Summer Mystery #3

I finished my third Summer Mystery shawl last night and while I'm excited to have it completed, I'm sad to end the project.  I loved the yarn so much I found myself trying to drag out the knitting to make the experience last as long as possible.  I'm definitely going to have get some more of this yarn.   I'm thinking I need it in the Plum, Atlantic, Mallard, Spearmint, Sunset, Stormy & Harvest colourways.  Hmm.  I might need a job.

I sure hope it grows during the blocking process.  It's only measuring 28 x 16 inches at the moment.   It's not supposed to be huge, it's intended to be more of a scarf for under my coat than a shawl, but...  

As for the shawl's stats, it was knit with Tanis Fiber Arts Hand Dyed fingering weight in the Garnet colourway on size 5 needles.   It took a little less than one skein.  Here's what's left over,

I need to stop looking at it though.  The fabric reminds me of raspberry sherbet & it's making me hungry.

As for Summer Mystery shawl #2, I finally blocked it and am quite happy with the way it turned out.  Here's Sarah modeling it.

And a close up,

Details for this shawl can be found here and here.

As much as I loved the Summer Mystery shawl pattern, I think I'm done knitting it.  Three was the charm and I'm feeling confident that I've kicked the addiction.  Now, the problem is that I can't decide what to work on next.  I know the yarn I'll use.  More from Tanis Fiber Arts, but in lace weight and the Midnight colourway.  The problem lays in deciding which pattern to use.  I have three that I'm dying to knit and the yarn is refusing to tell me which one it wants to be.  But that's ok.  It has time to make up its mind.  I'm bound and determined to finish my green Pi shawl before I start another big lace project.  And that shawl's bind off is taking an inordinate amount of time.  The bind off alone involves 6,912 stitches.  And I can't say that it's exciting knitting.  As much as I want to complete the piece, I'm struggling to get more than a few inches done each day.  At this rate, I may have the shawl ready to wear in 2013 rather than 2011.

Max says, don't ask him which shawl I should knit next.  He's too busy making weird faces to offer an opinion.

Sunday Morning

It's a quiet Sunday morning, the kids are at Grandma's for a few days, Hubby is at work, the dogs are napping after a hard night of sleeping, and it's a pleasant 74 degrees outside.  It's the cool before the heat wave.  And I'm trying to decide between going for a run or sitting on the porch with my coffee & knitting.  Decisions, decisions.  Which do you think will win?

Welcome

Welcome to my knitting life.  I have another blog, We Are The People, that was supposed to be about my life & family but it was getting heavier and heavier with knitting content.  I decided to make my life just a bit more complicated and have two blogs.  This one for rambling on about knitting and the other for its original intended purpose.  I hope you'll visit with me here often and if you want to know more about my family, my attempts at running, or what kinds of disasters I've recently had in the kitchen, please check out We Are The People.

As for my knitting life, I'm currently focusing on two projects.  The first is a never ending lace Pi shawl.

Doesn't look like much, does it?  I finally started the bind off border last night.  You'd think that would mean that I'm almost finished, but there are an awful lot of stitches to bind off.  576 to be exact, and since each of those bind off stitches includes 12 other border stitches...  It's going to take a while.  But actually, the binding off is going faster than I expected.  It just seems like it's taking so long because I'm beyond ready to be done with this project.  I'd gotten 40 - 80 rows into it twice and frogged it both times before I started knitting this final version.  And I'm going blind knitting it.  The yarn is like sewing thread.  But I really like the finished product.  So far, at least.  I think it's going to have the perfect drape, be super thin and light weight, yet warm.  We will soon see.  I hope.

The second project I'm working on is a Summer Mystery shawlette from Wendy Knits in the Garnet colorway from Tanis Fiber Arts.  This is my third time knitting this pattern and I think this one will be my favorite.  And the yarn - I Love the yarn!  I wrote about it in my other blog, but that description didn't do the yarn justice.  I had just finished knitting a shawlette using Blue Stocking, a particularly soft & smooshy yarn.  In comparison, the Tanis yarn wasn't anywhere near as smooshy and I wasn't loving it for the first few rows, but I quickly changed my mind.  I am now loving the yarn and loving the color.  I want to order about 80 more skeins of it.  Of course, I want to order one of every other color it comes in too.  But before I buy more yarn, I need to finish this piece.  And before I finish this, I am bound (no pun intended) and determined to finish the Pi shawl.

So, I'm off to bind off some more.  Happy knitting!