I’m finally done! I finished the knitting last night and grafted the toe this morning. I love the FO feeling. So wonderful. It almost makes me think twice about casting on something new. Almost.

The yarn is Lorna’s Laces Bee Stripe. I must say that I was expecting wide, cute-bumble bee stripes. I think I ended up with keep left/keep right signs more than bees, but oh well. I really picked the yarn because black and gold were my school colours.

I’ll definitely use the pattern again, but not for a while I think.

This is where my knitting books and magazines are currently kept. I have no bookshelf (or space for one) and my fiction books have taken over the top of my dresser recently (most of my books are at my parents’ house). Note all the stickies in the magazines? Those are all the projects I want to make, minus the ones that I’ve printed off the net and keep in a binder.

I actually got some good knitting time in last night. I listened to 1.5 episodes of KnitCast and knitknitknit. Tonight, if I get the same amount of time in, I’ll at least get to the start of the toe shaping, although I may just stay up and finish it. Neither of my roommates will be home till late, so I have my choice of what to do! I could knit and watch MASH, knit and listen to podcasts on real speakers, not earbuds, I could knit and watch whatever is on TBS this weekend, I could knit and watch anime… Well, the anime only if it isn’t sub-titled. I need to look down too much to read what is on the screen, and I’d just get lost. In both knitting and plot. Hopefully I have something dubbed.
I swear, I’m not just trying to be #300, I just need those needles!

I want to start on my Amazing Lace socks, but I need the needles that are in the Jaywalkers. Saturday I may manage to take my Extreme Lace-Knitting photos. I haven’t been for a proper hike yet, so I may hike up somewhere pretty for a photoshoot. If it stops raining. Saturday is also the annual theatre arts pub crawl, and I entertained the idea of bringing the ball of yarn, and photographing it in each bar, but (a)At my current record, I may lose it and (b) someone told me a nasty story about being out last night and finding vomit on his coat when he went to leave.

I just want to say “hi” and “thank you!” to all the people who have been visiting my blog! We’re only halfway through June and already I’ve had more visitors than I had in all of April! Most (60%) of you are from the States, but there’s a good 16% of you who are fellow Canadians, 10% Brits, and then the few of you from places like Germany and the Netherlands and Portugal and Chile and…. so many exciting places.

I must confess that one of my reasons for joining knit-alongs is to have that link in the sidebar of the KAL blog, so when people get bored at work, they may just end up wandering by my little slice of internet. Not the only reason, obviously, but it’s quite the perk.

Guess who finally, FINALLY has internet at home? moi! And to celebrate, I have an update with actual, real pictures.
Firstly, the Jaywalkers:

I’m slowly getting there. I won’t finish in May, but I hope to be done by the middle of June. I might end up getting a lot of knitting done this Saturday. The boyfriend (he brought me flowers this past weekend! heart!) is working all day, so who knows what I’ll get up to.
This is an interesting yarn, it’s Lorna’s Laces Shepherd sock, which all of you know. It’s a self-striping yarn called ‘Bee Stripe’, so I was hoping for thick bumble bee stripes. Instead I’m getting keep left/keep right signs. No wonder they’re Jaywalkers, they don’t know which side of the road to be on!

Then, remember I said my May Project Spectrum would be to decide what to do with that lovely silk/wool Lady Godiva yarn? I will make a small Clapotis. And yesterday, I frogged my half a scarf. Almost the whole skein had already been knitted, and I ripped it all out. I didn’t feel bad at all. I want to use the yarn, but it wasn’t happy in that particular pattern.
First I wound it around my upper arm/fingers to make a skein. I then looped one end of the skein around a hanger, then attached a plastic bag with 4 cans of chunk light tuna (mmmm) to the other end for weight. I hung it for a while in my closet, and nothing happened. Then I took a hot, steamy shower, with the whole contraption hanging in the bathroom.
That worked pretty well, except I hadn’t been consistent with my original wrapping. so some was very loose, and thus didn’t stretch out. So I reskeined it tonight, using my dresser drawer handles instead of my poor tired arm. This worked really well, I could really keep the tension even. But. Look at the picture below, and the lovely round handles that kept the yarn from springing off the post part. Think about it for a minute or two. How did I get it off the dresser, you ask? I used a knife (bad theatre person, no multitool) to unscrew one handle, and then it popped off. The I went again with the tuna and the shower, and now I have a skein of lovely straight(ish, but I’m too scared of over-working the yarn to do it again) yarn.

