Garter Party

As I had intended, I have been working steadily on my First Point of Libra in an effort to get it wrapped up as quickly as possible. I'm feeling pretty good about the progress I've made, and I can definitely see the end in sight. I'm nearly finished with the penultimate stripe in the gradient, and if I can get Rainbow to bed quickly enough this evening, I might even finish the last one. Then all that will remain is the borders of the main color.

One thing that I have been doing with this shawl to keep myself from being crazy at the end is weaving in the ends as I go. Each time I've finished a stripe or a section, I've woven in the ends. I'm leaving little tails on them so that if I stretch the shawl when I block it they won't pop loose (if you leave a bit of a tail and the fabric stretches, some of that excess can be pulled into the fabric), so all I'll need to do at the end is trim them. Weaving in ends is one of those things that I don't exactly despise doing, but it certainly takes time that I'd rather use for actual knitting. This shawl does have a lot of ends (I think about two dozen, if I'm counting correctly), so that would likely take a good portion of an evening to deal with if I left them all for the end. This way, I can spend about five minutes here and there and save myself the aggravation.

The sun came out a bit over the weekend, so I was finally able to get some glamour shots of my finished Zeccola Cowl in fingering weight:

I got a good amount of additional length when I blocked it (it's now approximately 68 inches around), and it fits perfectly around my neck doubled. I wore it over the weekend, and I wore it to work today (it was pretty chilly this morning). It works perfectly to keep me a little warmer when it's not cold enough for a sweater.

I ended up using about 767 yards total of the two yarns, so just slightly less than the total used for the original. I probably could have squeezed out two more repeats if I really wanted to, but I'm happy with the length I got. The leftovers will go into the stash and perhaps become a square in Rainbow's log cabin blanket, if I ever get it out again.

My father's socks are still in progress and moving along regularly. The first sock was finished Friday night, and now I'm a little more than halfway done with the leg of the second sock. I'd like to finish them up as soon as possible, though I'm not sure that that will happen this week. I do, of course, want to get them to my dad soon so he can make some use of them before spring really comes, and I think he'd be happy to have them now, as he's been sick for the past week. He and I are alike in that our feet are always cold, so I'd love to help him feel better with some cozy wool socks!

Will This Be the Week?

After two months of working on this project, I think this week might just be the week I finish spinning the singles of my 8 oz. of Polwarth. When I sat down to spin this afternoon, this is what the bobbin looked like:

What you can see just behind the arm of the flyer is the last bit of the purple fiber, which I actually finished spinning today! That's right, I am officially into the light blue of the braid, the very last color I will have to spin to get these singles done. I am hoping to fit in a few spinning sessions this weekend (likely tomorrow evening, and for sure Friday night and perhaps Saturday night as well). With any luck, the next time you see this bobbin, it will be ready to be plied!

Meanwhile, as I am ignoring every other bit of fiber in my stash, it has grown a bit this past week with the arrival of my January Southern Cross Fibre shipment:

This is Shetland in a colorway called Trail Mix. I am hoping that this experience with Shetland will be a good one. I know lots of people rave about this breed, but I've never been all that excited with it. I wouldn't say I dislike it, but if I'm going to spin a toothier fiber, there are other breeds I'll go for first. Still, I keep trying it in the hope that one day I'll find the magical batch of Shetland that I'll love. And frankly, if anyone can do that, I think David of SCF is very high on the list of people who could.

On to the Next

Now that my cowl is done, I'm focusing most of my evening/weekend knitting time on getting my First Point of Libra done. I'm very close to finishing the main triangle and should be able to wrap it up tonight. Here's a pretty bad picture of my progress:

Up next will be the rest of the gradient stripes, which will be easy but also long. The one redeeming part about the main triangle is that the rows have gotten shorter, but now they will be getting longer. At least this knitting is fairly mindless, so it's a good project to work on while watching TV or a movie or chatting with friends. There's no counting to do or stitch pattern to follow, and that's something my frequently exhausted brain very much appreciates at the end of the day.

I'm still working on my father's socks and rapidly approaching the toe of the first sock. Although they feel like they are working up faster than my father-in-law's socks, they might end up taking longer at the rate I've been going (though bear in mind that I've really only been working on them during my lunch break at work and occasionally a bit in the evening while I wait for dinner to cook). I cannot express how happy I will be when this pair of socks is done and I can knit something in a color that I can actually see!

There have been many signs pointing to an early spring lately (all our spring flowers have shoots poking up through the ground, and I keep hearing birds tweeting in the morning), so despite the fact that it snowed again today, I'm starting to get a sense that I won't have much time to enjoy my Evenlight if I don't finish it up soon. So while I'm trying to focus on getting my shawl done, I think it might take a back seat to the sweater every now and then. The shawl just has to be finished by the end of March, but I fear that it will be too warm to wear the sweater if I let it sit until then. The good news is that I have a day off from work coming up (a day, I should add, when I'll be off without Rainbow), so I'm planning to use it to the fullest extent and get as much knitting done as I can.

Whee!

Hold on to your hats, folks -- my Zeccola Cowl is done! (It still needs to be blocked, of course.)

