This week's knitting

Thank you all for the prayers and warm thoughts for my mother-in-law.  She passed quietly in her sleep, which is about the best way things could have gone.  She is at peace now and that's all we can ask for.

I haven't been able to get as much knitting done this week as I'd hoped.  I am, however, on the very last section of the mohair and wool scarf.

Pardon the poorly lit photo.  It's raining outside so it's dark and gloomy inside.  I think this scarf is going to be awesome when it's finished.  And it may be finished tonight!  Maybe.

I've also been beading socks.  These are for Easter.  I just love how the beads are pastel colored but also bright.

And since I've been asking for prayers lately, let me ask one more time.  How about we all pray for the troops in Ukraine.  I know the families of several service men and women who have been sent over and the news is looking a little scary.

In the infamous words of Elizabeth Zimmerman, "Knit on with confidence and hope through all crises."

Mohair and Wool

This is going to be a short one today.  There's a lot going on around here and my time is short.  But, I wanted to show you...

The photo doesn't do it justice.  It's a scarf with uneven stripes of mohair and wool.

I was searching Ravelry for something entirely different but a similar-to-this scarf popped up and it gave me the idea.  

I've been wanting to combine these two yarns forever.  I even tried knitting them held together earlier in the week.... But they looked horrible held together.  The Iceburg Aloft muddied up the Cascade 220 Wave yarn.  I was so disappointed because I've been thinking about this combo for over a year.

But then I stumbled across the Ravelry pattern, took a look at the photos and now I'm making my own version.  Hope that's considered getting inspiration, not stealing.   It's just too simple to pay for the pattern though.  I simply cast on some stitches and started knitting.  Knitting uneven stripes of mohair and the wool.  And I'm thrilled with the results.

I'm also thrilled because over the past week, I have taken my email from almost 800 pending emails down to 41.  And I'm actually reading them, not just deleting them automatically.  Well, I am deleting the "this offer is good for today only" type emails without reading them.  And of course the obvious spammy ones.  But otherwise, I'm reading them.  So, if you happen to notice and wonder why I replied to 30 of your past blog posts on one day... Well, now you know why.  I'm also getting lots of scarf knitting done while I read the emails.

I hope everyone had a good Valentine's last weekend.  Hayden painted Valentines.  And herself.  

And last but definitely not least, please say a prayer for peace for my mother-in-law.  The Alzheimer's is winning.

Olympic Knitting

It's been a busy Olympic knitting week.  And that's weird for me.  I've never been a big Olympics watcher.  I like to watch the ice skating in winter and swimming in summer, and that's about it.  But this year.... This year I have become obsessed OBSESSED.  I have no idea why but the TV is on 20+ hours out of 24 and I get extremely upset and frustrated when they are running reruns.  

And I have to say, I just don't get curling.  Okay, it's sort of like bowling on ice but when I first started watching, it was male/female teams and all I could see was the woman throwing a giant rock on the floor then screaming at the man to Swiffer harder and faster.  And once that image was in my head.... But other than that, I am really enjoying watching the games and I'm getting lots of knitting done.

I finished knitting the "walking hat."  I may have to rename it the Sitting On My Butt, Watching The Olympics hat, but that just doesn't have the same ring to it.  The hat needs a pompom and I think it needs to be either black or white, neither of which I have at the moment.  I'm counting this as a finished project anyway.

Valentine's is right around the corner and I need a gift for Hayden.... but gift shopping would mean turning off the Games for an afternoon so....  I remembered I had this pink sparkley yarn in my stash and decided to knit her a hat.  She likes to wear hats.  Hates having her hair "done" but loves hats.  Anyway.... 

Sadly, I got cocky and "knew" my gauge with this yarn (Yarn I've never even knit with before.  Sheesh!) and didn't test it out.  I simply cast on.  And well, it turns out I cast on two inches too many stitches.  Dammit!  

Will I ever learn gauge matters???

