While I love Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, I am not sure if I am totally enamoured any more with the sock pattern that I started on last week. Right now it is hiding underneath the bed. I think that worrying over the chart is getting in the way of me enjoying the yarn to the fullest, so I think I'm going to rip it all out and start on something simple and boring like a 2x2 ribbed sock or something. That'll go quicker and I can power through it and on to the next one, on to the next pair. My new shoes have arrived and right now I want finished socks more than I want to fiddle with reading lace charts. So, that's that!

Fantastic article on mirrored knitting. See, I'm NOT doing it wrong!

Last night I wanted to photograph my Hanging Garden Stole so that I could document my progress. Oh, vanity.

In so doing, one of the edges slipped off the needle. Luckily nothing unraveled beyond the marker after the garter stitch edging. I had to use my lace-crocheting great-grandmama's microscopic steel crochet hook to pick the stitches back up.

Crisis averted, or so I thought. I put an embroidery thread lifeline in. Sadly, I had just finished a right-side row rather than a purl row. This came into play later.

I pinned it out on a towel and took some photos of it. That took approximately 5 minutes.

Then I had to spend an HOUR getting the work back on the needle. Why? The yarnovers all flattened out and the fuzz of the alpaca combined with the fuzz of the embroidery floss. The K1s between the yarnovers ceased to be loops, and sank down tightly surrounding the embroidery floss. Hence, more work with the microscopic steel crochet hook. I'm not sure what I would have done if I hadn't had that hook, but it turned out to be exactly the right tool for the job.

Everything is back on the needle now in the right order and twisted properly. But after I was done I put it in a Ziploc bag and threw it in the corner. I had been so motivated to work on it last night, but after putting it back on the needle, I couldn't bear to look at it any more.

Oh, and the photos? Turned out blurry and unfocused. So if I actually want documentation pictures I'm going to have to take them again.

My Ebay yarn arrived yesterday afternoon.

!!!

I started on a sock last night, one from Cat Bordhi's book Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles. I think its official name is Columbine? I don't recall. I haven't gotten past the ribbing to the interesting part yet.

I have officially decided that now that I have used Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, there is no reason to buy other sock yarn. It's sproingy. It's not splitty. And it makes my stitching look good. What more could I ask for?

This past weekend my husband bought for himself a Nokia 770 internet tablet. It is good that he actually has one, because for several weeks before ever other word out of his mouth was Nokia 770. The good part about this was that I got an equivalent yarn allowance.

From the extremely dangerous Land of Ebay, I got several skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock. My new winter shoes are Mary Jane style, so I figure I need all kinds of nifty colored socks to wear with them. I also got four skeins of Lorna's Laces Lion and Lamb to use for Clapotis.

Yes, I'm jumping on a bandwagon BUT--I have a romantic notion that when I go to Oregon in the winter, I will wear nothing but shawls. Additionally I got 1 skein of Lorna's Laces Helen's Lace. Which means I now have Helen's Lace and Suri Alpaca laceweight that I got on my honeymoon to decide what to do with.

I've been eyeing "A Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness" in the book Lavish Lace to use the Suri Alpaca lace. The Swallowtail Shawl in the Fall 2006 Interweave Knits caught my eye as well. This means "Mists," "Clapotis," and "Swallowtail" before December, and taking a class in the Fall as well. Doable? Hm. But definitely romantic.

I have joined the Sivia Harding Yahoo Group, and it has had the desired effect on me, namely to find some motivation to begin working on the Hanging Garden stole with more regularity. I picked it up last night for the first time in a couple of weeks and without even trying or any kind of pain or anguish, I completed half a repeat. This almost never happens. I'm now toying with the idea of taking it to this week's Stitch N Bitch.

Reading the group has made me realize how beaded knitting is not like brain surgery and has left me wishing that I had put beads on the ends of my stole. I suppose I could add beads to the other end, but that would not be symmetrical. Perhaps someday I'll get around to ordering one of her kits.

I have fallen into a knitting black hole with Birch. I am really, really ready for it to be done but no matter how much I work at it it doesn't seem to be getting anywhere. I have reduced the stitch count per row from 299 to 99. I have committed the pattern to memory so that now it is totally possible to work on while watching Star Trek.

I have a teensy weensy ball of yarn left and let's not talk about how paranoid I am that I am going to run out. Who are all these people that are finished after 2 1/2 balls of yarn? And can I grab them and shake them?

Yesterday I knit for a total of 3 hours. I reduced the stitch count from 129 to 99 in that amount of time. There are what, twelve more repeats left? Let's get on with it!

For some reason, a week-long textiles workshop served to inspire me to charge prodigiously along on various and sundry lace projects, like...

Cozy from Knitty, now halfway complete:

And a closeup:

Birch by Sharon Miller from Rowan Knitting Magazine #34 is trucking right along, after recovering from some major, teeth-grindingly stressful surgery this afternoon...

And the fourth repeat of the Hanging Gardens Lace Stole is finished (fourth out of 14--inch by inch, I say!):

Going to go and rest my wrists now.

I've wanted to knit Eris for a long time. When Kepler wasn't working out, I picked up the pattern for Eris and for the first time since I downloaded the pattern at least a year ago, I didn't feel as though I was reading a foreign language. I had been intimidated by the pattern but it turns out that it's detailed and complete. It will be challenging, but a good kind of challenging.

I figured I would destash and use the yarn I was going to try to use for Kepler-Knitpicks Elegance. Clue 1: This yarn took marathon swatching activities to get the gauge called for in the pattern. I swatched with needles US 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, both flat and in the round. I blocked the swatches. I measured them. I waited longer and measured again (with different measurements this time!) Swatching helped me determine that I would need to use a size 3 needle for the collar portion and a size 4 needle for the body portion.

Then, I swatched a portion of the collar in the cable pattern. Clue 2: Cables look hideous and uneven, flat and boring. My knitting is tight, then loose. Then tight again. The cables splay. The yarn splits. I rip it out and try again. Same things happen. I rip it out and last night try a third time. Same thing. I put it down in disgust.

This morning while in the shower, it came to me. The alpaca/silk is "laying down" too much. It doesn't have the springiness that wool has. The springiness makes the cables pop, not lay limply as though they are trying to blend in to the background. I want fat cables that stand out. I want less hand pain. I want to be able to swatch a couple times, not 10 times, and be able to get gauge.

Conclusion: I'm going to put down the Elegance and step away. I'm going to make another yarn choice. The pain of "making Elegance work" is just too great. It was just not the right yarn for Kepler or Eris.

A couple weeks back I went to yon LYS to get a couple of other choices to swatch for Kepler. One was Mission Falls 1824 wool and the other was Debbie Bliss aran weight. While I was able to get gauge with each of these yarns, I wasn't in love with either fabric. I decided that I either needed to bite the bullet and find some of the actual yarn called for in the pattern, (Jamieson's Shetland Heather Aran) or use one of the yarns that had produced satisfactory, if disappointing, swatches. But both of them are too expensive. So, here I am in the corner, snarling at Kepler. I'm still in a sweater mood. Hrmph.