When I pulled it out last night, I only had six or seven rounds left to knit, which didn't take me very long. But then I had to do the long graft to connect the two ends of the tube. The first step in that process was getting the provisionally cast-on stitches onto another needle, and that took a bit longer than I was anticipating because the project yarn and the waste yarn kept sticking to each other. Once I finally got everything set up, it took me nearly an hour to do the graft. But now it's done and I'm very happy with it!

It feels like I was working on this project for a long time, but in actuality it was only about three weeks. Right off the needles, it's long enough to comfortably wrap around my neck twice, but I'm planning on stretching it a bit when I block it to get some extra length and a bit more drape. I ended up doing 16 repeats. I suppose I could have gone for 18, but I was ready to be done. There is still a bit of yarn leftover that will be going in the scrap bin (perhaps to become part of the log cabin blanket I started for Rainbow when I was pregnant with her?).

So now I have a total of three projects on the needles -- my First Point of Libra, which will now become my main focus until it's done; my Evenlight, which I'll focus on finishing once the shawl is done; and my dad's socks, which are my lunchtime knitting. Those socks are moving along fairly quickly, actually, or at least they feel like they're moving faster than the block socks did. I'm already through the gusset decreases on the first sock.

Three is still maybe one more project than I'm used to having on the needles at any given time, but I feel strangely liberated after having finished the fourth project. Now I just have to watch myself to make sure I don't cast on for something else!

Slow and Steady

The Gradient-along project continues for another week, though now I can say with confidence that the end is truly in sight. I spent a good four or five hours spinning over the course of the last three days, and I can see the progress on my bobbin.

I have finished the darkest purple of this braid (you can still see a little of it peeking through if you look closely) and have moved onto the lighter purple. After this shade is done, all that's left is the light blue. I'm going to do my best to fit in some spinning time during the week, and my fingers are crossed that I'll have all the singles spun by the beginning of March. I'm not even thinking about how long this large bobbin of singles will take to ply -- at least I know it can't possibly be as long as it's taking to spin the singles!

I've Reached That Stage

You know the stage I'm talking about -- that point in any project where you've lost the luster of the initial cast on and are wallowing in the interminable middle. That point when you can't wait to be done but it seems like all the time you're putting in isn't really resulting in any progress. I'm kind of at that stage with my Zeccola Cowl. Don't get me wrong, I'm still enjoying the pattern. It's just that I've been working on it almost every night and it seems to be moving so slowly despite the fact that I've gotten faster at knitting the pattern now that I nearly have it memorized.

I will say that in the last couple of evenings, I have noticed that it's become more of a pain to flip it around as I finish knitting half a round, so that's a sure sign that it's grown. I finished up the 12th repeat last night and started on the 13th. When I measured it last night before packing it away, it was approximately 44 inches long. I think that means that 16 or 18 repeats is going to be the magic number, but we shall see. Though I haven't weighed my yarn, the cakes are noticeably smaller. If I can keep up the pace, I might just finish it by next week.

Because I finished up the black socks last week, I needed a new lunchtime project for my work bag, so I thought I might as well get started on the socks for my father so he has some chance of actually wearing them before winter is over. The yarn for these is only marginally better -- dark brown, a colorway called Fedora (as with the black socks, the yarn is Knit Picks Stroll). I decided to make the stitch pattern a little less boring this time around (but not too wild -- let's not forget these are for a man who likes very plain things), so I'm doing two rounds of 2x2 rib followed by two rounds of stockinette. The result is a waffle-like fabric that I quite like the look of:

I'm pretty sure that when I'm done with this second pair of dark socks, I'm going to have to dig through my stash to find the brightest, most colorful sock yarn I have in my stash to knit the next pair. I'm also making a mental note to not ask for color preferences anymore (or maybe I'll just knit something other than socks for the dads next year).

The Gift of Unexpected Time

My plan for this past weekend was to take advantage of the fact that I would be home on Friday and Monday and get a lot of knitting and spinning done. What I did not expect, however, was another day off today! We woke up to freezing rain and a big mess outside. First Rainbow's school was on a two-hour delay, and the Mister volunteered to stay home with her because I'd taken the last two days off. But as I was slowly making my way up our street on my way to work (and I do mean slowly, because it was rather like walking across an ice rink in street shoes), my phone rang -- it was the automated notification from the school to say that they were closing due to the poor road conditions. So I turned around and headed home, and half an hour later I was in my sweatpants and sitting at my wheel.

But let's back up a bit. On Friday, Rainbow and I had a few errands to run, including a stop at Target to buy some big plastic bins. We spent part of the afternoon tossing and reorganizing my stash. I do not have a photo to show you, in part because I'm a little ashamed of just how much there is. In my defense, I will say that quite a lot of it is leftovers from other projects, and I'm planning to undertake a major charity knitting effort to use up a lot of them. I did throw out some smaller scraps (and scraps of yarn that I never liked knitting with in the first place) and earmarked some plain wool scraps for felted dryer balls. Rainbow also claimed some leftovers for her knitting.

