Starting 2010

I'm working on my swap project, but it's been going slowly because I've had no time to work on it! I keep telling myself that I finished a sweater in a week, so I should be able to do this :) I'm calling it the White Lady of Rohan. If you've read the Lord of the Rings, it will make sense, otherwise it probably won't :) Not that I think my swap partner is reading this, but if she wants to be surprised, she should stop reading now.
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Now, for the details. I'm making a handspun/millspun rectangular lace shawl: handspun cream center and millspun golden edges. I spun the cream alpaca/cormo/silk singles for the body of the shawl as a true laceweight with some slubs. I wasn't aiming for perfection but for a rustic look.

I chose the starlight lace from BW's 2nd treasury of lace patterns and charted it out. I disliked the chart, so I made the 16 row pattern into notecards on a ring that I can flip to stay on the correct row.

I cast on 125 provisionally with US 6 needles because my plan is to knit up half the yarn in one direction and the other half in the other direction. Once both sides are knit up, I'm going to add the alpine lace edging, also from BW's 2nd treasury :) If I have enough yarn, my scheme is to add the crochet edging from the Danish wrap shawls to the long edges, but I may not have enough yarn to actually do that.

This is based on various descriptions and passages about Eowyn from LotR:

-But the helm of her secrecy had fallen from her, and her bright hair, released from its bonds, gleamed with pale gold upon her shoulders...

-They were clad in warm raiment and heavy cloaks, and over all the Lady Éowyn wore a great blue mantle of the colour of deep summer-night, and it was set with silver stars about hem and throat... But she now shivered beneath the starry mantle...

Of course, my shawl will not be the blue of deep summer's night...though I've been looking for a yarn of that color for years. My partner likes gold, cream and pale blue. Rather than make a pale blue shawl, I've decided to go with cream, which is starry in my opinion. I've gotten her some pale blue sodalite stitch markers that I think she'll like.

Truly, I'll post pics as soon as I can, but I left our camera at my mom's house when we came back from Christmas so I'm currently high and dry. I'd use my sister's camera, but she's at her in-laws this week. Fie!

I have high hopes for this pattern...at least, I hope my partner likes it. She could always rip it for the yarn if she didn't like the pattern at any rate. The yarn is so nice to knit with: it just slides through my fingers, and the fabric it knits to is soft and elastic.

Blue moon!

It's a blue moon tonight - go look!

Argh!

Almost a month between posts. Sigh.

I decided on Tuesday that I wanted to make my mom a sweater for Christmas. She wanted the Leavened Raglan in white, in a silk/wool blend. I bought 20 balls of Plymouth Royal Silk Merino, now discontinued, to make it.

Well, I finished both sleeves and the front. I have 318 grams left to make the back of the sweater, and the front weighs 302 grams. I think it will work! I'm on pins and needles here, because I'll need to make the collar after I assemble the thing, and I'll need to seam it up. I'm going to use another yarn for the seaming, so I may have just enough to get this thing done. Eeek!

I haven't started my swap project yet; I really need to get through Christmas before I can do another big project. I did order something from Etsy for the package, and it came. I can't post about it until I mail it, but it's just lovely.

The wedding and the Hawaii trip were great, but the trip was too short. Got there Thursday evening, left Monday afternoon. Sigh. I'd love to go back - the weather is so nice, and there are no horrible bugs!

Curses

I got all fired up for the Red Scarf Project and got halfway through my scarf before I read the directions. Dang. Now I have to find some yarn that fits the rules or that I can dye red. I had been using unspun merino, but it turned out to be too bulky for the regulations.

I found out my dad would like mittens to go with the sweater I made him last year, so I'm trying to find a good mitten pattern that goes with the Louet worsted - I have two skeins left, so I think I won't run out. It might be a good project to bring on the plane to Hawaii because it won't take up too much space and I need to get it done :)

I'm pretty excited to go to HA, but I'm a bit nervous to go on the plane. Hopefully I won't run afoul of any ill-tempered security people.

I can't believe that December begins this week, and I'm just not ready for Christmas and the new year. Not that that means anything, because time won't be stopping just for me. But I just feel like I'm trying to climb up an avalanche - I need a couple more weeks.