I knew it was going to be too big and considered ripping it and starting over but I kept knitting and telling myself that it just looked big because the brim was rolling before I hemmed it and hemmed hats never stretch as much as ribbed hats so it would be fine.... Then it just seemed to big because it took forever to pick up all those stitches to do the hemming..... And well, I'm now knitting an adult sized hat for the shop and Hayden will probably end up getting a pan of brownies for Valentine's instead of a hat.

And last but not least, I'm almost ready to bind off the Palette scarf.  I can't believe how fast this has knit up.  I've made a bunch of these in the past and it normally takes me forever.  As in, sometimes multiple months worth of forever.  Probably because I get bored, but this time I've had the Olympics to help with the boredom of all that garter stitching.

This bad boy, if I measured correctly, is 67 inches long.  It's hard to measure when scrunched up on circular needles plus my tape measure only goes to 40 inches for some odd reason.  Anyway, it's long.  And in two more rows it will measure 8 inches wide.  I'm struggling with making it 12 inches vs binding off and starting another.  Your thoughts are welcome on that.

The scarf  has 58 different shades of Palette in it.  Granted, a few of those are the same color, but different dyelots that are noticably different if you look closely and under good lighting.  As for a color pattern, I knit two rows from the brown pile and one row from the 'colors' pile.  I'm on my third roation through the browns and am just two skeins into the second repeat of the colors.

And while I have a zillion other knitting projects on the to-do list, some of which are slightly important and have deadlines, all I can think about (besides the Olympics) is casting on another Palette scarf using whites, creams and pale blues and grays.

I need help!

On the Needles

It's been a busy week!  Mainly, I've been focusing on getting my shop restocked, but there has been a little knitting happening too.

Remember the Bamboo Bloom yarn I got a while back?

I quickly knit it.

I love the way it turned out.  The yarn is incredibly soft and it was fun to knit.  The design is so simple - knit the thin bits and purl the thick.  For something so simple, I had an incredibly difficult time with it in the beginning.  For the life of me, I couldn't remember to switch from knitting to purling and then back to knitting again.  All in all, after all the tinking, I probably knit the scarf six times.  But other than my lack of attention/muscle memory issues, it really was an easy, fun, simple and quick project.

Remember the Winterfest sweater?  Oops! I don't have a recent photo. And I won't have one for a while because I've put the unfinished sweater away.  It's a good thing though.  I finished all the stripes from the yarn the kids picked out and now I'm ready to finish the sweater with a solid color.  A solid color that I don't have.  But I will have it soon.  Well, in March.  I do a quarterly bulk yarn purchase and March will be my next bulk order.  Luckily I have plenty of other projects to tide me over.

I'm slowly making progress on the Walking hat.  I need to rename it because I'm no longer walking while I knit it.  It's just been too cold to walk without gloves and for the life of me, I can't knit properly with gloves on.  Okay, let me re-phrase that.  I can knit with gloves on, but my gauge looks like an uncoordinated toddler's first knitting lesson.  In other words, bad BAD!

The Walking hat is progressing very, very slowly because... 

I cleaned out my craft closet.  Normally that wouldn't affect my knitting time too much but... I stumbled across a scarf I had started ages ago.  A simple garter stitch scarf made from all my brown and green skeins of Palette.  I don't know why I'd put it away for so long.  I was only about five rows from being finished.  

But the point is, I've been wanting to start another one of those Palette scarves.  I enjoy knitting them, they use up lots of scrappy bits and they sold very well at Winterfest.   

So, instead of finishing the Walking hat, I finished the old Palette scarf and started another.  I'm a little bit obsessed and am having a hard time putting the it down.  Luckily, I have enough Palette to knit a thousand of these scarves.  It ought to carry me into March.

So, how about you?  What have you been knitting? 

Ooh - By the way, Knit Picks has all their pink, red and white yarns on sale, 40% off for Valentine's Day.  It's a great time to shop if you need those colors.