On Saturday I pulled out my First Point of Libra to work on at my LYS, and I continued to work on it that evening and Sunday evening as well while I watched TV (it really is the best project to work on while watching something I need to pay attention to, because there's no chart and no counting). It's grown a bit since you saw it last, and now that the rows are less than 100 stitches long, it's moving along at a faster clip.

I am finding that I am enjoying knitting with the Shetland, though it is really rustic. It's just slightly thicker than the gradient yarn (it's a three ply as opposed to the two-ply gradient yarn), so the garter stitch fabric is a bit more robust. That means this shawl is going to be really cozy when it's done.

The most exciting moment of the weekend came shortly after dinner on Saturday, when I finally managed to finish my father-in-law's socks! Here is photographic evidence that they are, indeed, done:

One benefit of the cold weather is that our radiators are on full blast, and that meant that I was able to block these Saturday night, leave them on radiator overnight, and wake up to dry socks. They were then hand delivered on Sunday evening, when my in-laws came for dinner. The recipient was certainly appreciative, though I haven't yet gotten any feedback on whether or not they fit. (I'm assuming they do, as I made them the same size as a pair I made him years ago.) These represent half of my obligation sock knitting; I have dark brown yarn in my travel bag to start my father's socks during tomorrow's lunch break. I'm planning to change up the stitch pattern a bit, but they'll be essentially the same formula as these socks. If you'd like to see details, they're all over on my Ravelry project page.

Finally, there's my Zeccola Cowl, which is really starting to look big.

I've added two more repeats since taking this photo, and it's now measuring 36 inches long. I'm guessing that once I get to about 16 or 18 repeats, it'll be a good length (I'm counting on blocking to give me a bit more length; I want it to be long enough to double comfortably). The more I knit this, the more familiar I am with the stitch pattern, and I may just have it memorized by the time I'm done. Not that it will help me much at that point, of course. ;-)

The End of the Affair

I'll admit it -- I was cheating on my spinning project. Yes, I was having an affair with other fiber, even though I was meant to be spinning for the Gradient-along, which I'm hosting. But it's all over now, and the last skein has been plied.

You will recall that I had a braid of Falkland from FatCatKnits that was a Day's End braid -- meaning, presumably, that Ginny used whatever dye she had left at the end of the day to create a one-of-a-kind colorway. My braid was a mix of purples, blues, and neon greens. I divided up the fiber into most light and mostly dark bits, then divided each pile into thirds by weight. You've seen the resulting skein from the light bits, but here is the finished dark skein:

This skein is smaller, at 47 g and roughly 165 yards, but it did come out fairly consistent with the first skein. As with the first one, when the singles ran out on the first bobbin, I wound off from one of the remaining bobbins so I could ply from both ends of the resulting center-pull ball, and when that ran out, I did a bit of chain plying with was was left on the final bobbin. So for this whole spinning project, I think I only had a few inches of singles left when all was said and done. I really like it when I'm able to use up as much as possible, so that made me very happy.

With the two skeins combined, I've got just a smidge less than 425 yards, so this definitely falls into the light fingering category. I'm hoping to find a colorwork project that will use both skeins. If you've got a recommendation, I'm all ears!

Now that my cheating is done, I've returned to my Bee Mice Elf Polwarth, and after giving it a few hours of attention this afternoon, I'm getting very close to finishing up the first braid (the first half) of the fiber. Here's what it looked like when I sat down to start spinning this afternoon; I was just starting the transition from the pink over to the purple.

I'm now solidly into the dark purple, and if I can get in a bit more time tomorrow (when I luckily have another day off with Rainbow), I should be able to at least start the transition to the second braid. I'll be going from dark purple to dark purple, but the purple in this braid is more of a red purple whereas the purple in the second braid is more of a blue purple, so I'm planning to fluff out the ends and blend them together with the hope of being able to draft a bit of each color for a while to smooth the transition.

While I'm not giving myself a hard deadline for finishing the yarn, it would be really wonderful if I could finish the singles, at least, by the end of the month and then ply before the middle of March. We just made plans to go away for a week in late March when Rainbow is on spring break, and it would be lovely if I could take the finished yarn with me to start the knitting portion of the project. In any case, I am self-imposing a spinning restriction: I am not allowed to spin anything else until this project is done. I'm hoping the prospect of spinning something else will be good enough motivation to hold me to that.

Again and Again

Things have gotten a little repetitive around here. I am still working on the socks and they are moving along at a good clip -- I'm nearly finished with the leg of the second one. The only other project I've been working on the last couple of days has been my Zeccola Cowl (v. 2). I'm now in my seventh repeat of the stranded pattern and the whole thing is measuring about 23 inches long.

It did seem to not be getting any longer for a bit there, but I have realized that my yarn cakes are noticeably smaller, so clearly the yarn is getting used up. I will say that the benefit of knitting this pattern again is that, while I don't have the whole pattern memorized just yet, it's become much more automatic. Every time I get into the middle of the chart, I really only need a quick glance at it to remind me what to do. I am getting through about one repeat per evening, maybe a little more, and I think I'm aiming for roughly 20 repeats total, so I'm feeling good about meeting my goal of finishing by the first week of March.

