Round and Round I Go

As much as I wanted to keep spinning like I did during the Tour de Fleece, there were also some projects in the queue that I really wanted to start. On Saturday, during my weekly visit to my LYS, I finally cast on for Water Music. I'm knitting it as part of the Through the Loops summer shawl knitalong on Ravelry, and I'm using my handspun (is there anything more wonderful than knitting with handspun?). Because my yardage is on the very low end of the amount required, I went down a couple of needle sizes from what's recommended in the pattern, from a 7 to a 5. I block my lace pretty aggressively, so I'm not too worried about a smaller needle affecting the appearance of the lace too much. If anything, the shawl will be a little smaller, which really won't be a problem considering that I usually wear shawls more like a scarf.

At the moment, I'm about two-thirds of the way through the first chart (40-ish rounds) and the pattern is becoming apparent. It's really a treat to be knitting in the round -- the only purling is part of the pattern! It's been a while since I knit any lace this way, and the last time was a circular shawl. This is the first time I've done a square, though it's not all that novel because it's essentially the same as knitting two triangular top-down shawls concurrently.

While I'm trying to get through this shawl first, pretty soon I'll need to start some baby knitting. A woman in my office is due on Halloween, and two of the Mister's coworkers are expecting babies later in the fall. On top of that, there will be another new baby boy at Christmas this year who will need a sweater and a blanket at the very least. My coworker is having a girl, so I'd already decided to knit Maile for her because it'd been in my favorites for a while without having a girl to knit for. While I was at my LYS on Saturday, I picked up a skein of Dream in Color Smooshy to use for this pattern; the colorway is called Forget Me (which, having just finished binge watching the entire new season of Arrested Development on Netflix, I immediately started thinking of as "forget me now").

Somewhere in all this, I also want to start Window to My Soul for me so that I can wear it before it gets too cold. There aren't enough hours in the day sometimes!