A Reckoning

I haven't touched my Waiting for Rain since the weekend because I've been hoping that the amount of yarn I have left will somehow have magically multiplied in my project bag, resulting in my having enough to finish the lace edging. Alas, that has not happened. So tonight, I'll be ripping back what I've done this far and starting (if not finishing) a plain bind off. I'm disappointed, obviously, because I really liked how the edging was looking, but there's really no solution here other than to rip back. I'm not going to buy another skein of yarn to do half a bind off, and I don't have anything in my stash that looks close enough to finish it with. If there's any silver lining in this situation, it's that I should finish the shawl with very minimal leftovers and maximizing this project's Stash Dash contribution.

On the plus side, I have finished two things in the past couple of days. First, there's my skein of corespun that I started on Sunday. I now feel I've mastered this technique, and I also busted another 4 oz. of fiber from my stash.

When I say this skein is finished, that's with a caveat. You can see just from the picture that there's quite a bit of excess twist in the yarn, despite my best efforts to counteract it by adding twist to my core. I guess there's wasn't enough, so the yarn is twisting up on itself pretty aggressively. I'm likely going to run this back through the wheel quickly to get rid of some of that twist, though I'll have to be careful that the wrap doesn't unwrap itself from the core in the process. I was pretty rough with the skein when I washed it, so I'm hoping the wrap has fulled a bit to itself and to the core.

I also finished my double-knit cowl:

I was surprised how quickly this knit up, given that I really was only working on it during the workweek while on my lunch break. This will be getting blocked and photographed this weekend so I can get the pattern off to my tech editor.

One last Tour de Fleece spin remains on the wheel, and it's my Sheep to Shoe kit. I highly doubt I'll finish it by the end of the Tour, but perhaps it'll get done by the end of the month. It has been good to spin some deep stash and feel like I'm making progress in cleaning things out. Baby steps, right? Once I do finish, I'll still have the other half of the fiber to deal with, plus the second S2S kit still in stash, so it's not like I'm going to run out of fiber to spin anytime soon!

Time for Another Round

I'm playing that game again. You know what game I'm talking about -- it's a game all knitters play at some point in their knitting careers. That's right: I'm engaged in yet another nail-biting round of Yarn Chicken.

This time the opponent is the yarn in my Waiting for Rain. Knowing that my remaining yarn supply was looking low, I decided to omit a handful of rows at the end following the last lace section. I soon found myself with only a small bit of my main color leftover -- not enough to do another two rows. So I worked one more garter ridge in the contrast color and then started the bind off (the alternative, fancier bind off option -- also the one that takes more yarn). I'm now about halfway through it, and this is all the yarn I have left:

I have to be honest: I'm not feeling very confident about this one. I'm pretty sure I'm going to run short on yarn, and there's no way I'm buying another skein just to finish binding off. If I do run out, I'll rip back and just do a regular stretchy bind off. That would disappoint me, because I really like the look of this bind off and think a plain edge just won't be as pretty, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

Fortunately this is the only game of Yarn Chicken I'm playing at the moment. My double-knit cowl is getting close to being done (fewer than 10 rounds remain), and I've got plenty of yarn. The image is really apparent now -- as is the fact that this cowl will need a serious blocking to tidy it up.

I also cast on for a pair of socks over the weekend on a bit of a whim (we went to see a movie Saturday afternoon, and I wanted something I could knit in the dark). This is the BFL from FatCatKnits I finished a couple of weeks ago. I'm just knitting a plain stockinette sock with a ribbed cuff to let the yarn do all the talking.

The first order of business tonight, however, before I square off against the remaining yarn in my shawl, is finishing up my corespun. I have just a couple of strips of fiber left to be spun, and the amount of core left on the bobbin is quickly dwindling, so it shouldn't take me too much time. I love how much this yarn is filling up the bobbin.

I'm only using 4 oz. of fiber and the yarn itself looks to be about sportweight on the whole, so the fact that this WooLee Winder bobbin is almost full tells you just how fluffy this yarn is. I'll be really interested to see just how much of it there is as well as how wild it is off the bobbin, as I suspect there's a fair amount of twist in it. Finishing this yarn should be a good way to get out any pent-up aggression!

Secretive Knitting

I have spent the last couple of days knitting furiously on a swatch for a submission, which of course I can't show you (though you'll see it eventually in some form, I'm sure). It was knitting that needed to get done, but it doesn't make for very good blog fodder.

