WIP Wednesday: Days dwindling and projects multiplying

Two things happened to me on Monday when I finally bought my ticket to New York for the end of the month:

• I was annoyed that I couldn't use my member miles, because they would have charged me $75 to 'expedite' the rewards in fewer than 21 days, and it didn't make sense to pay that much to use miles when for about $130 I could buy the ticket and earn more miles that I can use later, now knowing this restriction
• I realized that, dude, I'm leaving in less than 21 days

Not much has changed since last week in terms of my progress towards the move, other than plans coming together in my mind.  I still have a few days left at my current job, so I'm trying to keep my head in that game just a little bit longer.  Then I can focus on how best to fill my boxes with my spinning wheel, baking equipment, bedding, and every last thread of possible warm clothing that I own as a Texan.

One of my other goals before I leave is to finish my Vlad Helsing Shawlette.  Because blocking mats are not currently on the top of my prioritized list of items to have with me, so I want to be able to finish and block this thing before I go.  Plus, then I can show it off at my new job and establish my crafting cred.

Check out that mad lace work, yo.

I've also been working on Head in the Silk Clouds, but it doesn't really progress that interestingly.  It just becomes a bigger triangle.  I love the way it's working up, though, and it is super-simple for mindless knitting.

I also cast on a new project this week.  Because, not to bury the lead, but we completed the Hill Country Yarn Crawl over the weekend.  Fourteen official stores, one nearby that we also decided to visit, and a yarn dyer's studio.  And it was at that yarn dyer's studio, Alisha Goes Around, that I picked up some yarn for a project that I needed to swatch and cast on for ASAP, just to make sure I didn't need an additional skein.

I've been admiring Alisha's pattern for Diamonds Go Around Infinity Scarf for some time, so when I saw her bright pink fingering weight yarn and paired it with a charcoal gray, it was a perfect fit.  My mom wanted to buy the pattern anyway, so it was clearly time.  

Photo by Alisha Lariscy

Because the pattern is written for DK and I had chosen fingering, I bought two skeins of pink and one of gray.  To make sure that I didn't also need a second skein of gray, I first swatched to determine the needle size that gave me the fabric that I liked, used the pattern to tell me how many stitches to cast on based on my gauge, and then started knitting the bottom border of the cowl to see just how much yarn it would take.

If it would take more than a third of the skein, Alisha advised me to get another.  Thankfully, things look promising that I only need what I have.  So I guess this will be my next 'thinking' project after Vlad.  I'm calling it Caged Pink Monster.

There are other new projects in the works for my crawl haul, which I'll have to share in later posts.  Let's just say, I have plenty of soft packing material to protect everything I'm shipping.  Who needs packing peanuts when you have yarn and fiber?

WIP Wednesday: Big news!

Sometimes I struggle with how much myself to put into this blog at the exact moment that it's happening.  Obviously, when it comes down to it, this blog is about me and my passions.  But it can feel weird to talk about work, or friends, or even going on vacation.  I think this is a sign of how I'm on the cusp of the social media generation, as opposed to having been completely brought up on it.  So this is why sometimes I'll talk about something just after it's happened, as opposed to while it's actually...in progress.

Do you see what I did there?  I brought it back to the central theme of these Wednesday posts.  That's right.

So this time, I'm going to talk about something major in my life that's in-progress.  If this were a knitting project, then the pattern and yarn would be picked out, and the first row would be cast on.  But much still remains to be determined in the stitches.  Without further suspense-building...I'm moving to New York and starting a new job.

Whew!  I feel better letting that out.  I'm currently wrapping up my time in my current job in technical documentation, and I am really going to miss everyone that I've worked with while there.  But I'm also ridiculously excited about where I'm headed.  Which is back to Sarah Lawrence College to be the Alumni Relations Coordinator!  Over the years, some of you might have noticed that my nostalgia for my alma mater is deep and unwavering.  If I could make anything my job for the rest of my life, it would be being a student there.  But there's no such thing as people paying you for that.  So I'll settle for being responsible for keeping alumni connected to campus via social media, events, and other communications.

I have to keep reminding myself how awesome this is, to counteract the stress of moving across the country and the sadness of what I'm leaving behind.  Things like, 'How am I going to get my spinning wheel to New York?' and 'Who am I going to turn to when I mess up my knitting without my mom there?' are laments of a traveling crafter.

