I'm a bad blogger

I have been knitting, but I quit my job, got heavily into World of Warcraft, and well, talking about knitting kinda fell by the wayside.

I've made my first pair of socks, the shell socks from Knitter's Guide to Yarn, and they don't fit right. Too much fabric in the heel. Very comfy aside from that, and at some point I will brave snipping the knitting and kitchering it back together. I've never cut knitting before, nor have I kitchered, so that'll be slightly panicky.

As far as wips I've already talked about...
the Swallowtail is hibernating.
The shades of grey peacock has been frogged. It's a lovely pattern and I would heartly recommend it to a new lace knitter (3 rest rows to one lace row make it easy to tink back or frog back as needed), but I need a bit more challenge with my lace. I've cannibalized the yarn and it will become the Lehe Shawl from Knitted Lace of Estonia.
The Falling Waters shawl is done, and needs to be blocked.
The Canopy scarf is still a wip. I'm not sure at this point if I want to finish it, or use the yarn for something else.

New WIPs coming in another post, with pictures. It may be a day or so. I just had surgery last week, so moving fast isn't my forte right now.

I can't knit. Sigh.

Well, disaster has stuck. and I have gone almost two weeks without knitting. First it was the sore/cut on my r index finger, and now the injury to my thumb. Figures, just when I have knitting to get done.

Instead there has been a surfeit of WoW. Due to well, my propensity for injuring myself, I can type and use a mouse decently well with one or more fingers out of commission.
Sadly, I cannot do this when I knit. Expect a new update when I actually have something to say, and should you be desperate for my dulcet tones in the meantime...

The Wow(World of Warcraft) blog
The Twitter Account
Or the personal blog on InsaneJournal
The personal blog mentions knitting infrequently at best, and is more likely to involve Harry Potter than anything else. The WoW blog is a blog about a game, and the twitter mentions whatever is on my mind at the time (generally a huge amount of random)

I know, two blog posts in one day! Obviously it's a sign of the Apocalypse. But I have stuff to talk about that isn't my new FO...

First, a knitting WIP roundup, complete with pictures. I'm going from most recently cast on to oldest and ignoring hibernating things.


This is the Swallowtail Shawl. It's the December KAL from Beginning Lace Knitters. That's a mystery yarn (my bet is an acrylic/cotton blend with some elastic, but that's based solely on feel). It has quite a bit of stretch and I love how it shows the texture so well. Those are size 7 needles.


That is a not very good picture of my Shades of Grey Peacock, a semi-circular shawl. The pattern was made by tonksknits, and is lovely. Here's a picture where it doesn't look like a tangle of yarn....

It's a feather and fan variant, and really not easy to take pictures of. The yarn is Numma Numma Saucy in Little Black Dress, and it's being knitted on size 9 needles.

I'm also still working on the Falling Waters Shawl and have picked up the Canopy Scarf again. I'm on the third ball of yarn with that and would like to get it done before the end of the year.

Now, other things.
I have learned how to knit backwards, and I LOVE IT! I twist my wrist when I purl, and that plus tendon issues =ow. I would heartily recommend learning the skill, plus it means you don't have to turn things. How awesome is that? The instructions I used can be found here and are English-only. (note, English meaning holding the yarn in your right hand and wrapping it).
I've also learned Fleegle's left-leaning no slip decrease. Instructions can be found here and are well-worth it. So much faster lace knitting!

Ooh, look, the rare and wonderful FO!

I finished my Election Day Scarf, and here it is....



That isn't a particularly good picture of it but it turned out well. I screwed up picking up stitches from the first knitted on border, so there's a line of yo-looking things in it, but it looks good otherwise. The texture of it is just incredible, the variegation of the yarn and the pattern really came together well.

Pattern is scarf with the striped border from Weldon's, Volume 5, 1890 from Victorian Lace Today using size 7 needles and Knit Picks Alpaca Cloud in Bayou. It ended up 9 feet long and I still had some of the skein left over (not much, but a bit). It was a very easy knit once I got past the border, and I think this would be a good first lace project for someone.

WIP Roundup

So, not much has happened this month.  I cast on for another shawl, circular this time, continued work on mom's shawl, debated abandoning my sock (again), and cast on a scarf for Election Day from my Seasons of Lace winnings.

I'm still sick, and hoping that the latest treatment is the right one.   No pictures, unfortunately, because mom has managed to lose the camera.  It's in the house somewhere, but she needed to take pictures of a secretary (a mostly upright desk) that had to be moved as part of the furnace/duct work.  There were a bunch of knicknacks on it that she wanted to make sure she put back where they were.

We do have heat now, thank goodness.  With the sudden cold snap (January weather in Nov is not normal) heat is really important.  Yeah, I know, Atlanta doesn't get that cold, but hey, it's a myth.  20s for lows and 40s for highs isn't that warm, seriously.  

Having experienced both Massachusettes and Atlanta winters, I think Atlanta is worse.  MA is pretty much uniformly cold from November on.  Doesn't really fluctuate.  

One January we had: sunny weather so nice I was sunbathing, then two ice storms.  In three weeks flat it went from 70+ to 20-.  Sheesh.

I have a post on what every beginning knitter should have/learn/gather brewing, but it may be a while.  The meds and illness are messing with my ability to write, and I have grad school apps and stories that need to get written.  Blog comes after that.

I also have some ideas about turning some line designs from a city in World of Warcraft (Ironforge) into cable designs, but I need to learn more about cabling and do some swatches when my brain works.  A nice cardigan with cabling on the edges, like a cardigan for Arwen.

So, we can safely conclude that I suck at blogging.

Since my last post I have...


Knit the Heartland shawl and took lousy pictures of it, restarted a sock


Started a tank top of my own design


And knitted some wristies.

I've also been sick for over a month now, and that's cut way into the knitting time. Right now I'm lucky if I can manage stockinette for an hour or so. Also, we have no heat and are unlikely to have heat any time soon, so I kinda just want to burrow under blankets and stay there. Unfortunately I need to see my hands to knit. Le sigh.

More when I actually manage to come up with something interesting....

the End of Summer

Summer of Lace is officially over, and now I'm pondering a Fall of Sweaters and more lace. Summer itself is over here, since I had to turn on my car's heater this morning. Brr low 50s.

I knitted quite a bit of yarn over the summer, and I'm happy I now have a lace yarn stash, since my last day of work is tomorrow, and I may end up in graduate school. Or not. Either way, no money for yarn. Yay for having a ton of laceweight(a ton meaning 3 skeins of Prism Lace Wool, 1200 yrds (ish) of hand-dyed silk/merino blend, 1200 yards of sock yarn (for Luna Moth), and the two skeins of Prism that I am either using or need to reclaim. Plus 500 yards of grey sock yarn for something or other. I figure that will take me a good long time to knit up, and I have enough yarn for two sweaters and two-three tank tops on top of that, plus random singles.

I'm thinking about knitting Versatile from knitty, and I know I want to do A Cardigan for Arwen once I get comfortable with cables. I'm not sure what else I'm going to do once I get the three shawls off the needles. Yup, three....
Heartland Shawl (my I must think about this knitting) I'm in the middle of the third repeat.
Leaves of Yosemite (my brainless lace weight) Just started recently, using an EC design, and yup, leaf lace.
and the Falling Waters Shawl (aka the damn, this is heavy, and why am I only halfway done?)