This weekend I'm hoping to put in some time on my other projects. Rainbow has no school tomorrow or Monday, which means that the two of us get a long weekend. We have big plans to toss and organize the stash, but it's also supposed to be brutally cold this weekend, so covering myself with wool seems like a totally logical plan. I'd really like to spend some time on my sweater, especially, as it's been pretty much ignored the last two weeks. It's a shame, because this is a weekend it would be great to have it to wear!

Hello, Mojo

I'm not sure what did it, but something lit a fire under me this past weekend and I did a lot of knitting (spinning, too, but we're talking about knitting today). After having make little progress on my First Point of Libra, I whipped through the rest of the gradient strip on Saturday. On Sunday, I wove in all my ends (yes, really! I was being good!) and picked up along the side for the main triangle. I've now done a handful of rows and already really like what I'm seeing.

I know that left edge looks wonky, but that's just the cable of the needle misbehaving. I'm hoping that as there's more weight on it, it'll straighten out a bit, because frankly it was driving me a bit batty when I was knitting back and forth over 35 stitches and it was curling up. I am really into this knit now and frankly would be knitting it nonstop, but I decided that because I have more time to get it done (it doesn't need to be finished until the end of March), I should really concentrate on another project with an earlier deadline.

That project is my second Zeccola Cowl, which I am knitting as part of the knitalong in my Ravelry group. That is supposed to wrap up on March 8, so I really need to get my butt in gear and get it moving. I have added a few repeats since you saw it last, and I'm really happy with the way these two colorways are playing together.

At this point I'm not 100% sure how many repeats I'm going to do. In theory, I could keep working until I ran out of yarn, but as these are rather big skeins (462 yards each), I think I would wind up with a cowl that would be a bit unwieldy. I'd like this version to be about the same length as the original if not a bit shorter (this version is narrower, so I don't quite need the same length). I know I can block a bit extra out of it, so I will keep knitting until it looks like it's a good length and go from there. It would be really great if I could finish this up by the first week in March, as it would be great to wear it and show it off at the Pittsburgh Knit & Crochet Festival, where I'll be taking a class and perhaps wandering through the marketplace a bit.

The really exciting news is that am I officially halfway done with the black socks of doom! I Kitchenered the toe of the first sock last night after dinner. I know black yarn makes for a horrible picture, especially when there's no natural light to be had, but here is your photographic proof that it happened:

I have cast on for the second sock and am hoping that knowing that the end is in sight will make it less of a slog. I certainly hope to make progress on all my projects this weekend, when I'll have a rare four days in a row at home (Rainbow's school is closed Friday and Monday). We have some errands to run and I'm supposed to get my hair cut on Saturday, but it looks like it's going to be a bitterly cold several days -- a perfect excuse to stay inside and knit!

Nearly There

I did not spin at all during the last week. It was a rough week, and knitting felt more therapeutic, so I went with it. However, that meant that the last little bit of spinning that was needed to finish up the 4 oz. braid of FatCatKnits Falkland has been sitting. This morning I decided enough was enough. The rest of my family was out skiing all day, so once I got the last load of laundry squared away, I sat down at my Lendrum, put on some video podcasts, and finished up the second and third bobbin of singles.

You can tell from how little is on these bobbins that it did not take me very long to do -- maybe two hours altogether, maybe a little bit more, but not very much in the grand scheme of things. I'm going to let these rest for about a day and will likely ply tomorrow evening. Then I will be a good spinner and go back to my large gradient project.

I will say that finishing up this braid has been a bit of an exercise in patience. Aside from the time it's taken me, I've been spending much of it fighting with my wheel. Normally my Lendrum is very easy-going and quiet, but for some reason it's started rattling rather loudly during this spin. At first I thought it was just the bobbin and it was rattling because my back maiden was a little loose, but the rattle continued even after I tightened it. Then I tried adjusting the height of the whole head, but that seemed to make it worse -- I not only had the bobbin rattle, but now the whole wheel would shudder every 30 seconds or so. I have oiled the necessary parts and fiddled with all sorts of adjustments, but nothing seems to help much. I suppose the wheel could use a thorough wipe down, so perhaps once I'm finished with this project I'll do that and see if a bit of a spa treatment helps any. I know I would certainly benefit from it!

WIP Overload

While I am not in any way a monogamous knitter, there is a good reason why I usually have no more than two or three projects in progress. I'm experiencing a bit of WIP overload at the moment, and it's making me feel a little scattered because I never know what to work on at any given time. I currently have four projects on the needles -- my Evenlight, my second Zeccola Cowl, my First Point of Libra, and the black socks for my father-in-law -- as well as two spinning projects. Thus far I've been working on one project each evening, which seems fair to the projects but also means that I don't make much progress on any one.

Actually, that's not entirely true. The black socks are moving along, due strictly to sheer determination to get them over and done with. I am through the gusset on the first sock, and now that only half the sock is in ribbing, I think they will move a little faster. I have no real deadline for these socks, but obviously I want to finish them as quickly as I can. It would be nice to get them to my father-in-law while we're still in the middle of winter, though; he works as a school crossing guard and needs everything he can possibly use to keep warm while he's outside for several hours every day.

