On Mondays, I'll review what I've been knitting, spinning, or dyeing during the past week.
On Thursdays, I'll do a Throwback Thursday, where I take a look back at one of my knitting projects from my first few years of knitting (I've been knitting for 10 years).
Since today is Monday, it's a week in review post. And since it's the first of these posts, it'll cover a little more than the past week just to get a bit caught up.
The new year started off great--I had two designs come out in January (Palamon and Arcite) and I learned that dyeing yarn is awesome and set off toward creating Round Table Yarns. And then I got sick. Sick enough to knock me out for over a week and take away all the momentum I built up. And then just as I was getting back on my feet, my husband's grandfather died. So we took five days to travel to Houston to spend with his family and attend the funeral. I definitely don't begrudge that very needed family time, but it was still something that held me back from getting back into my routine. While on that trip, my son spiked a fever and after taking him to the doctor after we got back home, it turns out he has strep throat and an upper respiratory infection. And now I have the sniffles. So it's been challenging to make any progress and I feel like as soon as I'm able to move forward a little, something happens to make me take a few steps backwards.
With all that being said, I have accomplished several things, especially in the past week or so. First, I finished a project that I started right before Christmas. As part of the Indie Design Gift-a-long, one of the patterns I bought was High Plains by Melissa Schaschwary, and I went to Madtosh Crafts to get yarn for it. I wanted to make the smaller size so I bought four skeins of tosh vintage in a beautiful grey (Tern). Then I started knitting. The pattern calls for a US 10.5. I dislike working with these larger needles and once I started knitting I also disliked how loose the fabric seemed. So I went down to a 10. Still not liking the larger needle but the fabric was better. But the gauge was wrong. So I decided to use the numbers for the larger size which with my current gauge would get me the dimensions of the smaller size (of course I didn't account for washing/blocking which in the end made my gauge much closer to the pattern's gauge). I started knitting. The first panel has a lace pattern at one end. But then it's stockinette. On large needles. Back and forth. Back and forth. And then another whole stockinette panel with no lace pattern. I have to admit that I was completely bored with knitting those panels. But I got through them.
And I was also going through my yarn pretty quickly. In fact, I used almost three entire skeins just for the two panels. I looked at the pattern and the instructions for the border and at my lone skein of yarn and worried that I did not actually have enough yarn to complete the project. I was going to be back at the madtosh store for a knitting class the first week in February, so I thought I'd just pick up an extra skein while I was there. Ha ha. Once I was there, I remembered that I had picked up the remaining four skeins back in December and sure enough there was no more Tern in stock. So I looked at several online stores. No Tern. I checked Ravelry. One lone knitter in Canada had one skein of Tern for sale. Yay! I contacted her and in the meantime got busy on the border. Knitting and knitting and knitting and watching the yarn run closer and closer to the end. I didn't weigh it as I went because I honestly didn't want to know that it was going to run out. I was hoping that if I did that thing where I just knit faster and ignored the rapidly decreasing ball of yarn that I would magically have enough. Yeah, like that works.
Except it did work this time. I ended up with just a tiny bit of yarn left but I had enough to completely finish the project! Knitting miracles do happen. (And the knitter on Ravelry was very gracious when I let her know that it turned out that I didn't need the extra yarn after all.)
I have a truly horrible bathroom mirror picture of the finished poncho, but if you were to see this in real life, it's so much nicer and so very soft and warm. (Finished February 10)
While I was in Houston, I brought the yarn and my rough ideas for a baby blanket and started working on that. I figured out the stitch patterns I wanted to use and their placement and stitch count, setting up charts and a quick pattern outline so I could knit a sample. And then I cast on nearly 200 stitches. Long tail cast on. Bet you can guess what happened. Yeah, my knitting luck was all used up on High Plains. I ran out of yarn less than 20 stitches from the end. Rip out and start again. This time way too much yarn left but oh well. I started knitting. After several rows I measured the width. Ack! Much much wider than I had wanted. Back to the drawing board. Rip out what I'd knit. Replan pattern. Cast on again. This time the knitting gods were with me and I had a perfect length after my cast on. Knitted past the border and into the pattern.
Loved how one section was turning out but the other section wasn't looking quite right. But I kept knitting. Finally after a full pattern repeat, I had to admit that it was not at all turning out like I had planned. I double checked my scribbled notes and I was doing what I had written down. But I was away from home and couldn't check to make sure my notes were accurate, so I put the project down and worked on something else for the rest of the trip (socks).
Yesterday I took another look at the baby blanket and confirmed that what was coming out on the needles was not what I wanted. So once again, I redid the plan and ripped out everything I had done. Another long tail cast on, this time with way way too much yarn leftover. *sigh* But I'm back to work on the border and this time I think it will turn out as intended -- at least according to this third plan. (Third time's the charm, right?)
Then on Friday, the Arcite Cowl KAL (it's not too late to join!) started and I began my own Arcite for the KAL in my King Arthur yarn (Ganieda colorway).
And I'm continuing to work on my Purplicious socks (name of colorway, dyed by Brazen Stitchery). One sock finished on the road to Houston and the second sock started while there. Loving the colors and the stripes!
I did do a tiny bit of spinning this week--just plying the remnants on two remaining bobbins. Both are undyed fiber so I plan to dye them and them turn them into keychains. I actually dyed one today. I was doing my Morgan le Fay colorway, which is a red and the dye wasn't exhausting completely, so I tossed in one of the small handspun remnants and it sucked up the rest of the dye to make it a pale red/pink color. It's still cooling so no pictures yet.
As for stash acquisition, whenever we visit my in-laws in Houston, I go to Park Avenue Yarns, which is a very nice LYS. This time I found some Baah! yarn which I had recently heard about, so I had to pick some up. I got Sonoma (DK weight, 100% merino) in the Lilac colorway. Super squooshy! And even though I can get madtosh locally, I ended up with three skeins of madtosh vintage! In Ember and Moorland (which I plan to use together) and in Logwood. Here's the Baah!
So that gets me caught up with what I've been doing in the fiber world lately. I'll be back on Thursday with a look back at one of my first projects, the Irish Hiking Scarf, which was a first in several ways.
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