And now I have internet on my bed (yay!) I’ll finally be able to write up my first Amazing Lace entry. Some other night. I’m sleepy and rambly now.

I haven’t had a chance to take any pictures lately, but Jaywalker #1 fits very well, and this morning I finished the heel flap on Jaywalker #2. I still haven’t really got the hang of picking up stitches, so I’m setting my goals low, and hoping to get that done tonight.
My picking up doesn’t look messy or anything, but I’m fiddling with a crochet hook and all the needles and counting and recounting and spacing and it just takes ages.

Finished Knitwear update: I have somehow managed to lose my Edgar scarf which makes me very sad. What makes me sadder is that I found it very very hard to remember what I did the weekend I lost it. When I came up with one option of where I left it I phoned and talked to the least helpful guy ever. Describing that scarf, I said it was hand-knit, green and blue, and pointy. When ‘pointy’ confused him I said it was like overlapping squares.
He said he thought he had it, because it was definitely handknit, teal, and it’s not like it has tassels or anything.
I’m also cross with myself for forgetting it. I used to think ‘Jeez, how can you forget your purse/scarf/gloves anywhere? How can you not notice that it’s gone?’. I have stopped thinking that, as I have now lost a scarf. And last weekend, I went to Calgary (on a long weekend, no less!) with no wallet. Because I am stupid silly.

I just need to finish these socks. Then I need to get on to something else. With big yarn! And some more lace, for the Amazing Lace. Unfortunately, as I’m not buying yarn, my lace will be more socks. I’d like to try another scarf (I don’t think I’d use a shawl, although there are so many pretty patterns!) but that can come some other time.

Categories: Socks_

Well, true to my predictions I did finish Bee Stripe Jaywalker #1 Friday afternoon (got off work nice and early). And Sunday I even started sock #2, and am halfway down the leg. I will finish this sock before the end of this month. How’s that for a goal? I finished my first pair of socks in two weeks (nothing like the Knitting Olympics for motivation!) and this pair is going to take a month or more. I cast on for #1 April 22.
Once the socks are done, I’m going to start a sweater.

Everyone (it seems) out in blogland is transitioning into summer knitting. Light, airy cotton-silk-linen projects with short sleeves or no sleeves at all. Me? I’ll be knitting a wool-blend long-sleeved sweater. That way, it may just be done in time to wear for the cold weather.

I’ve got my eye on some summery projects, but I’m not buying yarn, so they’ll have to wait until I let myself buy yarn again. And anyway, if I started a summer project right now, it’d be done in time for the snow. Talk to me next February, when I’ll be knitting tank tops and light airy lacy things.

Well, I’ve made some progress on my Jaywalker. I was worried I wouldn’t have enough to finish, but when I put it on to take the photo, I realise I’d done more foot than I thought:

So I’m less worried now.
My Buxton Brook Loom arrived the other day, and I’ve made a few:

All three are leftover Fleece Artist sock yarn, and the paler one has a strand of KidSilk Haze held with it for three layers (not the actual woven layer).

Went into Make 1 Yarns today, and almost broke my yarn diet after only being on the wagon a week. Crystal Palace Cotton Chenille. The first knitting magazine I ever bought was the IK Winter 2003, and one of the reasons was the flower washcloth pattern. My LYS back then didn’t carry it, and I guess I forgot until I saw the yarn today. sigh. Maybe one skein. In green or perhaps blue, for Project Spectrum.

