The feats and foibles of a fiber fanatic.
5/4/2005
After a week or so slump, the Spearfish blog is alive and thriving this week, with Ann finishing her pair of socks, before Anita in their own private race. Paula and Clementine each have one sock completed and are on their way on the second sock. Clementine has set a goal for Sunday evening, as she is going to gift them to her BF’s mum! Good luck, Clementine!
In the Gathering of Lace Along we have some new members - some new to lace, some veterans. We’re at ten people total, including myself and my co-host, Snow. Some are still swatching and choosing yarns or patterns. Others are incredibly frustrated :-) It isn’t too late to join the fun! I’ve been so focused on Skyway Scoop that I haven’t gotten any farther on my Shaped Triangle.
Speaking of Skyway Scoop - she looks the same as yesterday (just scroll down), except perhaps the stitches along the neck line are a little stretched out. I knit on the neckline (all ~45-46 inches around) only to rip it last evening. I was devastated, but I was having an incredibly crappy day. Thanks to helpful suggestions and kind words from friends I’m doing better today. Though I may leave Skyway Scoop in the time out corner for today and focus on getting the pattern written up, properly sketched electronically and extrapolated into the other sizes. Just let myself calm down further. I’m still a little wound up from yesteday’s goings on…
I did take a little field trip to Target yesterday to pick up Gilmore Girls Season 3 and did a little impulse shopping/retail therapy. Spring Squatty found a friend…
It looks so good! It is smaller than my previous tri-fold wallet that was black and stuck out like a sore thumb as it sort of peaked out. This one tucks in completely and coordinates with the bag. Plus, it has a large section that has all kinds of accordioned sections so I can sort out all those frequent shopper cards etc. I also love the detail in the zipper pulls. They had a lot of really cute and compact wallets/coin purses in fun spring colors.
Also, while there, I saw that Debbie Macomber’s book, The Shop on Blossom Street was out in paperback and 25% off MSRP, so I picked that up as well. By bedtime, the day had sucked so bad that I couldn’t make myself read the book club book, so I decided I deserved reading something I enjoyed and before I knew it was 100 pages in! There will be more over in Culture Catalog in the next few days probably.
Lastly, much thanks to Margene for bestowing the honor of “Zen Blog of the Week” - my stats have gone through the roof! I some of you peeking in here will come back!
5/3/2005
I am nearing the home stretch! I had the official first “try on” of Skyway Scoop at SnB last night. Everyone said the shaping was great and that the back looked nice too! :-)
It did, however, take all of my self-discipline to not stay up all night doing the finishing around the neck and arms. I’ve spent some quality time this morning with some of my books that include finishing discussions to find it not terribly helpful. I was sort of expecting that. I already have two ideas in mind and I’ll start with the first one that I most want to use and hopefully it will work. Sometimes I like to “research” things to death. It would be *really* awesome if I completed it today, blocked it tonight and could wear it to Textiles a Mano tomorrow afternoon/evening!
I have two people locally willing to test knit it and model it for the official pattern. So I just need to extrapolate the additional sizes and get the schematic into electronic format etc. and get one or both of them test knitting soon.
In other news, Ashley, one of the first few to come to SnB regularly left us for three weeks to go play and steek in Denmark (okay, so she was over there for work, but with all the goodies she showed us last night from her adorable steeked infant cardigan to the stash expansion stuff she’s not fooling me ;-) ) was back finally! Oh how we missed her! Me, especially as we tend to also get together on the weekends sometimes as well and my weekends were void of knitting buddies while she was gone… However, she made up for her absence by bringing me a birthday present from Denmark . . .
Colinette Mohair, color 26, Turquoise
What gorgeous, rich color! I’m open to project suggestions on this one (except the scarf in Scarf Style in the feather and fan stitch pattern, I’m sick of that stitch pattern - call me fickle). It seems my mohair stash will soon rival that of my cotton stash unless I get knitting. Unless of course I fall prey to KnitPicks new yarns they’ve been releasing lately… :-)
5/2/2005
First up, this weekend was the secret pal reveal. So, I opened the card that was included in my last package. And, this is the card I discovered inside! A reprint of a cloud chart from 1936. Inside, I discovered that my pal is Kathy, of Kathode Ray Tube (love the pun, by the way). And, boy, was she right that we have a lot of things in common! Stop over and say hi to her if you get a chance. Perhaps we can encourage her to write a little more often :-)
This has been a great round of secret pal giving and recieving! BTW, stop over and say hi to the gal I was gifting too… Jami… I’m running a little behind on her last package because of the large amount of “bed” time I’ve had lately and last week’s snow.
And, despite no huge chunks of knitting time this weekend, Skyway Scoop is well on its way to the finishing stage. Of course, that means I need make a final decision on how I’m going to do the finishing around the arms and neck. I have some ideas and it might just be a bit of trial and error to make the final decision.
The back is done, the front armhole shaping is nearly done and the neckline is making some significant progress. I think I’m really going to like this tank top! I keep thinking how great it will look with my white capri pants and my thin white cotton cardigan :-) Of course, it’ll also look great with the second attempt at Clapotis as well whenever I get that wrapped up, LOL! *sigh*
Oh, and in non-knitting news, I started water aerobics once again this morning. That means on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I won’t likely be getting around to posting until around noon or so Mountain time…
4/29/2005
We really, really took our time at dinner last night. It was a blast and the food was pretty good, if a bit on the expensive side and slightly “unbalanced” as a meal. We were at the restaurant for over two hours, LOL! So, we made it to Woolen Treasures only a tad before they closed. I was good and only bought a gift. I resisted the urge to buy some Berroco Softwist or Berroco Denim Silk or Butterfly 10 for another shell. And, I barely looked at the sock yarn! Go me! LOL!
All that crazy fun last night means I don’t have much to say today. Three rounds and I start the armholes. So, hopefully I’ll have a full back side done by Monday. Though I know we are going to a play on Saturday evening and I don’t know what else is on the schedule for the weekend… There is a slight chance that I might get to learn a bit about wheel spinning on Saturday… maybe…
4/28/2005
I think, this photo shows some progress in comparison to Monday’s. Yes?
All shaping is completed (you can almost see it in the photo) and I’m *very* near the armholes. In fact, I think it is time to sit down and do some of the math to figure out the armhole shaping and while I’ve got the design journal and calculator out I might as well do all the “official” figuring for the neckline as well. I’ll be splitting and doing the back first, as I had an unfortunate knot in the yarn that landed smack dab in the center of the first half and I think I’ll be close enough on yardage that I didn’t want to rip back to the side, so I’ll make the first half the back of Skyway Scoop.
It’s been a knitty week this week. SnB on Monday evening, then I went to Textiles a Mano yesterday, and this evening some of us SnBers are gathering at a new local restaurant (with my oh so patient, DH) and then continuing on to Woolen Treasures.
So, with any luck at all, I’ll have some armhole shaping to show you tomorrow!
