Olympic Knitting
While I’m not actually participating in the Ravellinic Games (I want to get my WIPs under control not add to them) I do need something to knit while watching the Olympics. With 5 shawls and 1 sweater already on the needles I’ve got plenty of options. But my goal is to finish two of the shawls (plus 1).
The plus 1 is this shawl (Kora).
The knitting was down a couple weeks ago, but then it sat around until the first day of the games when I finally got around to blocking it. Which is why it’s the plus one. But in those couple of weeks I started writing the pattern in an attempt to get better at not letting pattern writing sit around waiting. That said I’ll be having this test knit soon, and if you’d be interested in test knitting let me know.
Over the past week of games I’ve been focusing on 3 of the shawls on the needles, in hopes of finishing 2 and getting 1 more very close to finished.
This new shawls without a name (I find naming patterns and projects one of the hardest aspects of designing), has been my primary travel knitting because it’s got a lot of garter, and very small, easy to memorize stitch patterns. I have about 750 yards of this handspun, and I’ll probably keep knitting ’till I’m out of yarn, partly because I love long shawls and scarves that you can wrap around multiple times, and partly because the yarn is handspun that has been sitting around for years and I want to use it all up.
Ghosts & Mirrors has grown a couple rows at a time. The key to working on this has been to knit like the wind while the commentators are commenting and the advertisers are advertising, and then to just stop knitting on it while the athletes are competing, otherwise I make far too many mistakes. But I’m still happy with how it’s going.
This shawl has gone on far too long. I’ve got 10 rows to go and I just want to get through it. This is what I get for knitting the same pattern twice so close together (this and Ponycorns actually overlapped for a bit). The beads are also slowing me down a lot! But hopefully I’ll get it done soon.
Neither Zodiac le Plume
or Lyda (maybe a name?)
have seen any progress. But once I get some of these other shawls off the needles I’ll get back to these two projects. I’m just trying to simplify my works in progress at the moment, and I’m moving in that direction but these are all big works in progress.
Lots of Travel Time
Means lots of knitting time.
I finally bound off this shawl. That tiny ball of yarn lasted, but the tail you can see is all that is left. It certainly got a little nerve wracking towards the end. I’m going to try and get it blocked this week, and start writing up the pattern.
And because decreasing the total number of works in progress I have on the needles would just be silly, I cast on another shawl. This pattern is part of this project, I’m still working on getting the written portion worked out, but the overall idea is beginning to take shape.
The project getting the most of my attention has been this one (I’m thinking of calling it Lyla or Lylia but haven’t decided yet). Lots of hours in the car, a bunch of hours on airplanes, and a couple hours sitting in airports turned into a few inches on this shawl. Progress really slowed down after the last increase round, but I’m still plugging away at it.
That being said, my second Zodiac le Plume is also steadily growing (that snow looks really appealing right now, it’s supposed to be 99F tomorrow). It’s sits on my desk to the right of my computer and gets a couple stitches added while I’m reading, or something is uploading. The legal pad was a failed attempt to make the lace patterning easier to see, maybe next time I’ll pin it out on something. Now that the pattern is available again, I thought it might be fun to do a knit-a-long of sorts. If anyone wants to join me, just let me know and we can figure something out.
I’m going to try not casting anything on until I finish up a couple of these works in progress (there are three more that I didn’t even bother photographing because they haven’t moved at all). At the moment I sort of feel like I’m drowning in WIPs, but we’ll see how well this attempt at WIP reduction goes.
Knit, knit, spin, spin
There hasn’t been a huge amount of knitting going on. Partly because it has been so hot, and partly because I’ve mostly been spinning (at leas that’s what it feels like).
The Not Quite Argyle Sweater, the shawl with 8,000 beads, Ghosts & Mirrors, and my purple Zodiac le Plume have all gotten a row or two added to each of them, but certainly not enough to be very noteworthy. The two projects I have been working on however, have seen a tremendous amount of progress since the last time you saw them.
The first, which was only just started the last time I photographed it, and now fits comfortably around the 40″ circular that I have it on.
The lace patterning isn’t super clear in this photo, but it’s interspersed with sections stockinette stripes. Sort of potato chip knitting, because I love getting from stripe to stripe to stripe, and it would be complete potato chip knitting if the rounds weren’t beginning to get really long.
I was going to spread this out once I transitioned into the second skein of yarn, but before I knew it, I was a few rows away from binding off. So now I’m in the middle of the bind off and that little ball at the top of the photo is the yarn I have left. Fingers crossed it lasts, and we’ll see how it goes.
The singles I was working on the last time I talked about spinning are done and plyed, but not washed yet.
I 2 plyed them to preserve the color transitions. Since it just came off the bobbin, I haven’t counted final yardage or weight yet, but it’s a decent amount of yardage, in I would say a lace weight.
I also plyed the Fibernymph dyeworks singles that I was contemplating last time. You can see the color progression better in the photo below. It goes from the blue-purple, to the light purple to the grey-purple.
I ended up n-plying it, first to keep the colors together, second to make the yarn a little bit heavier, and I’m really glad I did because it’s very thin even with the three plys. It also hasn’t been washed yet, so I don’t have exact weight, but there are certainly parts of it that are lace weight. No idea what it’ll become but probably a shawl (shocking I know.)
Maybe the weather will get less gross soon, and I’ll want to knit more. Probably wishful thinking, but I can still wish.