I finished spinning up the yarn for my swap victim, and I think I have the pattern worked out. It may change once I start knitting, but I'm pretty happy with what I worked up. Once I actually start it in the real yarn, I'll put a pic or two up.

I migrated over to Windows 7; I like it. I much prefer it to Vista, but now I have to reinstall all my programs and I'm sure I'm forgetting one of them!

Swatching and Sweaterizing

D'you remember that sweater I was working on for the longest time, a version of Rowan's Juno? Well, I finally chucked the idea. I had finished the body and tried it on and realized I just didn't like a ribbed cardigan. I decided to throw caution to the winds and create my own top down raglan cardigan. I'm an inch past the waist and very happy with it. My hope is to be inspired by Juno and make cabled cuffs and maybe a cabled collar.

I'm also working on a project for a Lord of the Rings swap. It's made up of some of my handspun and some Rowan Tapestry...main issue is that I have to finish spinning the yarn up :) I'm half done, and I'm hoping to get some swatching in tonight. The handspun is a delightful blend from Foxfire Fibers of cormo, alpaca and silk. Swoon.

Besides all of my usual excuses, I haven't posted in the last two weeks because of the death of one of my friends last Tuesday. I worked with him for eleven years and saw him five days a week. He had a long life, and went fast, but I'm still kind of numb. He fought in the resistance in Poland in WWII, after escaping from the Lakhva ghetto. He made it into the Soviet army, and moved to the US after the war. I had my problems with him, but he was a good man.

In time for Halloween

I finished my second discovery socks in time for Halloween!



I'm calling them the fruit and veggie socks because of the yarn colors. I used the cabling patter on the Lothlorien socks for one cuff (representing veggies) and a traveling vine with a couple berries and a leaf for the other cuff (representing fruit). I wore the socks to bed because I was so excited to finish them :) I also feel like they make good Halloween socks because of the witch-y colors.

The whole waste yarn instead of cutting worked out well, especially on the second sock, whose stitches I did not twist. No holes at the corners!



In other news, I finally took pics of some of the other socks I've finished lately:

Granity: the Caradhras yarn socks from the Lotr sock club:



Super comfy - I really enjoy the weight of them, and they still fit in my Doc Marten's, so I can wear them to work.

Nine Walkers: the Fellowship socks from the Lotr sock club:



I started these for me but ended up giving them to DP. (The fact that my husband will wear lace socks is pretty sweet, so I figured I'd encourage it.) I did these toe up with a flap heel, and I like the way the colors striped on the flap:



Groovy Autumn Socks: the Koigu socks that, again, I was making for me but gave to DP. In my defense, it was his birthday:



and the nice tall leg:



These are silky soft and very warm. DP loves them - he wore them around the house for a whole week before he'd let me wash them. We tossed them in with the other laundry on cold and hung them to dry. The yarn is already pilling, and the color is washing out. The pic is after the first washing (I wasn't able to snap any earlier). Lovely yarn, but maybe I should only make things for the marital dyad with it. That way no one will complain about wash-ability.

In other news, we're going to Hawaii! DP's sister is getting married, and we're invited for the wedding, which just happens to be on an island in the Pacific. The fiancé is paying for a large chunk of our cost, so we couldn't pass it up. I'm pretty excited, since the last time I was at a real beach was 1995! I'm also scared of the flight - not the flying, but of the security. I don't do well with mean people.

Discovery sock - mark 2

I decided that I didn't like all the ends that I had to weave in with my discovery sock. It fit well, but I just don't like cut ends waiting to unravel, and with a contrasting heel and toe, I had 10 ends to weave in. I'm making another pair of discovery socks, and discovering what I can do to create less work for myself.

On the discovery sock, you run two lifelines one row apart and cut between them, unraveling all but the two stitches on either side of the row. For my sock, I knit to where I'd run my first lifeline, then knit a row of waste yarn so I wouldn't have to cut and unravel. However, rather than knit the waste yarn all the way to the end, I knit it two stitches in from both sides, so I have the two unraveled stitches on each side of the leg opening without worrying about cutting anything! It worked well, except I twisted one stitch and didn't notice it until about 30 rows later. Not worth going back for, but on the second sock I'll be more careful.

As they say, I love it when a plan comes together.