you're worried about running out of yarn. Since this is knit on the bias, it's a huge pain in the ass to try to figure out what the row looks like (they're crooked.) Ask me how I know this...

I wear this everywhere. It's a great summer shawl; bright colors, incorporates some of my old favorites plus some colors I usually avoid. Love it. It's warm, but not too warm.

Anyway, on to the photos!

This is my favorite way to wear this. I like the wrong side better. As you can see, I chose not to block this one. I like the waviness of it (actually, that's where the name of this pattern comes from, it's a French word which means wavey or something similar.)






Here she is in all her glory, very long and showing the range of colors. As you can see, it's long enough to just grab and wrap around my shoulders, or do the layering thing like I have above. Yay.


This is the right side of it. Also very pretty.

Laceweight progress report Day 2: Zen

So perhaps this is too early for me to start my high praising of this project...But...1.) As you can see, I more than doubled the size of this in less than a day. The thing is...
2.) Once I got the hang of working with this yarn...I kind of....really liked it.
3.) I can't talk highly enough of this yarn. It's just so...soft...and...pretty. Le sigh. I think this may be working out so well (in case you didn't see on the pattern, this is laceweight yarn, but it's knit on size six needles) because I happened to have the yarn the pattern was written for in my stash. It creates an extremely light, open fabric that is beautiful to feel (has impressed even the most oblivious of non-knitter friends of mine) and doesn't feel stupidly warm in your hands. I was so impressed, I accidently...
4.) Spent a stupid amount of money on a new laceweight yarn. I was buying yarn for Zindrizzle and felt selfish and shit and bought some for myself. However...
5.) Since it was 1200 yards, I got to have my first experiences using a ball winder. Fun! Too bad the lady at the yarn store said those puppies run around 100some dollars. That'll be a present for rich-Krista some day.
6.) Don't you wish I could get my camera to work again so we wouldn't have crappy cell phone pictures?
7.) What're y'all knitting?

Laceweight progress report Day 1

This is what I have so far.I would estimate this to be about the work put into an episode of Chuck and an episode of Bones. It's going to be a long, long time before this is a cardigan.

However, the color is super cute and the yarn is incredibly soft. Though that probably means it'll pill a lot.

Always look on the bright side of life...

I will not be defeated.

In the name of all things hol(e)y I swear that lace weight yarn shall not defeat me (did you see what I did there?)

I have had no success, ever, with finishing a project in either fingering or lace weight yarn. It's truly one of the most embarrassing aspects about my knitting. I have progressed extremely rapidly. Less than a year and a half ago, I was barely remembering how to cast on. Now I'm knitting full size, fair isle cardigans and complicated lace and stuff. I have good spatial skills (thanks, GATE), so I can imagine the construction of entrelac. Even intarsia doesn't scare me, though I have yet to find a pattern that interests me in it.

But fucking lace weight yarn. I have seriously like 6 skeins of it. And nothing to do with it. I am embarrassed. I can't tell if it's just boredom. Or laziness. Or what. But it's going to end here.

Yes, clearly I have several other things that need to be finished. But before you get all "how many projects do you have on the needles, Krista?" I'll tell you that it is 90 degrees here and really, really fucking humid. So I think I am justified in abandoning this heavy sweater I'm knitting, the socks for a friend's birthday (made of thick wool--I shudder to even pick them up) and my Saroyan, also in a thick Peruvian wool.

So I think a summer cardigan is what I need. Thin, non-hot yarn. This pattern just so happens to use exactly the amount of the exact same yarn I have. In this color.

I WILL DO THIS!

So the theme for these knits is stashbusting my acrylic yarns. I have entirely too much from the days when I knew nothing about yarn. Otherwise known as the days before ravelry. These knits have afforded me the ability to try out some new things without worrying that I've wasted the expensive yarn I blew my last paycheck on. Maybe it's a good thing the knitting store in town went out of business a couple of months ago.



Naturally the first thing I chose to knit was a scarf....my ultimate favorite knitting even after eight years.


I knit this hat in the same yarn. They kind of make a set.











The other big project that I finished is something I started two years ago, right before I visited Krista in France. It feels good to finally have it off the needles. I gave it to my Grandmother. She loves it...I think.




That is all for now.

A little sick of this all...

I don't know why I wasn't lucky enough to have these flying "perks" from my uncle's job back in the heyday of flying standby, but all I know is that I have it now and it sucks.
My uncle gets on me every time I buy a ticket when I come home from Minneapolis, but then when I take his advice and fly standby, this happens. I have been bumped from 3 flights out of Chicago thus far.
It is almost 11am in Chicago...I have been awake since three o'clock in the morning!

I have been relatively assured that I'll get on the flight at 1pm today. I hope so. I just want out of this airport. I'm having slight PTSD-like flashbacks of the horror that was spending time in this airport before I went to France and spent 12 hours here...then flew 6 hours to Paris...then spent 8 hours in the airport there. *Shudder*...

Did I mention that when you fly standby, just to add insult to injury, they make you dress up? So I'm actually wearing nylons right now, and a wool skirt. Ick. (not even knit by me, so don't ask)

Oh and they like to overbook flights because that's fun. So it's always great to hear about who's getting a $400 voucher to take your standby spot on the next flight.

In knitting related news though, I was allowed all of my knitting needles on the plane. I've been too tired to focus on anything to knit though. I brought my Saroyan, with the Stitch Nation yarn I bought while at home to try (love the color) and the Caterpillar-Stitch Pullover that I've been working on forever. This is all part of a concerted (and by that I mean, recent, potentially not gonna last) effort on my part to reduce WIPs. By my count (in my head, not viewing my stash) I have 2 fingering yarn projects at home (shawl and scarf) this pullover, and the Saroyan. I have been really misbehaving with fingering weight yarn and have yet to complete anything with it (unless the Argyle Lace Hat counts, but that's debatable, it may have been sport weight).

Oh did I mention you have to pay $7 for wireless here? Wtf? Why is Pittsburgh, the tiniest airport I fly into, the only one I've ever been in that offered free wireless?? Get with the program Philly/Chicago et al.

Ok that's enough.
Btw...I have no classes ever again.
/rant

**The hat I made to barter for art. Post will be forthcoming**

New hat, plus some tragedy.

This hat is really pretty. It's Argyle Lace, it's lovely, the buttons are adorable, it fits me perfect. Just enough slouch, just enough shape. Beautiful, naturally white yarn. Merino. No serious errors. I love it.

I was feeling so good about stash-busting my yarn, I went through and picked out this yarn I had bought at Rogers in Ohio. Mohair and wool blend. I was doing the wraps per inch test, I had all my knitting magazines laying around because I was finding a pattern. I was getting close to choosing one, too.

Then, tragedy struck. I can't even explain it all over again, but suffice it to say, yarn is dead. Read about it here.

May it rest in peace.

Re-do hat

I did the Argyle Lace Hat as my first post, but decided to frog it since I thought the yarn would be better suited for this.
So I'm redoing it again with the white state fair yarn. Should be good.