I realized as I was nattering heel and toe shapings to a (very patient) non-knitting friend, that I have this lovely blog that claims to be about knitting (nominally), and rambling there about potential projects would likely reach people who wouldn’t necessarily need to draw upon reserves of patience to endure it.

I have projects coming out my ears. I was (briefly) a one at a time gal.. but that phase appears to have vanished as abruptly as it arrived. In the WIP queue currently is a green shawl for myself, and a pink (quit laughing all those who know me well) ladder yarn (yes, even out of novelty yarn. Go on, I’ll wait for you to pull yourself off the floor.) top.

I pause here to reflect on a cruel cruel twist of fate. I am a large person. Big Girl. Ample Woman. Fat. Choose your phrase, they all fit as well as any. By extension, my clothes are large too. (Not too large though, big girls.. you listening? Sacks are for potatoes. Skim.. just skim.) To accomplish that skim principle, you need fine gauge knits. Bulky yarn skims much like a buffalo on ice skates. Ain’t gonna happen. What happens when you combine a lot of square footage with a lot of stitches to an inch? That’s a heck of a lot of knitting to get anywhere. Process knitters dance with glee, project knitters go back to socks.

So I decided to have a look through the sock patterns I’ve collected over the years to try out that cotton wool blend sock yarn I picked up on impulse in Ottawa. By a miracle, in spite of 3 days in my mother’s house, the poor ball of yarn does not smell of smoke. Regia Cotton, Tip and Top Color for those keeping track at home. The two top contenders are Wendy’s Toe Up Feather and Fan Sock or Lacy Scallops Socks. One is top down (Scallops), one is toe up (Duh. Did you /read/ the names?). One has a cute little picot top (Scallops), but Wendy’s has short row toe and heel shaping which I’ve always wanted to try. I can also do feather and fan in my sleep. Which considering socks are usually my in car passenger knitting, is a feature, but having a look at the scallops, it’s a simple simple repeat that I should have down pat in no time. Thoughts? Comments?

I did discover today that I can work on lace weight yarn while sporting an anime look at the eye Dr’s office. Apparently I do work as much by feel as sight. The fir cone shawl comes along slowly, it would come along more quickly if I worked on it more. I’ve already got it memorized, and I’m on repeat 5 of 13 repeats before the edging. Like everything I seem to do, every repeat is long than the one before it, so to call me 1/3rd of the way through is laughable. Here’s the obligatory photo for those of you who’ve skipped all the words up until now and just hunted for the pictures:

It’s about 6.5 inches unblocked at the moment, and yes I sat it upon the side of a computer case to take the (blurry) photo.

An office cat. This is Murphy. He’s the cat of one of the deans (ex dean I suppose.. close enough) in our college who happens to live very very near campus. Murphy has claimed all of north end of campus as his own and today in the rain.. my office. He’s chewed on my spider plant, investigated the fridge and made himself at home. I think we need an office cat all of the time. *grin* 

Well really the end is already here for some things, near for another and a long long way away for the last. But ‘The end is near..’ just made a much better title than all that.

I’ll start with the finished object. We are, on the Charting Lace list charting a pattern from Nurhanne’s site. Very descriptively called Small Doily, it’s a good place to start playing with charts. I wrote up my chart on Saturday and then decided the best way to find all my errors was to knit it up. So, that’s what I did Saturday afternoon.

I knit the pattern almost exactly as written (there was some oddities in row 21-23 that I went with what I thought they wanted, not what they’d written down), and if I was going to do it again (don’t hold your breath), the purl rows on the outside would be gone. I knit in the round to avoid purling, not do 6 freaking rows of it in the round on dpns. Fooey on that. The poor little doily needs a proper blocking and a wash. That will happen eventually.

The nearly finished are the socks that have been my portable project forever. Thanks to meetings at work, I’m up into the ribbing (I work from the toe up). We will not discuss how much more sock yarn I have when I knit socks so very very slowly and go barefoot 9 months of the year. *ahem*

Finally, as with the doily done I was laceless and the Mystery Stole 2 doesn’t start ’til the 7th, well.. I decided to start a shawl I’ve had my eye on for a while. Fir Cone Three-Quarter Shawl It’s a lovely shawl, simple and all that good stuff and I really like the shape of it. I got it started on Monday and as of today I’ve gotten about this far. I need to knit like the wind to have it done in time to start the Mystery Stole on time!

And of late, it’s been a flurry of finishing up things. Little things I grant you, but wow it makes my productivity look just great. 🙂

That dishcloth that was barely a few stitches a few posts ago is all grown up. Just needs the ends woven in. It will be sent off in an exchange shortly, once I get an envelope. It’s a good ten inches across, which seems to me to be a huge dishcloth, perhaps I’m just skinchy.

I was in a foul mood the end of last week and my pi doily ticked me off for the last time. So I cast it off in a huff. For having caused me no end of grief all the way through, it’s not a half bad little piece. Yes, I did use 2 different colours, and no it wasnt on purpose, and yes I am planning to overdye it. This is unblocked and unwashed and undyed and basically fresh from the needles.