Since finishing the handspun socks and the swatch, I've brought my double-knit cowl to work for my lunchtime knit break. I'm hoping that the little bit of extra knitting time will help me get it done soon; though I've gotten faster at the technique, I'm still knitting twice the stitches that I would for a regular cowl of this size, so it does take time. I'm still entertained by it, though, so my urge to finish isn't out of ennui but rather excitement to have a finished cowl!

In case you are not familiar with double-knitting, allow me to explain. This is a technique that gives you completely reversible double-thick fabric. You do it by working with two colors of yarn (always held together) and working in pairs. The first stitch of the pair is always knit and the second is always purled, and if you work the first stitch in color A, you'll work the second in color B (and vice versa). It sounds rather complicated, but in practice it's fairly straightforward. If you can knit 1x1 ribbing, you can do double-knitting. I'd highly recommend Alasdair Post-Quinn's Adventures in Double-Knitting Craftsy class if you're a visual learner like me.

I'm hoping to spent a fair amount of time knitting and spinning this weekend. My brother-in-law is getting married next weekend, so this weekend is the last bit of calm before then. The weather is also supposed to get significantly cooler and more fall-like, so I really do need to get moving on Rainbow's sweater and perhaps even start one for myself!

Stitches Add Up

For a while there, I was stuck in the knitter's black hole where I kept knitting but nothing ever seemed to get bigger. This weekend, I finally overcame that. For starters, I finished a pair of socks!

These are plain vanilla stockinette socks worked over 70 stitches using a size 0 (2.0 mm) needle. The yarn was my handspun, what I'm calling "pseudo-self-striping" yarn spun from Three Waters Farm Falkland that I bought at MDSW last year. I have not weighed them yet to see how much of the yarn I used, but there's still a significant amount of the skein left. I finished these Friday night -- just in time to wear them on Saturday, when it was cool and rainy all day.

I spent several hours on Saturday working on Rainbow's school sweater, which I'd cast on last Saturday (apparently this project is destined to be worked on on Saturdays). I've finished all the raglan increases and will be ready to separate the sleeve stitches from the body stitches on the next row.

I didn't feel like I had to hurry to get this sweater done, but then the temperature dipped over the weekend, so perhaps I'll be working on it on days other than Saturday now. The temperatures are supposed to go up again this week, but true fall weather will be here before we know it, so I'll need to keep moving on this.

The other project that finally seems to be making progress is my double-knit cowl. As I've gotten further into it, I've gotten faster at it, so I'm now able to get more done per knitting session. I've got about a repeat and a half of the pattern plus the plain rounds left to do.

I'm really excited about this project. It's come together a lot better than I was expecting. I'm hoping that it will block out a little larger so that I can double it comfortably. The cooler weather has put me in the mood to wrap something soft and cozy around my neck!

Slow and Steady Is the Theme

I am continuing to plod away on my two active projects, and sadly there isn't a whole lot of progress to be seen. I've added maybe another two inches to my sock, so I am getting closer to the heel though it doesn't look like much.

And I've added another couple of rounds to my double-knit cowl, which really doesn't seem like much considering that I've actually gotten faster at the technique. I'm about halfway through the second pattern repeat at this point; when I've finished this repeat, I'll weigh my yarn to get a better sense of how many total repeats I'm going to end up doing to maximize my yarn usage and minimize the chance of playing yarn chicken at the end.

I am counting on the long holiday weekend coming up to make some real progress on these projects and to cast on for Rainbow's school sweater. I did manage to type up directions for it the other night, so I just need to wind some more yarn and get started on that. And I am definitely hoping to do some more spinning; I had an eye exam yesterday and couldn't really do much with my pupils dilated, so I spent a bit of time at my wheel yesterday and enjoyed it immensely. But I'll talk more about that on Sunday!

Miss Me?

It's Tuesday, right? Going away for the weekend and taking two day off from work has thrown me for a loop -- I've been forgetting what day it is all day. I had hoped to get a post up on Sunday, but by the time we got home, ate dinner, unpacked, did laundry, and got Rainbow to bed, I was about ready to pass out. It's just as well, because I didn't have much spinning to show anyway.