It's been therapeutic to knit while dealing with these and other questions.  I've made progress on two projects.  I'm on the final repeat of the body chart for my Vlad Helsing Shawlette:

And my Head in the Silk Clouds continues to grow:

In other fiber news, the Hill Country Yarn Crawl starts this weekend, it's sort of like my farewell (for now, at least) tour of all my Austin-area yarn stores.  Like everything having to do with this move, it's going to be bittersweet.  But I suppose I can tell myself that all yarn and fiber purchases are just extra packing material for the boxes, right?

As with my knitting projects, I'm also accepting advice for moving.  This is the first time I've done this anywhere other than to a dorm, so any tips will be appreciated!

WIP Wednesday: Offline, but still in progress

There are a couple of things that have made me better prepared to face a week at home without either cable or internet.  There are the obvious things, like having the barest of online lifelines in my smartphones data connection and having a job that gives me internet from 9 to 5.  But more specifically, I think that having a ginormous DVD collection and being a knitter have made this technical isolation more bearable.

I’ve always had a relatively large movie collection, from dozens of VHS tapes that are now hidden away in a closet somewhere and should really be handed off to Goodwill to today’s bookshelf absolutely bursting with TV and film on DVD.  I’m the kind of person that, when I like something, I want to watch it multiple times.  And if I love something, I want to watch it so many times that I could recreate it in a one-woman show at the drop of a hat.  Imagine the way that little girls watch Disney movies again and again.  I basically never grew out of that.  Also, I have a need for constant background noise, otherwise my mind will get distracted by the normal creaks and squeaks of the world.  Which is why a majority of the collection also came with me to college, because without access to television for the most part, I needed to ensure a steady supply of entertainment options.

So I have plenty of reserves when faced with more than half a dozen evenings that cannot be filled with ‘Big Bang Theory’ syndication or football games.  Mostly, I’ve taken this opportunity to watch the complete series of ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ with my mom.  I’m happy to say that we do not have an Edina-Saffy relationship.

And, of course, while watching the drunken antics of Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley, I have my knitting to keep me busy.  I’ve alternated between my Head in the Silk Clouds shawl, which I began during my UK trip, and Vlad Helsing Shawlette.  Both are coming along nicely.

Silk Clouds is pretty mindless, with three rows of seed stitch, five of stockinette, and steady increases along one edge.  That’s what made it such a great travel project, and now it makes it perfect for knitting while walking back and forth across the living room to rack up steps on my pedometer.

I’m on the final repeat of the main body chart for Vlad.  No picture for that one, so I’ll leave it to your imagination.  I’m still crossing my fingers that the yarn colorway will turn dark in time for the end of the shawl…

Alright, that’s my progress for this WIP Wednesday, don’t forget to check out a few others at Tami’s Amis.  I still don’t have internet, so I’ll take all of your virtual mojo in the hopes that tomorrow’s service appointment will be a success.

WIP Wednesday: Game, set, matching mitts

You think you've had a productive week.  You think you've accomplished a small something worth feeling good about.  And then you watch a player in her grand slam debut upset the #12 seed and you hear that she was born in 1999.  And suddenly you feel just a little bit lazy and unambitious.

That's what happens when you watch sports as you get older, I suppose.  But I'll leave the tennis prodigy-ing to CiCi Bellis and watch her as I make progress on my knitting and spinning.  And I have made progress.  I finally blocked my Mittacles, so now I just have the pesky task of weaving all of the ends in:

My Vlad Helsing is moving along as well.  I've gone through the chart nearly three of the prescribed four times:

Aside from the momentary confusion with the placement of the repeat on two of the rows, I've really enjoyed this.  My only worry is that it won't use up enough of my yarn to get to the color change in the skein that starts a little late.

So, do young upstart athletes, movie stars, or other random celebrities ever make you feel lazy?  Or are you confident in your awesomeness?  For more WIP Wednesdays, go to Tami's Amis.

WIP Wednesday: I vant to slip your stitches...

I had a terrible shock on Friday afternoon when I was about to head out to my usual Friday froyo and knitting session with nothing on my needles.  Not that I had actually completed any FOs that I could blog about that day, but all of my WIPs were at a stage where progress could not be achieved while sitting in the froyo shop.