In a moment of girly, I cast on for a top for me. Twice. *blush* Three times if I’m being brually honest. Swatches are for sissies, hunh? Well no. Swatches are good. Swatches are great. Swatches tell you when you need a smaller needle as not to produce a see through too big t-shirt. Even fat people can wear clothes that are too big. A lot of ’em do, and it just makes ’em look bigger. I’m not talking shoving into something a size too small.. no sausage casings.. skimming. Just float over the bits that don’t need highlighting. Anyhow, now I know that a 3.5 mm needle is much better than the 4.0 mm needle the pattern asked for. This pattern to be specific. With short sleeves and a lack of fun fur edging. Even if I’m oddly fascinated by the fun fur edging, I want a summer top and fun fur + 35C + 100% humidity = EWWWW. No fun fur.

My garden grows in a way that would make a druid’s heart sing. Which is to say a wildly chaotic tumble of natural. Paths? For wimps! I do, however, have some blooms around the house and thought I’d prove it with pictures. I braved the killer mosquitoes to get these photos, I hope you all appreciate it. *laugh*

My irises, I can’t get them to grow where I want, so I just accept that they’re tucked in with the lilies.

The spiderwort is trying to take over a shrub rose. I think the rose is largely winning.

The primroses are nearly finished for the season. Poor things did not cope well with the recent heat wave.

I think these are call Jacob’s Ladder.. I don’t have any clue what the latin name might be, or even if that’s accurate.

The poppies are just starting to open, and soon I’ll have a sea of them going. These ones are tucked in at the side of the house.

And this is the first of my peony blooms to open, feels a smidge early to me, probably thanks to the heat wave.

I’m not quite sure why I’m all grumpy blah snarky, I’m going to blame the weather. It’s a good excuse, but anyhow, a grumpy day needs mindless knitting. I forgot the sock at home *gasp* Yes, I forgot the sock, but I have the dishcloth.

Mindless, in my world, apparently translates to in the round lace. Hey, it works for me. It’d work better for me if I had a fifth needle, I’m out of space on these four. Oh well, only 3 hrs ’til hometime.

The pi doily got cast off in a huff last night, after the edging choice ticked me off. I’ll get a photo tonight, ideally. Why yes, I was in a grumpy mood then too, how ever did you guess? 🙂 

Yep, I’ve been crocheting. Any who know me, knows that I declared ages ago that it had to be a damn fine crochet project to tempt me away from my knitting, as it generally bothers my wrist. Well apparently 5 or more years of rest does the wrist a world of good. So Stef tempted me by sending me a doily pattern. I’m a doily junkie, this is a well known fact and suddenly I find myself working out how to read a crochet chart again, with french explinations. Took me just about exactly 2 weeks to do, and if you can find where I fudged a pretty big error, I’ll give you a gold star. 🙂

 

You didn’t believe me Stef.. well proof is in the photo.

Yes, that is my monitor and desk in it’s messy glory. 🙂

Well in the interest of keeping the wrists happy and in yet another misguided attempt to finish some things, I’ve picked back up a cross-stitch project. Embroidery is a whole different motion than knitting, so it provides variety for my hands and wrists. All good in the ever vigilant crusaide agains carpel tunnel.

I started this project in probably late 1995, although the actual date is lost to the annals of time. As you can see from a page of my webpage, (http://www.uoguelph.ca/~hbogart/craft/stitch/medieval.html)
the words ‘I will finish this!’ has come up often. So here I am again. I will finish this, although as I commented to a friend today, perhaps not until 2010 at this rate!

I’ve started dragging it in to work to put a stitch or three in over my lunch hour, and you can see the current sparse progress.
In 2003 it looked like:

Now as of today:

Not much of a change, but it’s coming. More photos as I get more done. In theory.

.. turns to starting all sorts of things. This time of year seems to just breed the impulse to start start start and not so much the finish finish finish. I do, however, have incentive. The local Needlecraft Guild has its annual Open House in early May. If I want to sumbit things, I gotta finish them. So the race is on!

Anniversary Pi shawl

Started this in January, you saw it a few posts back. I’m on the last ball of yarn. *yay!* Finally. It feels like this sucker has gone on forever. I’ve done about 140 rows all told (I’m 40 rows into the section with 576 stitch section. In an ideal world, I’ll finish all 96 rows of this section with this ball of yarn. Yeah, I’m laughing too. It ain’t going to happen, but a girl can dream.

Mystery Pi doily

Well, alright, so it’s supposed to be another shawl, but how many shawls does someone who doesnt wear shawls need exactly? Ergo with the choice of skinny cotton and skinny needles, it’s become a pi doily. I’m not sure, exactly, how blocking will work out, so it’s got some experimentation coming on that front. We got 4 choices for clue 1, so I rolled a d4. Got a 2, so choice B it was. Even if left to my own devices, I’d of picked something different. I shall leave the choices with the fates.