My cowl now has two full colorwork repeats done and I've started on the third. This time around, I'm only working four plain rounds between the stranded sections (the original has about 20 rounds between), so there's a lot of colorwork happening. That keeps things interesting but it also means I have to pay attention, so it's not as fast as some other projects.

I have only spent one evening this week thus far on my First Point of Libra, and that was the evening I cast it on. I am working on the vertical strip that has stripes of each of the colors in the gradient and have done exactly one and a half stripes. It doesn't look like much, to be honest.

This is probably the easiest knitting I have going at the moment. It's garter stitch, and the only things I have to remember to do on each row are to slip the last stitch and click my row counter. It will be a great project for my Saturday afternoon knitting at my LYS, as it's something I can knit while chatting without much fear of messing up.

My sweater, I must admit, has not been touched since the weekend. However, I had made decent progress at that point -- I think the last time I measured the body, I was a touch more than halfway to the required measurement of 14 inches from the underarm. I am a bit concerned that it will no longer be cold enough to wear this sweater by the time I finish it, though I suppose in that case I will put it away to wear on the first chilly day in the fall.

So now you understand my dilemma. I am enjoying all of these knits (well, maybe not the socks, but I'd like to get them done), so it's hard to pick just one to work on. I suppose this is why sometimes I don't knit at all but spin instead!

All the Knitalongs, All the Time

It's starting to look like February is going to be my month of knitalongs.

For one thing, there's the Zeccola Cowl Knitalong happening in my Ravelry group. I usually like to keep my samples nice, meaning I don't often wear them, so I wanted to knit a second cowl to have to wear out and about. I cast on for mine on Sunday afternoon and worked on it while making a big vat of soup for dinner.

I'm making a few modifications to the pattern this time around. For starters, I am using thinner yarn (fingering rather than sport weight), so I went down a couple of needle sizes. That means the cowl is going to be a bit narrower. I'm also working only three rounds between colorwork sections, so the stranded work is going to be pretty much continuous for the whole cowl. And I'm using only two colors this time, which will mean fewer ends to weave in, but as both yarns are slightly variegated, there's a bit of color play even in the rounds that are worked with only one strand.

Last night I cast on a new project for another knitalong, this time as part of my LYS's yearlong "Shawl Adventure." The first pattern is Laura Aylor's First Point of Libra, a squishy garter stitch shawl designed to show off a gradient. I'm using the gradient mini skein set I bought at Miss Babs at MDSW last year as well as a skein of handspun moorit-colored Shetland for the main color. Here's the yarn all together before I cast on:

I don't have a photo of my progress, but it's just a small strip of garter stitch, so not much to see at this point. The shawl has an interesting modular construction -- you start with the vertical strip worked in the gradient, then pick up stitches along one side in the main color. Following Laura's recommendation, I started with the darkest color in my gradient so that the neon green in the set will be at the top of the strip and the bottom of the horizontal stripe near the bottom. The knitting is fairly easy and mindless at this point; all I have to remember to do is to slip the last stitch of each row and click my row counter (there are about 50 rows of each color, so I need a reliable way to keep count).

There is no photographic evidence of my lunchtime knitting just yet (really, do you need a photo of black socks?), but it is moving along. I'd avoid it if I could, but I am working on it whenever I can if only so I can be finished with the horrid things. Next year, I'll remember to pick out the color on my own or, better yet, buy something from a store.

The Brights

I've finished my last skein of handspun for January, and it's a pretty one, if I do say so myself:

This is the result of spinning the lighter/brighter colors in my Day's End braid of Falkland from FatCatKnits. The fiber was 73 g to start with (from a total of 120 g) and split more or less in thirds. I did a traditional three ply spinning my default singles and ended up with a lovely fingering weight that's approximately 260 yards. The pictures here are doing a poor job of conveying just how bright some parts of this skein are -- the brightest green is very neon, almost like a highlighter.

I really did everything I could to use up every last bit of these singles. When the first bobbin ran out, I wound off what was left on the second bobbin so I could ply from both ends of it along with the singles coming from the third bobbin. When the second bobbin's singles were used up, I chain plied the bit that was left on the third bobbin. So the very end of the skein might not be that even, but I felt very resourceful.

The darker fiber is now on the wheel and should go a bit faster because I only have 47 g of it. Once that skein is done and I know my final yardage, I'll have to figure out what fun thing I can knit with this very colorful yarn!

Is It the Weekend Yet?

What a week it has been! Work has blown up this week, with big projects all arriving at the same time and needing to be done by the same deadline. The result has been a very stressful several days, and I am very much looking forward to the weekend to recover. I've been relying a lot on my knitting to relieve some of that stress, and while I haven't made a huge amount of progress, the rhythmic, repetitive motions of making the stitches has done a lot to bring my blood pressure down. And I did manage to finish a project!