But, for now, May/June’s PS project will be deciding what to do with this project:

It’s the Braided Mischief Scarf from Scarf Style, in Hand Maiden’s Lady Godiva (of which I have 2 skeins). Here is just under one skein knitted up, and on top of a scarf that I find a tad too long (finished scarf folded in 1/4s, half finished scarf folded in 1/2):

It’s going to be toooo long. I figure my options are:
1. Keep going, after all I am half done. But then I’d never wear it.
2. Rip it out, add an extra pattern repeat and then it won’t be so long
3. Rip it out and make something else. A small Clapotis, I’m thinking.
Suggestions?

I’ve found a new sweater to lust over. My first sweater after I’m allowed to buy yarn again was going to be Raspy. But now I love this one:

This one has the disadvantage that I’d have to buy the book, as I already have Denim People. But what’s an extra knitting book/mag? $40, that’s what Rowan ones are, if I stick to my ‘buy locally’ idea. And there is some Rowan Cotton Glace cheap on eBay, but it’s yellow. I’m never sure if I like yellow on me. But I won’t be buying for a while.

I have to use up stash first. I’m going to make Tubey.
Current stuff to make collage:

My Amazon.ca package arrived today. I wasn’t hopeful, because on Friday Amazon’s ‘Track Package’ feature said it was in Edmonton, and it said the same this morning. It actually still says the package is in Edmonton, despite the fact that I’m about a 5 hour drive away from there.
Two items of knitterly interest:
Rowan’s Denim People - I just love the look of the denim yarn, and Raspy will be the first thing I make out of the book.
The other is Knitting Rules!, by a lovely fellow Canadian you might have heard of before. I started reading it at lunch (outside, omg the sunshine!) but then someone else came out to the picnic tables too and I had to talk. sigh. Being sociable takes away my knitting time. I mean, I can knit and play D&D, but knitting and drinking? Bad combination. Knitting and pool? Knittin and darts? Both very bad combinations, especially with the similarity between pool cues, darts, and knitting needles.
Luckily there will be no such socializing tonight, so I can sit and hermitize myself with my lovely new books.
Also, Bee Jaywalker the 1st is almost ready to have a heel. I remember reading on a couple blogs that you might run out with Lorna’s Laces, which is what I’m using, so I’m making the leg about an inch shorter than specified.

Well, I got up this morning and this is what I saw out the window. A perfect day to sit and knit, say I! So I made my French toast, put Harry Potter #4 in the DVD player and set to it. Now, I have all sorts of yarn, and all sorts of projects planned and in the works. I am planning on making Jaywalkers, Pomatomuses, Tubey, and more, but I have yarn for those three patterns just sitting around. I couldn’t cast on for Tubey this morning, as much as I wanted to, because there was no one else home to measure the width of my shoulders for me. So I went with the Jaywalkers for my second/third pair of socks.
I say second/third because I did start socks in my Kool-Aid yarn, but I think my gauge is off, and I haven’t bothered to check yet, they’ve just been sitting as a lonely toe. I’ll get to those some time.

While the yarn went from this:

To this:
5
The weather changed from the picture above to this:
And it is even bluer out there now. Crazy weather.

I really like the pattern, and already have it memorized. So simple, yet so effective. I love the feel of the yarn, although I was expecting the stripes to be thicker when I saw it in the hank. When I unwound it I realised that it was dyed as a regular hank, half yellow, half black. The rounds are just slightly too long for the colour repeat (or something, not quite sure) so there is a black blob circling the sock:

In the time I haven’t blogged, I managed to start, and FINISH a project! You never even got those exciting updates, or pictures of progress. Remember the wonderful Art Yarns Supermerino my Secret Pal gave me for my birthday? I made an Edgar.

I made a couple alterations. I didn’t want this to be a super-long scarf, and the pattern says if you use two balls, it will be that. I also didn’t want two cravats. So, to make the pattern shorter and wider, my diamonds are graduated, although it is hard to see in the pictures. The first two are as the pattern is written, the next four are 33 stitches instead of 31 (CO 10 instead of 9) and the middle 5 are 35 stitches (CO 11 instead of 9) then 4, then 2 again. It’s just the right length to double around me neck and not be hanging down too much.