Because it would have been weird to try and block my fingerless mitts with thumbs there on the table.  Although despite having had the whole rest of the weekend to block, I still haven't quite gotten around to it.  Why is it that sometimes the easiest things take the longest to get done?  Then again, I kind of deserve a break after fiddling with the DPNs and few stitches for the thumbs, so I don't feel too bad about that.

I've also handed off responsibility for sewing the mini fox's head to my mom, so that remains in the same state as before.  But here's a picture of the first ear I knit up which ended up too big for my fox's head, so it's become an impromptu hat for a wooden duck:

So for Friday's crafting, I had to quickly grab something form my Ravelry queue, and I cast on my Vlad Helsing Shawlette:

The pattern comes from the What Would Madame Defarge Knit? collection, and this shawl is inspired by Wilhelmina from Dracula.  Since my yarn (a gradient from Heavenly Fiber that goes from red to black with sparkles!) is called Vlad, I decided to go with a Van Helsing reference from the same novel.  It feels like it's been a while since I've done a lacy shawl, but it was comforting to go back to what I think is probably my favorite type of project.

I did have a bit of an issue today while knitting because I thought I had an extra stitch somewhere.  Let's see if I can describe this...so, the 10-stitch repeat in the chart ended on 2 knit stitches and started back again with a slip 1, k2tog, psso (represented by a single icon at the start).  But when I reached the end of the 2 knit stitches, instead of meeting with my stitch marker, I found another stitch.  After much (and I do mean much) hemming and hawing, I believe I have determined that, in fact, that last stitch is meant to be the initial slipped stitch, but because it's something that happens over 3 stitches represented by a single icon, the chart has issues making that clear.  It took me so long to come to this conclusion and mentally knit the row that I haven't been able to actually knit it and be sure, but I think that's it.  It was, at least, a good exercise for me in reading lace and understanding what is going on beyond just blindly following the directions.

So, crisis averted, I have an active WIP to take along with me wherever I go, along with other WIPs I still need to make progress on.  For more WIP Wednesday posts, go to Tami's Amis.

WIP Wednesday: Best foot (and ear) forward

As I mentioned on Saturday, I finally made the leap from staring at my spinning wheel to actually spinning yarn on it.  I am now on Day Four of being a wheel spinner, following my instructor's guidance like a good little student and spinning just a little bit each day to build the muscle memory.  Here are the results:

Though I'm not completely comfortable yet, I am really enjoying how much faster it all seems to be on the wheel versus the spindle.  It helps to have had the spindle experience, though, because I already get the concepts of drafting and twist, I just have to add my feet into the process.  I think I'm going to need to replace the drive band very soon as well because mine is a little stretchy, so I need to figure out how to do that.  Preferably one that is pre-done as opposed to one that I have to measure, cut, and fuse.  That scares me.

I don't know if I was feeling empowered by my new skill or had just reached the limit of letting a WIP hibernate, but I also picked my Mini Fox Stole My Heart again and finally gave him his second leg:

Then I also knit his two little ears:

The next step will be to sew his head together, attach the ears and stitch on the nose detail.  And, of course, attach the head to the body.  I did use a meeting on Monday to weave in all of the ends I've created on the body so far, so I'm a step ahead there.  Which is just as well, since as you can see, I've created a whole new slew of ends with the head and ears.

Speaking of animal extremities, my Mittacles have all of their tentacles, with just a few rows left until it's time to rib:

So even though nothing is quite done, I feel like I've been productive this week, craft-wise.  How about you?  For more WIP Wednesday posts, go to Tami's Amis.

WIP Wednesday: On the tip of my tentacles

For some reason the transition from July into August didn't seem as monumental until I had to start writing the date numerically.  That's when I realized that we're in the 8th month of the year.  And there are only 12 of them total.  That's two-thirds of the year!  I know I'm a word nerd, but in this case the math is what got to me.

But whether I like it or not, it is August.  And for the 8th month of the year, I want to finish this pair of mitts featuring a sea creature with 8 tentacles.  I've completed 3 out of 4 octopuses in my Mittacles so far:

Now it's time for the 4th octopus, whose tentacles are only just starting to poke out of my colorwork. I'll also have to try and remember to put the stitches for the thumb in the right place so that I end up with a mitt for each hand instead of two lefts or two rights.

With all of the things I'm doing at the moment, I wish I had 8 arms.  Then I could have one hand typing up emails for work, while another was knitting away, with a few left over for blogging and baking at the same time.  I would feel much more productive.  But, alas, I have only two arms, so my progress is what it is.