Pattern: Sandrine Slouch Hat by Katy H. Carroll
Yarn: my handspun, from Crown Mountain Farms Heinz 57 fiber in Sumer (spun in October 2011!)
Needles: US 2 (2.75 mm) and US 3 (3.25 mm)
Started/Completed: January 18/January 25
Mods: none

This was a fun knit, and it went a lot faster than I was expecting (really the slowest part was the ribbing on the brim). I really like the cables, especially the way they're cleverly decreased for the crown. The pattern is very well written, and I'll definitely be looking at the other patterns in Katy's Virescent Collection in the future. I've still got a little less than half of the yarn leftover, so I'm thinking of making another hat in a smaller size (I knit the largest size for me).

I've spent the last couple of evenings working on my Evenlight, which seems to be growing more slowly now that I've moved on to the body. I've got about 4 inches knit under the underarms at this point; I need to get to 14 inches before I start the bottom ribbing.

I've reached that point in the project where I'm starting to worry I'll run out of yarn, even though I should have more than 100 yards extra according to the pattern's yarn specifications. I'm not panicking, because I can get another skein, but I'd prefer not to. Fingers crossed!

Tonight I should be finishing up one project that's been on the needles (one you haven't seen because it has to remain a secret for now), so that will leave me with just the sweater as an active WIP. That means it's time to cast on something new! For starters, I'll be casting on for the socks for my father-in-law -- plain black ribbed socks (to be knitted only in sufficient daylight, presumably). Those will be my lunchtime knitting for the foreseeable future. In addition, I'm going to knit another Zeccola Cowl for myself as part of the knitalong! I haven't yet settled on my colors just yet, but I know it's going to be two of these skeins from my recent Knit Picks order:

Originally I was thinking of using either the two greens or the two blues, but now I'm thinking the dark blue and the light green. I still might change my mind. For this iteration, I'm just going to use two colors and do the stranded sections pretty much continuously (so no big one-color sections between the stranded sections). There's still time to join the knitalong if you're interested, and there's still a few days left on the introductory discount on the pattern!

Pattern Release: Zeccola Cowl

You've seen the sample for this pattern a number of times as I worked on it back in December, but here, finally, is the finished piece. This is the Zeccola Cowl.

This cowl is an entirely seamless piece. It's knit in the round, starting with a provisional cast on, and when you're done, you graft the beginning and end together to form a continuous tube. This both makes the knitting easier and neater (because the wrong side of the colorwork and all the ends are hidden on the inside) and makes the finished piece extra cozy, as you end up with a double thickness of fabric.

The yarn I used for the sample is Frabjous Fibers' Wonderland Yarns line, specifically their Mad Hatter Mini Skein Packs. I picked two gradients: a neutral (#20 Dormouse) and a bright gradient (#31 Fuchsia to Turquoise). As you can see, the sections alternate between neutral and color, transitioning from the darkest to the lightest neutral and from the lightest to the darkest color. Each time a new color is joined, there's a stranded colorwork section.

As far as knitting skills go, I'd say this is a fairly easy knit. All you need to know how to do to knit this cowl is a provisional cast on, stranded colorwork with two colors, and Kitchener stitch to graft the ends together. The stranded pattern is the same every time, and it becomes fairly intuitive after a couple of repeats.

While I designed the pattern with the specific yarn in mind, it lends itself customization. In fact, I've included an extensive customization section in the pattern to help you adapt the pattern to just about any yarn you want to use and just about any number of colors.

If you think you might want to cast on right away, then I'd like to invite you to join us in my Ravelry group for a knitalong! We'll be knitting our cowls together for the next six weeks or so, and there will be prizes available for those who finish. We'll be around to help with color selection, customization, and any other questions you might have. I hope you'll join us!

Distracted

I am supposed to be spinning my gradient right now. You'd think I'd want to be, as it's my favorite fiber to spin, Polwarth. But I am not. Why? I've been distracted by bright green fiber. I suppose it's a reaction to winter and its darkness and lack of color, but really, can you blame me?

This was taken yesterday, as I worked on spinning the second bobbin of these singles (FatCatKnits Falkland, in case you were wondering). We did get hit by the giant snowstorm, though fortunately we were at the tail end of it and only got about six inches. That was enough to make the roads very messy, so we laid low at home and let the crews plow and salt before we ventured out. It was good to have the excuse to sit behind my wheel for a while.

Even in terrible light, the greens in this fiber seem to glow! I've moved on to the third and final bobbin, which I hope to finish up tomorrow evening. Then I suppose I'll go back to the long slog that my gradient spin has become -- as least until it's time to ply these singles.

Back to Sweater Knitting

As soon as I mentioned working on my sweater the other night, it seemed to light a fire under me. I've spent the last two evenings working on it, and I'll probably do so tonight as well. When I put it away last night, I'd just finished the raglan increases and started the round where I'll put the sleeve stitches on waste yarn. I'm very happy about that, because those rounds were getting long (each one was taking me about 15 minutes)! That's the tricky part about top-down raglans -- they seem so fast at first because you're only working on a relatively small number of stitches, but when you're increasing your stitch count by eight every other round, the piece starts to get big very quickly.

