Quietish

I’ve been tagged for this meme by Dina, who flatters me by believing my blog to be worth reading. (Mwah!)

I’m torn between posting links of people who I know so that I can tag them and actually expect them to reply and posting links of people I don’t really know so I can skip the tagging part. I think I will go with the latter and skip the tagging. heee

1. Claudine Hellmuth - inspiring, whimsy art
2. Franklin Habit - hilarious writer, artist, and knitter
3. Wee Wonderfuls - colorful, adorable crafts
4. Whip Up - crafty aggregator
5. Wil Wheaton - a funny geek, what’s better?

So this past weekend turned out to be quite full of knitting. Last year when registration opened up, I signed up for the full weekend of SWAK’s Corral retreat. I had wanted to the year before, but really didn’t know anyone yet so I didn’t bother. (Wish I would have now… Lucy Neatby, Lily Chin, and Cat Bordhi!)

A few months ago when I was starting to suspect that May would be an extremely hectic month for me, I backed out. This made me sad. And then a few weeks ago, in a show of amazing fickleness, I decided I could make it after all. I signed back up for the Saturday all-day workshop with Myrna Stahman and on Saturday night I added on the Sunday class as well.

If you have a chance to take a class with Myrna, please do so. Saturday’s workshop was for a Faroese shawl, which she designs top-down with really interesting shaping. So now I have a little portion of a shawl in Jaggerspun Zephyr laceweight that I can pick back up when I have a little more time for such a project.

Sunday’s class was Seaman’s scarves which, along with the Faroese shawls, are featured in her book. These scarves have ribbing on the back of the neck for a nice fit and have matching lace patterns worked from the ribbing-down. I started mine in SWTC Bamboo that Julie had passed onto me.

I had a good time and was worn out real well by both nights afterward. I only wish I could have taken classes with Leigh Radford and Kathleen Power Johnson as well. Happily, I now have my copies of Stahman’s Shawls and Scarves and One Skein signed by the authors! I’m building up a nice collection of signed knitting books.

There are a few more pictures for your parusal on Flickr.

Yesterday I didn’t do a whole lot of knitting but today Luna’s been helping me knit. She doesn’t seem to notice the yarn feeding from under her face.

Walked tonight, as (mostly) usual. I’ve just:

Reached dike and hedge. Former boundary of Cardolan, part of the North Kingdom of Arnor. (124.66 miles as of a bit ago)

After last week, I’m a bit surprised to find that at least the latter part of this week has been fairly productive knitting-wise. After finishing Penelope on Wednesday, I cast on for another sock. Just a bit ago, I finished it. Odd, that.

Back a couple of months ago when Justin took a trip to San Francisco, I encouraged him to seek out a yarn shop or two (he’s a new knitter ya know!). While he was at it, sweet guy that he is, he picked up some goodies for me. Sock yarn always wins points of course, but he thought it would be fun to grab two different colors so I’d have a mismatched pair.

Well, you can see my answer to that above. Sock number two of this pair (hereby called Fred and George) will have blue as its main color. It’s a simply constructed sock, but I’m thinking about writing it up anyway so I can explain how to do the stripes and make 2 balls of different colored yarn work for a pair of socks. Thoughts?

Yesterday I spent a fair bit of time playing around with a new (as in, still in beta) knitting site called Ravelry. It is bogglingly awesome. Anywho, it made me realize that I should probably take a current picture of my previously mentioned lace experiment.

If the experiment works, as I believe it is, this will eventually become one side of Orangina by Stephanie Japel. The use of laceweight yarn (from Gourmet Yarn) in a top originally written for more of a fingering yarn is an attempt to creatively Knit From My Stash.

And to top it all off, tomorrow I am headed up to Guthrie to take a day-long class with Myrna Stahman, care of SWAK.

Cahrazy.

I don’t think I’ve posted about these at all. I’ve had these going for some weeks and didn’t even think to take progress pics. They were a casual project though, and were very pleasant when I sat down with them.

Pattern:
completely hacked up version of Retro Rib from Favorite Socks
Yarn:
Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino in color 207 (with Addi Lace Needles, size 1)
Comments:
These socks came about when I happened to go into Gourmet Yarn to get some Addi Lace needles. I picked up a size 1 and since I didn’t have any yarn with me I grabbed the Cashmerino as well. Started a toe while I was there and liked the fabric so much that I kept it.
I had my usual debate about whether I should make plain socks and once again decided I needed a little something to keep me interested so I picked out the Retro Rib pattern. The balls of cashmerino are enough for a sock each but not really long socks so these are between anklet and “regular” sock length. It’s a good length and I’m happy.
Did I mention how soft and pettable these are? Very nice.

And for posterity, here’s my stack of finished ATCs for the swap with HP Crafters PR. If you’re in the swap, feel free to ignore this :)