Final FOs of 2007

I got my knitting mojo back at the last minute this holiday season and cranked out a few last minute gifts.

Up first is Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's one row scarf, knit in the familiar Noro Kureyon, colourway 157. I think I finally accepted that it was going to be a long time before I bought the 14 additional skeins necessary for a Lizard Ridge. Maybe I'll get back to that...sometime in 2009.



Yarn: Noro
Skeins: 2 + a bit of a third
Needle Size: 4.5mm
Firsts: Not a one. This is not exactly a challenging knit, though it is a nice variation on the typical ribbed scarf.

Up next: Wisp. Yes, at long last, I finished the damn thing. It only took an hour or so from when I tackled the mess I created back in August. I had to be very zen when dealing with all the torn threads. Wine probably helped.



I got bored of pinning it and took a photo halfway through blocking. Seriously, there are fruit flies with longer attention spans than me. As you can see, it's about the length of a full-size ironing board. As you probably can't see, what with my gift for shaking the camera, is how pretty the simple fishnet lace pattern is with the Kidsilk Haze. Now that I know one must cast off very loosely, I'll probably make another one. Especially since I was planning on making this for me and ended up needing it for a last-minute gift.

Yarn: Rowan Kidsilk Haze, Colour Liqueur
Skeins: Only 1. It's almost a budget scarf!
Needles: 4.5mm
Firsts: You know, I started this so long ago that I don't even remember. I think it was my first time using anything below a DK.

And last, I sewed in the ends of the Clapotis that's been done for months and blocked it. Here it is, blocking with the scarf:



I locked my mom out of her own bedroom and blocked it the day before Christmas. Procrastinator? Me? Strangely, my mom also has crap lighting in her house. It seems to run in the family.

And here it is on me, in my attempt at a flash-in-the-mirror type shot. The only reason I'm including it is to show off my kicky new shorter hair.



Yarn used: Araucania Atacama. No idea what colourway.
Skeins: About 5. There is no dye lot with these, so I would frequently discover that one skein was much darker and switch to a different one. Gorgeous wool, but I think I'll be sticking to one skein projects with my remaining skeins.
First: Deliberately dropped stitches. I only panicked for the first ones.

And that should round out 2007. I currently have two cardigans and one jumper on the needles, so I'm hoping to be a bit more productive in 2008. I'm also probably going to be switching blogs. It occurs to me that I still need a place to babble on about knitting, and I plan to have a much less crazy life sometime after May. Sure, it's five months off still, but I'll take what I can get. Um, point. Yes, I'll be switching, because I've been working with Wordpress so much for Pop Vultures that it feels far more comfortable than Blogger to me. I've been knitting a year now; why not graduate to a new blog? I'll post about it when it's ready.

The eternal wisp

I am, it must be said, very bored of wisp. The pattern is dreadfully easy, with no stitch more complicated than k2tog, but the fact that it is lace ensures that it still requires too much of my attention. Straight tv knitting is out, it seems.

Since I was in Glasgow for most of the last two weeks, I didn't get a lot of knitting done -- this is despite being stuck in Stansted airport for 12 hours. Curse the restrictions on knitting needles. However, I buckled down this weekend and am now about two-thirds of the way through:


A close-up:


I am trying to force myself through the last few rows, but it's not calling to me right now. This has been made worse by the yarn that followed me home from Glasgow, which is calling to me and demanding to be swatched. My friend lives mere steps from K1 Yarns, and every time we headed into town, or to the pub or cafe, I had to pass by it. I resisted as long as I could, but I am only so strong. Eventually, I gave in and let myself be seduced by 10 skeins bright red Artesano Alpaca (a much bolder red than the photo suggests).


Of course, now I'm not sure what to do with it. I was planning to knit Rhiannon with it, but I'm not convinced alpaca is the best fiber for what is essentially a tank. Of course, I didn't get enough for a proper jumper, and too much for gloves or a hat, and I am sick to death of scarves. Perhaps I will just pet it for a bit and instead try to find a use for the acid green cotton that is currently haunting my stash.

Wisp hits a snag

I write about my cats here more than I might actually like. I don't WANT to be crazy cat knitting lady, you know. It feels as if that title automatically ages me thirty years and I should hit the local furniture shop for a rocking chair. But sometimes, they make it very difficult to NOT talk about them. Behold exhibit A:

Kidsilk Haze, as it looked when I first opened the package. The colourway is Liqueur, and it is gorgeous.

I was in London for a few days for a conference, and brought the yarn along with me, hoping to knit on the train (a highly unsuccessful effort, by the way -- lurching trains + laceweight yarn = brand new levels of knitting frustration). When I returned home at the end of the last day, exhausted from a long week of seminars and trains (and, let's be honest, a fair bit of wine, as well), I dropped the bag by the front door. This was my first mistake. The second mistake was not noticing that I'd left the side pocket, the one holding the yarn, unzipped.

Now, you have to understand one thing about my house. It is quite large. Much larger than a single person actually needs, and far too big to ever keep clean. This does not mean I am minted, sadly; the house is terribly run down, with electrics constantly exploding and enough peeling paint to ensure that I will contract lead poisoning one of these days. It was actually the cheapest house I could find when I was looking, which was its primary appeal. However, it IS a big house, and that is the important part to this story.

About an hour after returning home, I noticed that a skein of Kidsilk Haze was by the foot of my bed. On the third floor. For one moment, I dared to hope that it was the second skein, the one I did not bring to London, but I knew that one was tucked safely away in a drawer. This was the skein in my bag. And, sadly, it was not the entire skein, as the yarn clearly was heading out the door. I picked it up, and began following the trail: out the bedroom, down the stairs, to the landing, down more stairs, on to the second floor, around the corner, across the next landing, down a second flight of stairs, across the dining room, through the doorway, and back across the front room of the house, all the way to where I first dropped my bag. Ava had managed to carry the skein through the entire house, missing only the kitchen in her travels, and leaving a mohair trail in her wake.

The result:

The pattern for Wisp says you can get by with one skein. I'm hoping that one and a half will do the trick.

Of course, even as I try to knit, Ava keeps grabbing the yarn in her mouth and attempting to run off with it. It is, apparently, hers. I have defended the knitting enough to produce the first inch of the wrap:

So far, I like the project a lot. Sadly, today I must clean in preparation for going out of town tomorrow, so its progress will wait another week.

But I am locking it in an impenetrable safe to protect it from the feline menace.