I call this composition "Gray Sweater Blob on Gray Duvet in Horrible Lighting"

This doesn't look all that much like a sweater at the moment because all those stitches are bunched up on a 32 in. circular needle, but once I've separated the sleeves from the body, I should get a much better idea of what it will look like. I suspect the body will move along a bit faster than the yoke because I won't have to worry about increasing every other round. I must admit that I haven't yet read through the rest of the pattern, so I don't know if there's waist shaping at all, but even if there is, it's likely to be minimal.

It looks like we're going to be pretty lucky and most of the big winter storm that's coming is going to miss us (I've heard estimates of 1-3 in. and 3-6 in. total), but it still looks like it will be another good weekend to curl up with my knitting. Assuming the roads aren't too bad, the Mister is planning to take Rainbow skiing on Saturday, which means I'll have the whole day to knit, spin, and basically do whatever I want (I suspect I'll have to do some adulting in the form of laundry and cleaning the house, but I'll try to keep that to a minimum). I will say that while I'm sick of winter -- the cold, the snow, the lack of light -- I do rather enjoy being forced to stay inside with my wool. People look at you kind of funny when you want to do it in the middle of the summer, but it seems totally logical and normal this time of year.

If you're in the path of the storm, I hope you stay safe and have plenty of food and wool for the duration!

All According to Plan

It's Tuesday, and I was finally back at work today after an unexpected five-day weekend. I hardly left the house the whole time -- just once on Sunday to do the grocery shopping and once yesterday to fill up my gas tank and put some air in my tires. It was the kind of weekend where I really didn't want to get out of my comfy clothes and go out into the cold, and, fortunately, I didn't really have to. I slept in, when possible; did some reading; and did a fair amount of knitting and spinning.

The spinning you saw on Sunday, and it hasn't progressed any since then, but the knitting is all new. For one thing, I cast on a hat for Rainbow and had it done in a couple of days. It might look a little familiar:

This is my own pattern again, albeit in a smaller size. I reversed the colors for hers, and I will likely still add a pompom (there is still plenty of yarn leftover, even after knitting two hats -- just another reason why I love this yarn!). Now that the two hats have been blocked, I can take some final measurements and do the needed calculations to finish up the pattern. With any luck, I'll be able to squeeze a photo shoot in next weekend and I'll have all the pieces I need to get it laid out and sent to the tech editor!

I cast on for a new hat yesterday, this one for me (though I expect it won't be worn for a while given that we're in a bit of a cold snap and it'll be a bit light for this weather). Part of my effort to knit down my stash includes my ever-growing stash of handspun, so I thought it would be great to participated in the 90% Knitting handspun knitalong. I pulled out a skein of Crown Mountain Farms Heinz 57 that I spun years ago (I don't remember exactly when, but the fiber was from an October 2011 club shipment). I'm using it to knit a Sandrine Slouch Hat, and while it's not a really fast knit, it is working up very nicely -- certainly nicer than this photo would have you believe.

I have not touched my sweater in probably more than a week, but I'm going to give it some attention soon. I spent most of the weekend wrapped up in an oversized sweater that's now in the laundry pile, so I could really use another one!

Spinning Variety

I have been dutifully spinning away on my Gradient-along project, though spinning fine singles means that even after hours at the wheel, it looks like little progress has been made. Still, I'm moving forward. I'm now well into the pink section of this braid, and purple (the final color in this braid) isn't far off.

It's not nearly so electric as it looks; gloom necessitates a flash.

This is such a big project that I decided I needed a little diversion. I've had a braid sitting next to my wheel for several months now -- I'd originally hoped to spin it during last year's Tour de Fleece, but I never got to it -- and I decided now was finally the time to spin it. This was a day's end braid of Falkland from FatCatKnits (meaning it used up the dye at the end of a day's dyeing) called Xavier. Here's what it looked like to start (it's the braid on the far right):

I decided to spin this a little differently, so I split the fiber up into lights (greens and blues) and darks (dark purples). Then I split each pile of fiber into thirds:

The idea is to spin a three-ply yarn of each and then use the two skeins in some sort of stranded colorwork project. I started with the lights, as that's the bigger portion of the fiber, and I got the first third spun up today (trust me it looks much better with real light):

It didn't take too long to spin, so this will be a nice break in between spinning sessions on the other project. And these bright greens and blues are so welcome on a gloomy winter day!

Surprise FOs

Sometimes you get some unexpected extra knitting time, even if it's not for a great reason. I was home today with a sick kid (and it looks like we'll do it again tomorrow), so I spent nearly all day sitting in bed, watching horrible kids' TV shows, and knitting. As a result, I managed to finish not one but two projects!

Pattern: my plain-vanilla sock recipe worked over 70 stitches
Yarn: Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce (80% superwash merino, 20% nylon) in After the Harvest (Brights), one skein
Needles: US 0 (2.0 mm) 40" Addi Sock Rockets
Started/Completed: December 29/January 14

I am quickly amassing quite a collection of striped socks, many of them knit from Lisa's yarn (and I have another skein in the stash, too!). These socks might look like they match, but they're actually just a slight bit different. The second sock (the one on the left in the photo) was started one stripe earlier in the sequence, and you see it if you look closely. I didn't really intend for that to happen, as I wasn't planning to obsess about having matching socks, but it's a nice bonus.

