Knitterly Things Meme and Flowers

But first, a minor complaint: Yesterday I stopped by a fast food restaurant for supper on the way home. Yes, it was raining, but there were about 10 cars waiting in the drive through lane. At this point it wasn't raining all that hard and there was NO ONE inside. NO ONE ordering at all and two people just waiting to take an order. Most of the cars had single people inside, no kids to have to get out of the car. I got my kids out of the car and ran all of ten feet into the restaurant and was out of there before several of the cars even ordered. Barely got wet. I'm sorry, I just don't get it. Even with my knitting that line would have driven me crazy. So if you're still with me here's a meme I've seen here and there (and if you're still with me, here's another pretty flower):

Ten Knitterly Things You May Not Know About Me
1. My aunt taught me to knit when I was about ten. She taught me on chopsticks because that's all she had in the house at the time.
2. I love lace. Okay, so you probably did actually know that, but I also used to tat and crochet lace. I'd love to try bobbin lace.
3. I love to challenge myself in my knitting. I see something I want to try and I just try it.
4. I learn techniques much better from a book and trying it than someone showing me.
5. I knit continental.
6. I've only been knitting again just over two years.
7. I have been known to rip almost an entire sweater because I wasn't happy with my stitches. To my husband's dismay, my perfectionist streak does not carry over to housework.
8. I'm allergic to mohair. My sinuses get all swollen and hurt. I know this only from spinning; I don't know if it carries over to yarn. I don't think I'd ever try an all mohair yarn, but I really want to try Shaeffer Anne sock yarn, such pretty colors. It's only 25% mohair and it would eventually be on my feet. That shouldn't affect my sinuses, right?
9. I do wear the shawls I make. I don't do much in the way of fancy so I usually just wear them over a nice tank or shirt with jeans. The triangular shawls and rectangular stoles I wear draped over the shoulders and loosely tied in front. I wear them to the library, the grocery store, my kids' Tae Kwon Do class, wherever.
10. My goal in knitting is to design and knit a huge, intricate Shetland type shawl.

Okay, you've suffered enough. For those interested, the flowers are a moon flower, two morning glories and a couple of pansies.

WIP Wednesday

I've been rather slack about posting lately. Part of it is that I have a boring life. Not that I'm complaining - boring is good, but it doesn't make for good blog fodder. I'm still sort of in a knitting funk. Just working a little here and there. Mostly on my Wool Peddlar's Shawl. I'm very close to finishing (and the color, at least on my monitor, is actually fairly close for once.)


I've also been working away on my poor slipped rib socks that have been untouched for months. This is the second of the pair.

I love Trekking yarn. I finally decided that I had to have some socks going since the weather's getting chilly and I always have cold feet. But I'm not going to work exclusively on socks like I did a few months ago. That truly made me not even want to think about socks for a while. It is very hard to resist the call of all the pretty sock yarn out there for long though and I've got some new stuff coming.

What have I been doing with myself besides knitting? Watching new episodes of House and Bones. Playing video games. Homeschooling. Exercising. Trying to take Latin back up. (Yeah, I know, I'm strange and you'd think I'm even stranger if I told you I wanted to learn Ancient Greek, wouldn't you?) Like I said pretty boring stuff. Good for me, bad for anyone looking for actual interesting things in reading the blog.

WIP Wednesday

I think Margene said it perfectly the other day after she finished her lovely Seraphim. There is an ennui after finishing a beautiful lace project where it's hard to really get into anything else. That's not to say there's nothing to show today. I've actually made a bit of progress on several different things because I haven't been able to stick to just one thing.

For the first couple of days after finishing Icarus, I didn't even feel like knitting, so I played with my Golding spindle and some lovely pink to pink-purple silk I got at this year's MD S&W.

Yes, that is tiny thread that I'm making there. I knit with tiny thread, so that's what I spin. It will take a while, but while I'm quoting Margene, "It's the process." You may not believe it, since I do love a finished project, but I am more of a process knitter and spinner. That's probably why I typically can't stick to one project because I need a little lace and some Fair Isle and maybe some socks and spinning. There's always something for me to work on no matter my mood.

Since I just finished a lovely lace project, I really didn't feel the call to laceweight just yet, so it's a good thing I had a couple of non-laceweight projects in the works.

The snowman vest

and the Wool Peddlar's Shawl (the color of which I just can't seem to really capture no matter how many pictures or playing with Adobe).

I think socks are calling to me again. Not in an obsessive, it's-the-only-thing-I'm-going-to-work-on way like a few months ago, but I have a pair that I came across the other day that really wants to be finished and I have such lovely sock yarn in my stash and there's Lolly's second annual Socktoberfest coming up. (She's up to over 700 participants as of this morning. Wow!)

(As usual you can click on the picts for a larger view.)
On the blocking board:

Being modeled:

And the close-up:

The specs:
Pattern: Icarus Shawl from Summer 2006 Interweave Knits by the wonderfully talented Miriam Felton
Needles: Size 3
Yarn: Alpaca Silk from Webs; it's a cabled yarn and I had to uncable it to get the yarn I wanted, but man worth the work.
Modifications: I added a beaded row per Mim's instructions. My beads were 6 mm white glass pearls.