What would you do with 8 arms?  Can you believe it's August already?  For more WIP Wednesday posts, visit Tami's Amis.

WIP Wednesday: IS II: The inspiration strikes back

On Saturday I shared some of my thoughts on planning a back for my first quilt.  After publishing that post, I figured out that I could make four large squares out of each of the three fabrics, and I would be able to use nine of them on the back of the quilt.

I then spent most of the rest of that evening mocking up possible piecing patterns.  I'm telling you, being able to snap quick iPhone photos, snip them on the computer and move them around in a presentation program is dangerous.  I stopped myself when I had collected more than a dozen different options.  I won't share them all with you, but these are the ones that are currently in the top running:

Feeling dizzy yet?  Me too.  But not so dizzy that I haven't been able to make some progress on the second mitt in the Mittacles pair.  It's not going as quickly as the first, which I attribute to a mitt version of second sock syndrome and a lack of sporting events to watch while I knit.  I'm aiming to finish the pair, thumbs and all, by the end of the month at least.

Do you have a preference, looking at the quilt back options?  Rock the vote!  And check out more WIP Wednesday posts at Tami's Amis.

WIP Wednesday: Sixteen tentacles down...

How do the weeks just keep going by?  Somehow I get from Wednesday to Wednesday, and I'm not always sure what's happened in between.  I have vague visions of meetings, frozen yogurt, and, of course, knitting.  But mostly I'm just working my way to another Friday afternoon for the respite that is the weekend.

Maybe if I had as many hands as an octopus has tentacles I'd be able to get more done.  As it is, I've finished the first in the Mittacles pair:

I definitely prefer the high contrast of the red and blue to the turquoise and blue I began with.  The strip of pink is for the thumb which I haven't added yet.  I decided I would rather get going on the second mitt and tackle both thumbs at the end, so I don't forget what I did between one and the other.

Overall, I'm really liking this colorwork.  It's actually easier changing the colors every few stitches than the projects I've done in the past where I needed to carry yarn for much longer stretches, which messed with my tension sometimes.  I'm only on the start of the rib on the second mitt, because it's been that kind of week.  But soon there will be more tentacles on the horizon.

What animal hybrid would make you more productive?  The nocturnal nature of an owl?  Or do you just want to be lazy like a koala?

FO Friday: Twist of Triumph

Let me just take a moment to say: Hurrah Germany!  They weren't my first choice for World Cup champions, but it is the land where at least two great things were born: Wollmeise yarn, and me!  I kid, I kid.  But did you know,  both Wollmeise and I come from the same town?  Pfaffenhofen.  Of course, the yarn store wasn't there when I was there, and being three years old when we left, I probably wouldn't have had much use for yarn, but still.  Just one more reason to want to visit my birthplace again.

So anyway, I was rooting for Germany in Sunday's match.  And I enjoyed it all the more because I wasn't having to rush to finish my Twist of Death.  Despite losing two days of knitting to lack of yarn, I was able to finish up the sleeves on Friday.  The finishing was a team effort, which means that my mother was kind enough to sew the sleeves in for me.  What can I say, she's awesome like that.  I did complete the weaving in of the ends, the blocking, and the modeling, though.  Of course, Mom did take the photos.  So, um, still a team effort.  We took the photos pre-blocking to make sure that I could post them before the end of the tournament, so there's not as much rolling at the edges now.

I love how many ways there are to wear this:

Style #1: Open front

Style #2: Wrapped front

Style #3: Open back

Speaking of team efforts, I'm going to give a shoutout to one of Mom's FOs this Friday as well, because I played a vital role in it.  Behold, from my handspun yarn:

Came this Looping Goal Winkle:

I had totally forgotten that the yarn I spun ended up being fingering weight, so she had plenty of yarn for this shawl.  There was a little bit of unevenness between the hanks, but nothing you can really notice.  And I love the way the colors worked up:

I'm not doing the Tour de Fleece this year, and I missed out on a recent wheel spinning course at an LYS last week, but this definitely makes me want to spin some more.

In the meantime, though, I have more WIPs that need to turn into FOs.

WIP Wednesday: 15 rows forward, 14 rows back

My mother both horrifies and impresses her knitting group when she casually rips out her work when something goes wrong.  She's very adept at fixing errors by tinkling back or other means, but she has no qualms about just frogging away (rip it, rip it) whenever necessary.