As soon as the last ends were woven in on the second sock, I picked up the colorwork hat to finish off the last of the crown decreases. I'm quite pleased with this one.

I weighed my leftovers and it looks like I will have more than enough for a coordinating hat for Rainbow (switching the order of the colors) plus pompoms, if I choose to add them. I still need to block this hat, and I'm looking forward to that because this yarn gets so lovely and soft and plush when you wash it. Rainbow is already asking when I will knit hers, so I will likely cast on tomorrow (during another day watching bad TV, no doubt).

I did get away from bed for a few minutes to wind some more yarn today, and some of it is already on the needles.

On the left is some handspun (Heinz 57 wool from the now-defunct Crown Mountain Farms fiber club) and on the right is some very well marinated Socks That Rock Lightweight -- so well marinated, in fact, that it's in the old put-up. The handspun is destined to be a Sandrine Slouch, while the STR is already being knit into a new pair of socks.

All Shades of Gray

The title of this post would be easy to apply to much of life right now. We're in my least favorite time of year, when it's cold and dark and there's hardly any color to be seen. That might explain why I've been knitting really bright socks (and I'm nearly done with the pair!). You've seen these before -- these are just my basic top-down stockinette sock in Fibernymph Dye Works Bounce in After the Harvest (Brights). I hope to have these finished before the week is out.

Also on the needles is the sweater I finally cast on for over the weekend, Jennifer Dassau's Evenlight in -- quite fittingly -- Deep Unrelenting Gray.

It took me a bit of time to get a handle on this pattern, as the stitch patterns on the body and sleeves are different and the sweater starts by being worked flat and transitions to being worked in the round. But now that I know what I'm doing, it's moving along at a good clip, which I suppose is at least partly because I'm working on size 8 (5.0 mm) needles. Considering most of the sweaters I knit have been worked on needles in the US 4 to US 6 (3.5 mm to 4.0 mm) range, these feel positively enormous and the fabric really grows visibly from row to row. I am knitting a size that will give me almost three inches of positive ease, so assuming it comes out as it should, it should be a sweatshirt-like sweater -- roomy and cozy and generally something you want to lounge around in. That is just the sort of garment I need at this time of year.

There's a third project on the needles that you have not seen yet, though I believe I did mention it last week. This is a hat to coordinate with the colorwork cowl I finished at the beginning of the year. I've finished the stranded portion, so now I just have to figure out how much additional length I want before I start the crown decreases.

Now remember when I was talking about my goals and intentions for the year and I said that I wasn't planning on buying yarn unless it was absolutely necessary? Well I may have had a little slip-up, though it started with the best of intentions. Back in December, when I was handing out my hand-knit gifts for the whole family, I gave my father and father-in-law IOU's saying I'd knit them socks in their choice of color and pattern. My in-laws were at our house over the weekend to babysit Rainbow, so my father-in-law took the opportunity to place his order, as it were. He wants black socks. (I know -- what I wanted least to hear. Actually, first he said he wanted "black with a white pattern," but I didn't think he'd really want stranded socks, so I convinced him to go with all black.) Then I checked with my father, and he asked for dark brown -- really only marginally better. I know these guys are both pretty much no frills, no special treatment type of guys, so I had planned to order some Knit Picks Stroll for their socks because I knew I could get lots of colors and plenty of yardage without breaking the bank. When I went online to order, I discovered that Stroll is on sale, so when I put the four skeins I needed for the socks in my basket, I realized that the total was not as much as I was anticipating -- and that meant some more shopping to get my cart to $50 and free shipping. So four additional skeins of sock yarn are on their way to me as well now (I figure I can always use them for shawls or designs or something). Please, don't judge. I tried to be strong and I failed. I'll do better next time.

Splendour in the Wool

This skein was finished last weekend, but the lack of daylight in general at this time of year and the gloomy morning weather we've had this past week have made it extremely difficult to get a decent photo of anything, so I had to wait until yesterday to get a photo that would do it justice. But here it is, finally:

Southern Cross Fibre Corriedale in Splendour

I had split the top several times vertically and then spun the strips end to end. Once all the singles were on a bobbin, I chain plied them (after they rested a good two weeks while we were on vacation). The finished yarn is fingering weight and approximately 385 yards, which should be enough for a pair of socks for me.

I will say that this yarn is maybe a tad underplied for my taste (I tend to like a lot of plying twist in my sock yarns), but the skein is balanced and that means less fighting with the yarn when I do eventually knit it up.

Meanwhile, I'm in the middle of what will likely be a long-term spinning project. This is my Polwarth gradient for the Gradient-along. I've just started seeing a bit of the second color show up on the bobbin.

I haven't taken a close look at the fiber that is left of this first braid, but I'm guessing I'm probably in the neighborhood of a fourth of the way through it. I have 8 oz. total to spin, and given how fine I'm spinning the singles, that's not going to be an easy task, so expect to see bobbin shots of this project for the foreseeable future.