It was worth every bit of the effort to uncable the yarn and do the knitting. I fell in love with this shawl the second I saw it in IK, simple and elegant, but didn't have a yarn for it. Then I got my Webs order and knew the pink was for my Icarus. I absolutely love the beaded row and I'm so glad that I did delay working on the shawl long enough to find out about it because it absolutely does make the shawl. The pictures, as usual, just don't do the shawl justice. I love it, in case you can't tell.

(Blogger seems to be having some problems and I accidently deleted the post while trying to edit something and therefore deleted at least one comment inadvertently before I even read it:( I'm not happy with Blogger right now.)

WIP Wednesday

In theory, Icarus should be long finished by now. And I should be farther along on the Snowman vest and the Hex Coat (which has had no progress). But I haven't been knitting as much as I should. (And no, it's not because of the computer game I let myself get sucked into. No, really, it's not. Really.) Anyway, this rumpled mess is Icarus. So close...

I'm on the very last chart now, maybe fifteen rows left with the beading rows, so it shouldn't take too long at all. But remember those beads from last post? This is my main distraction from knitting.

These adorable little ornaments come from the latest issue of Bead & Button. They are so tiny and adorable.

Speaking of the beads, I had a few questions about the little bead boxes. They actually came in a case I got from Walmart. The case is about the size of an embroidery floss box, but instead of the compartments there were all these little boxes and it has a handle. Very handy and neat.

And last, but not least, who's going to the Fall Fiber Fest next month? :)

I am a Yarn Snob

I freely admit it. I am a yarn snob. I usually do not work with acrylic anymore and it's because I just don't like it. My Sit 'N' Knit friends and I are making friendship afghans, basically we're each doing a unique square in each person's color and then we'll put them together and each have a small afghan with nine 12 X 12 squares. We decided on a certain brand of acrylic yarn because it's very available and it's washable and it does soften a little with use and washings. I used to use the stuff when I crocheted a lot, but I was on a tight budget then. Now, I've become a terrible yarn snob and I really just don't like working with it. It hurts my hands and it's incredibly slow even though it's worsted weight. I just don't like it. There, I've said it. I feel better now.

Here's some eye candy in exchange for the complaint:

Seed beads and Swarovski crystals to play with. (I know, I know, I have enough things to work on.) Not pictured are the pretty white glass pearls that I got for Icarus. I figure you'll see those soon enough.

WIP Wednesday

I'm still trying to catch up in Blogland; it's amazing how busy you guys are while someone's out of town for a week. And you don't have the decency to just stop blogging while one catches up:)

Here is progress on the Snowman Vest:

And Icarus:

I've just started Chart 2 and I've ordered white glass pearl beads to put on it. Since I'm on the subject of Mim's shawls, have you seen her new shawl? I just had to have it along with Mountain Peaks. So now I'm on the lookout for the perfect yarn for Hidcote and Wing of the Moth. Both need very special yarn indeed. I was completely in love with the simple elegance of Icarus, but Hidcote, man, it's just so gorgeous! All I can say is Wow! I'm thinking something in a lavender color.

In other news, I got my hair cut this weekend. To most of you, this may not seem like such a big deal, but my hair was waist length. It's now halfway up my back with a bit of layering. It's definitely a change, but I usually get a good haircut about every half decade. (My hair grows really fast. It was cut chin length about 5-years-ago and I've had a couple of inches trimmed off several times.) I like it long, but it just gets too heavy and cumbersome every so often.

Sad

I just wanted to say how incredibly saddened I was to hear about Steve Irwin's death yesterday. I don't like snakes, but I always enjoyed watching him play with deadly snakes very matter-of-factly. After messing with all those deadly things, for him to be killed by something normally not lethal. I guess he was killed doing what he loved. I can't help being sad about him and for his family.

Vacation

Hello all! I missed WIP Wednesday because I was on the beach. Lots of sun (with SPF 50, of course) and lots of fun. At least before Ernesto started making the weather really crappy and we decided to come home a couple of days early. So, you'll have to wait until next week to see progress on Icarus. (Besides, it's really cloudy and rainy right now, so I doubt I'd get a decent picture anyway.) Until then, I can give you a couple of pictures taken in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

This is the Bodie lighthouse. Unfortunately, you can't go up in it, unsafe conditions and all that.

We also got to go to the Wright Brothers museum in Kitty Hawk, but somehow missed getting any photos. We listened to a talk on the Wright brothers and flight which was really interesting except for the fact that the speaker was a complete chauvinist. He conjectured that the brothers were such geniuses because they never married. 'Scuse me? If he had looked over at me at that particular point, he would have gotten a pretty nasty look. I can name many so-called geniuses who were in fact married. He also said a few other somewhat chauvinistic things. But I digress... We also missed getting pictures of all the cool horse statues around the island (they were really cool - painted patchwork, some had wings, etc, but I just never had my camera with me) and most of the pictures of the beach have me in them and I'm just not brave enough to put a picture of myself in a bathing suit up for all the world to see. We did get pictures at the aquarium. Including these guys:

They look hungry, don't they?

Sorry for the lame post. I'll be making my blog rounds this weekend. Enjoy your weekend and I hope Ernesto doesn't ruin anyone's weekend too much!