Maybe I'm finally taking after her a bit in that respect, because on Monday I didn't feel overwhelmed or unsettled in my decision to undo more than a dozen rows of colorwork in my latest WIP, Mittacles.  When I first cast them on, I was planning on using the yarn I had leftover from Affection-ite, blue and turquoise.  But as the rows went on, it didn't seem like there was enough contrast between the two colors:

You can sort of see the octopus starting to emerge, but without knowing what to look for, it could end up more like a Rorschach test.  And because this is another project destined for my swap partner, I don't want to leave her guessing when she unwraps them.

So after a little contemplation and relatively little anxiety, I backtracked and now I'm a few rows into my second attempt, in which red has replaced the turquoise.  I don't have a progress photo of it, but I'm already much happier with it, because the stitches pop. If I'm going to mess around with DPNs and two different yarns, I want you to be able to see it.

Do you feel traumatized when you have to frog your work, or do you take it in stride?  Leave me a comment, then check out more WIP Wednesday posts at Tami's Amis.

WIP Wednesday: A matter of time and yardage

I'm really loving what's becoming the traditional way of celebrating long weekends with my friends: gathering, noshing, and crafting.  My subway-tiled quilt has been sewn exclusively at gatherings like this, and for the 4th of July, I took another important step forward, piecing together each of the strips to form a completed front:

It's quilt-sized, yay!  That's me on my tippy-toes, so there's a good chance that the finished quilt will be legitimately large enough to sleep under without awkwardly bare toes or shoulders.  I would have loved it anyway, but it gives me a sense of satisfaction to know that it's also 'right' on its own merits.

Here's a closer look:

Yes, it's a little crazy and busy, but I like it.  It goes with the theme of the fabrics themselves, a bustling urban landscape that's a mix of organic and manmade sensory overload.

The next step will be to make a back.  I have extra yardage of four of the front fabrics that I found in the clearance section of Quilt Haus, so there are lots of options.  Probably something with larger blocks, perhaps log cabin or something.  After that, I also have the batting ready to be sandwiched in between front and back.  Finally, I'll have to think about binding, but I might already have enough fabric for that.

So the quilt is just a matter of time.  Unfortunately, my other WIP was a matter of yardage for a few days.

I am so close to finishing my Twist of Death that I could have finished one of the sleeves yesterday, leaving me with just the second sleeve and finishing work to do.  Unfortunately, my fears of not having enough yarn came true.  I think the culprit was my row gauge, which was short a row or two an inch, so I ended up knitting more rows in order to achieve the specified inches in the front and back.  I was able to finish the body of the pullover, and it fits well minus the necessary sewing up that needs to be done.  But 12 grams was all that was left after that, not enough for the sleeves.

Thankfully, Alisha, the wonderful dyer of yarn, helped me match up the pullover to the skeins she has left to try and get the closest dye lot.  I might still have time to finish this thing by the time the final whistle is blown in the World Cup, which is the ultimate goal.  Or should I say, gooooooooooooooooooooooooal.

What are you working on this week?  How did you celebrate the 4th of July?  Don't forget, there are more WIP Wednesday posts at Tami's Amis.

WIP Wednesday: This is not SportsCenter

The only problem with my habit of falling asleep listening to SportsCenter is that when sporting events don't go my way, I end up hearing about it over and over again as I drift off.  And I'm pretty sure it has wormed its way into my dreams in some cases.

I really only need to live through the US men's soccer team loss at the World Cup yesterday once.  Every time I think of the effort that Tim Howard put into making sixteen saves on goal, ugh, I feel terrible for him that they couldn't get that win.  At the same time, though, I'm positive about some of the youngsters on the team, like Yedlin and Green.  So I still believe that we will win, it's just going to be next time.

Thankfully there's lots of other sporting news to think about.  The rest of the World Cup, of course.  Does Colombia have what it takes to beat Brazil?  If both teams play the way that they have been, I think so.  And France versus Germany, that is just made to be classic.  And Costa Rica, the final representative of the CONCACAF.

And then on some totally different blades of grass, we have Wimbledon.  Man, everyone thought that because the first Tuesday wasn't crazy like it was last year that we might be safe, but no!  We've got Czech women taking over the bracket, which I love, and teenagers running amok on the men's side.  I'm sad that Nadal and Murray are both out of the running, and kind of hoping the Dmitrov is able to take it to Djokovic.  Upsets are exciting, but there's also the risk that the remaining top players are able to just breeze through the final match or two, and that's not nearly as fun.