The weekend away was a lot of fun, even if I didn't get as much knitting done as I'd planned. Though I'd taken an extra skein of sock yarn along just in case, I didn't need it. I managed to finish only one sock (which was already half done when we flew in), and that was done in the car on the way to the airport to get our flight home. I quickly Kitchenered and wove in my ends so that I could stow my little tool bag in my checked bag -- I did not want to risk losing my pretty bird scissors -- and promptly cast on for the second. What you see here is the result of knitting at the gate while waiting to board and during my lunch break today.

It looks like I'll have a decent amount of yarn leftover when the second sock is done. I'll have to weigh the leftovers to see just how much, but it's possible I might get a short pair of socks for Rainbow out of what's left.

I did a bit of knitting on my double-knit cowl last night, and I'm close to finishing up the first pattern repeat. The pattern is finally starting to emerge, and it's exciting to see that it works in yarn as it appeared to work on paper.

I don't know if I mentioned that the yarn I'm using is Yarn Hollow Tango, a luscious blend of 85% Polwarth wool/15% silk. The Ravelry page for this yarn says that it comes in a put-up of 662 yds./605 m per 7.97 oz./226 g, but my skeins are labeled 4 oz. and 330 yards. Considering this is a DK weight, that's still pretty generous yardage. The yarn is really delightful to knit with, too. The silk adds a bit of sparkle, and I'm pretty confident that when I block the cowl I'll be able to get some additional length and drape from it.

Rainbow started kindergarten today (can you believe it?), so on my to-do list tonight is typing up the instructions for her school sweater. It's likely to be a while until she needs it (her only complaint about her first day was that she got all sweaty from playing on the playground), but I'd like to get started. I'm sure it will be sweater weather before I know it.

Double Fun

I officially have a new knitting obsession: double-knitting. I cast on this cowl the other night and I just cannot put it down!

I will admit that it's a slow process, and now that I'm into the pattern I really do need to knit a bit more slowly so that I can be sure not to make a mistake, but it's very addictive. I still think I'm going to leave it at home this weekend because I don't think it will mix well with socializing, but I'm sure I won't be able to wait to get back to it.

What will be coming on the trip with me are my handspun socks, which are moving right along. I'm nearly through the gusset on the first sock.

These will be good and mindless, I think, so they should be good for carrying around. They're being knit on size 0 needles, so they move along fairly slowly, but I suppose it might be possible to finish them. So maybe I'll stick an extra skein of sock yarn in my luggage just in case. If sock yarn doesn't count as stash, one in my suitcase doesn't count as luggage, right?

Mojo Reclaimed

For a while there I seemed to have lost my knitting mojo, but I'm happy to say that it's back in full force. It may be because the weather's been decidedly more fall-like this week, but in any case, I am feeling the urge to Cast On All The Things, just as I knew I would.

For one thing, I picked up the handspun socks again and took them with me to a Disney princess performance thingy we took Rainbow to on Saturday with some friends. Two hours in a dark arena meant quite a lot of sock leg, and now that this project has become my designated lunchtime knitting, I'm already into the heel of the first sock.

I'm still enchanted by the way this yarn is striping, and now I want to spin all my multicolor fiber this way.

Over the weekend I also picked up yarn to make Rainbow's school sweater -- if you can believe it, she starts kindergarten on Tuesday, and as she'll be wearing a uniform every day, she needed a matching sweater. This is Spud & Chloe Sweater, a really lovely 55% wool/45% cotton machine-washable worsted weight, in Pine Needle. I'm going to be knitting a basic top-down raglan cardigan using this book, and I may add some pockets to the front.

I knit up a quick swatch on Sunday, so now I just need to sit down with the book and pull out the correct numbers.

Meanwhile, I finished the green shawl sample on Sunday afternoon with just enough yarn to spare. I really thought it wouldn't be as close as it was, but I think my skein was a bit underweight to begin with. Fortunately, I had enough to bind off and weave in the ends, and the shawl has now been blocked. All that remains is a photo shoot and to finish writing up the pattern.

Last night I was feeling a little twitchy, so I decided to cast on yet another project. I've had a double-knit cowl in my plans for quite some time, and seeing as I'd wound up the yarn for it last week, I decided last night was the night to finally start it. I did a two-color long-tail cast on (a pretty nifty trick once you get the hang of it) and just started the first round before I ran out of time.

I'm now trying to decide if I should take this with me when we go away this weekend (a quick trip out of town for our family reunion) or take something else that will be relatively mindless, as I might not want to be juggling the two skeins of yarn. There will be lots of time with the family when I won't be knitting, of course, but there will also be time on the plane and in the car to get there and back that I can't bear to waste.