While I've been watching all of these events, I've been knitting.  And walking.  As long as I don't have to be reading a pattern at the same time, I can knit and walk fairly comfortably.  So far, I haven't even stepped on the cat once.  Who's the athlete now, huh?  I've finished the back of my Twist of Death, now working on the front.  It's not the most interesting to photograph, but this gives you an idea of how the color is working up, which I really like, it's very denim-like:

I'm a little afraid that I won't have enough yarn, but I should, so hopefully I'm just being paranoid.  Once I finish the front I shouldn't need much to join it together with the back again and make the little sleeves.  And when I think about it like that, it doesn't seem so crazy to have this done before the end of the World Cup.  Winner!

Do you watch sports while you knit?  Or maybe knit while others watch sports?  For more WIP Wednesday posts, go to Tami's Amis.

Inspiration Saturday: OctoMitts

I know that usually I end up with a slew of patterns as part of my inspiration posts, but today I just have one pattern that's on my mind: OctoMitts by SpillyJane.

Photo credit: SpillyJane

SpillyJane is known for her adorable colorwork designs.  She's done gnomes, flamingos, cupcakes, and all sort of fruits and vegetables.  There are so many of them I would love to try.  But the pattern for these just happened to be free on Ravelry on Tuesday (now it's available for $6 if you're also feeling 'inspired').  And my spoilee in that long term swap just happens to like sea creatures.  So I think I might need to push my colorwork skills and try to make the fingerless version.

I'm wondering if I have enough of the Winter Night and Kenai left over from Affection-ite to do them.  That wouldn't make them quite as colorful, but still sea-faring.  Or maybe one of the yarns should be Chroma, for slightly psychedelic octopuses?  I have time to decide, I won't attempt to cast on until I've finished my Twist of Death.

Do you do colorwork?  What kinds of projects or designers do you prefer?

WIP Wednesday: Summer social butterfly

You already know that I love routines.  Which can make me kind of a homebody by default, but I feel like this summer I've been a little more willing to venture out and socialize.  For example, this past Sunday I went to Gauge for a going-away party for a local yarn dyer who is moving to Colorado.  Sure, it consisted mainly of noshing on strawberries, chatting, and knitting, but that's the kind of fun I like to have.  I'm not looking for raging keggers.  As further evidenced by the fact that I went downtown yesterday, not to drink my way down 6th Street, but to go see 'The Third Man' at Paramount.  I'll have a post on that, and 'Guys and Dolls', eventually.

And now, I have an exciting Wednesday planned.  After the usual klatch and yoga, dinner plans will shift from Indian at Tarka to a summer salad at Panera so that I can also go and get my hair cut.  This may not be riveting to extroverted, popular people, but I've been looking forward to the Strawberry Poppyseed & Chicken Salad since last summer.  And I love my stylist.  She's super nice and is great with my hair.

I've also been watching most of the World Cup matches.  Not really with groups of people physically, but spiritually, emotionally....Twitterly.  I'll be holding my breath along with everyone else in tomorrow's match between the US and Germany.  I'm rooting for both of them to make it through the group, preferably with a draw or US win, because Germany has a goal difference cushion so I wouldn't have to worry too much about them.

All of these highly-social engagements have given me plenty of opportunity to knit, but not a lot of time to take pretty pictures of it.  So I'll have to keep you in suspense a while longer. But I am really enjoying my Twist of Death. Right now it's just knitting and knitting around and around, but the yarn is soft and pretty.  I'm toying with the idea of adding beads to the rib at the collar, but I haven't committed to it yet.

Maybe that's a decision for next WIP Wednesday. In the meantime, you can find more at Tami's Amis.

FO Friday: Peeps and Pops

This week's two FOs are very different projects.  The first was yet another swap handmade, a relatively simple pattern in basic black but a luxurious fiber content.  The second was a spur-of-the-moment cast on for myself with lace and a rainbow of colors.

First, Bow Peep's Black Sheep:

I already have plans to make another one of these for myself, because it's such a clever knit.  It's so simple, just knits and purls with some increases and decreases to create the shape of a beautifully tied bow.  Then you just block it flat.

I actually think that tying the bow each time you wear it would be more challenging than knitting it, but then again I've always found that challenging, along with most of the other aspects of gift wrapping.  The yarn was a perfect compromise between wanting the soft halo but not wanting mohair.  And as a bonus it didn't require me to knit double.

And then, the colorful sugar rush that is 198 Licks of the Lollipop:

This knit up so fast!  Partly because it's a wee little shawlette, but also because it was just so much fun to watch the colors coming and going.  Although this was cast on to sooth the panic of having cast off the bow and never wanting to go more than a few hours without something on the needles, I had been planning on making this for some time, so it also feels good to cross something off of my list.

As I say, it is very wee, so I'll have to see how easily it stays put around my neck.  My preferred method of wearing triangle shawls is with the tip in front and the other points wrapped around my neck all the way.  After blocking this makes it all the way around, but without much to spare.  I might use some kind of pin, or sew a button onto the two end points that can fasten into any of the yarnovers.

How do you wear shawls?  Have you finished up anything recently?  You can find more FO Fridays floating all around the interwebz.

WIP Wednesday: Group of death, Twist of Death

Anyone else been watching all of the World Cup matches?  I'm loving it.  And like most things I love, it's made even better by sharing it with people on Ravelry.  A group of us are just chatting away and sharing the projects we're knitting while the players run up and down the pitch.

I actually finished my colorful shawl over the weekend, and I also blocked my bow (stay tuned for those this Friday), so I decided to be a little crazy and cast on another garment with inset sleeves with the vague goal of trying to finish it before the end of the tournament.  That's why I'm calling it the Twist of Death.

The pattern, Twist Pullover, was featured on the cover of knit.wear a few issues ago, and was knit in yarn from one of Austin's own local dyers, so it was on my radar for quite some time.  Nearly two years, but whose counting?  I bought the yarn, in the same colorway in fact, in the Yarn Crawl last year.  After digging around the house for a while to rediscover the magazine, I went to the extreme lengths of, gasp, swatching:

I got the stitch gauge, but not the rows, so I'm just going to have to fudge those.  I've cast on 292 stitches and knit the first few rows, but I'm not sure what my chances are of actually finishing this before the final goal of the World Cup.  As guaranteed as the Netherlands advancing, or as impossible as Spain, or somewhere in between?

Are you watching the 'footie'?  For more WIP Wednesday posts, go to Tami's Amis.

Inspiration Saturday: 380 meters of DK

For the long-term swap that I'm in, we often chat in Ravelry, asking questions both general (what's your favorite animal?) and specific but theoretical.  Like, 'What would you like knit for you out of 380 meters of DK yarn?'  Tasked with finding the answer to this query, I did one of the always-dangerous browsing searches on Ravelry patterns.

Here are just a few correct solutions to the equation:

Knitting + DK weight yarn + 0-380 meters =

Hemlock Mitts

By: Gabriella Henry

Photo credit: sweetp

I like the texture of this cable-that-isn't-a-cable, it gives interest to office mitts that look warm but not bulky.  I know it sounds ridiculous, but I most definitely need mitts for my office.  I've never experienced claustrophobia, but earlier this week I feel as though I went through something like it, but instead of panic due to being trapped in a small space, it was panic due to being trapped in a cold space.  So really these are medical mitts.

Super Eyelet Shawl

by Fiona Wright

Photo credit: The Woolly Brew

Breezy is the word that comes to mind with this shawl.  Good for keeping around in the summer when the outside is burning up but the inside could be a bit chilly.  This way you have something for your neck that's pretty without looking like you've got a touch of heat stroke madness and think you are a character from 'Dr Zhivago'.

Lonely Skein

by Diana Rozenshteyn

Photo credit: Diana Rozenshteyn

I just think this looks so pretty, I can't think of anything else to say about it.  Pretty.

McKellar Honey Mitts & Hat

by Carla Pletzer

Photo credit: Amy Vincent Photography

Again, the honeycomb texture looks interesting and insulating without bulk.  Also, I love honey.  Especially when stirred into some plain Greek yogurt for breakfast before walking down to the beach in Kefalonia...but there might be a cumulative effect of the awesomeness of being on a Greek island that the bees can't take credit for.

Oblique Rib Mittlets

by Alana Braedley

Photo credit: Alana Braedley

With the way the rib goes around these mitts, they just look like they would fit really nicely.  Otherwise, they are just the kind of simple knit that makes me wonder about perhaps using a crazy variegated yarn, just because you can.

Smock and Roll

by Susan Ashcroft

Photo credit: stitchnerd

Recently I've been drawn to the look of the long cowls that can be twisted and worn doubled over.  And this one has an interesting stitch to it.

Yoga socks

by Lori Owen

Photo credit: Lori Owen. Stitchy Love Thing 2013

Since going to yoga seems to be my new Wednesday fitness class of choice, it would be nice to have some yoga socks.  They are meant to keep your feet warm while leaving your toes and heels free to grip the floor so you don't slide ungracefully out of your downward dog.  Worth a try!

And of course these are just a few of the patterns I found myself clicking and imagining either knitting for myself or receiving in the swap.  Could I decide what to tell them in the swap thread?  No, not really.  But they know me, so they understand:

Haha Decisive Joanna is Decisive! :D

What would you ask for out of 380 meters of DK in a swap?  For more inspiration, go to Woolen Diversions.

WIP Wednesday: Somewhere under the rainbow

Yesterday I caught some early Judy Garland films on Turner Classic Movies they were playing for her birthday.  It's amazing how easily you can be sucked into these old movies.  Not just because there are no commercials to break the spell, but because even the ones you've never heard of are just plain fun to watch.  Plus, there's usually at least one face that I recognize from some long-lost memory in the corner of my brain.

Like seeing Steve in 'Broadway Melody of 1938' and realizing that that's a younger Jed Clampett from 'The Beverly Hillbillies', known in real life as Buddy Ebsen.  Apparently he was also going to be the Tin Man in 'The Wizard of Oz', but he was allergic to the metallic make-up.  And then Margaret Hamilton, who did play the Wicked Witch of the West, was in 'Babes in Arms'.  Dorothy was just picking up people from all over Judy's roster.

While the early films have some catchy tunes, they can't compete with the decades of ear worm power that 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' has.  So that's been stuck in my head.  There are definitely worse songs I could be held hostage by.  I find myself humming it as I knit my newest work in progress, 198 Licks of the Lollipop.  It started like this on Friday morning:

And by yesterday morning, here it was again:

Now it's like a rainbow coming over the horizon instead of a sunrise.  I only created the project page yesterday and nearly named it after the rainbow.  But since the Knit Picks Chroma colorway is called Lollipop, it makes me think of that classic question: How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?  Which I could never figure out because I never really licked a Tootsie Pop like that.

It's been a while since I've done a lacy shawl, so it feels good to get back to that, and this is such a quick knit.  It's relatively simple, the only thing I notice which would have tripped me up in my earlier crafting days is that this pattern does involve some knit stitches throughout the wrong side, as opposed to most which are just purling straight across apart from the edges.  So you just have to be able to recognize a knit from a purl stitch and stop yourself from just purling away like a fool until you get to the end.

What are you working on right now?  What's your favorite Judy Garland movie?

WIP Wednesday: Summer really is here

We had such a dream of a spring this year in Texas, it's been kind of a rude reminder in the past week or so that it really is over and it's time for the blistering reality of summer.  We're just flirting with highs in the 90s right now, but soon enough we'll be counting up the days that we reach the triple digits and hoping that that count doesn't reach triple digits.

But as we bid farewell to open windows and comfortable walks outdoors, we do welcome peach season.  Stands are already popping up along the side of the road touting fresh Fredericksburg peaches.  After last year's sad crop, this season is apparently full of juicy, sweet peaches, and I can't wait to bite into them.  And maybe squirrel away a few extra for pureeing into some kind of delicious peach butter or something.  Mmm...

Thankfully, the warmer weather doesn't really change my crafting habits.  I pieced together all of the rows of my quilt last Saturday, so they are all rolled up, waiting to be sewn together and become a completed top:

After that, I'll have to figure out exactly what the back of the quilt is going to be.  I'm going to a fabric store this weekend (on the way to a fiber festival - yay!), so I'll be investigating the possibilities there.

I've also made good progress on my bow, I think I only have about 10% left:

That's about 5% knitting, plus 5% for the blocking and end-weaving.  And of course, I'll save the water from the blocking to water the flowers.  Water conservation is always important, but especially in the summer.

What finally made you realize it was summer, or are you still in denial?  What are you looking forward to the most?  For more WIP Wednesday posts, visit Tami's Amis.