ETA: Patched with a new theme. Very rush job. I might keep it, and continue to make it mine since I was so utterly sick of the old theme.

Started the bind off tonight. I won’t lie, juggling a knitting needle with a crochet hook is not easy or fun, but it’s fairly pretty and definitely manageable, if a little slow. I expect it to take a full night, possibly spilling over into two depending on how bonkers it makes me. That puts me at Tuesday though, which is plenty of time to block it before Saturday! I’m so pleased I got this far though…my right hand is kinda pissed at me, however, and may need to be treated to a night or two off after I’m done.

I can’t wait to post it when it’s all done!

Well, here we are on July 21 and as it happens, I’m wearing a black and tan dress, and this shawl matches very well. I got the dress just under two weeks ago, and I pulled out the shawl. I was at about row 80. Out of 190. Umm, that’s a lot of rows. But I figured I had to start knitting again to gauge if it even would be possible to finish. Here is where the math comes in. I plowed through until I hit row 123, the beginning of the final repeat of the flower buds. It was taking me roughly 20-30 minutes to knit a row. At 30 minutes a row, that is 33.5 hours of knitting remaining. I usually knit for three hours a night, so that’s six rows a night. Three weeks remaining. Seems possible…so I keep going. After a slight disaster on Sunday which caused me to throw it aside for a few hours, I pushed through and finished the flower bud section completely. That means I was at row 147. Hmm, getting much closer…only 43 rows left. 21.5 knitting hours to go.

Tonight I hit row 156 – this is sticking to my schedule exactly! Here is what I have tonight:

I have 34 rows remaining, which should equate to 17 knitting hours (or a little longer since these rows are getting damn long). I have 8 working days, and 2 whole weekend days remaining. IF, and only IF I can keep up this schedule, it should technically only take 5.66 days more to finish it. I have just a little less than twice that, plus weekends could give me more knitting time. I’d need a whole evening to block it.

Gratuitous detail shot:

And the great big ball of fuzz:

I think I can do this. Math says I can. I *think* I can…stay tuned!

I’d like to present my first finished project of the new year (mainly because the crappy weather on New Year’s Eve prompted me to leave the house two hours earlier than I’d planned, therefore I didn’t finish sewing up OFFICALLY in 2008): My Manon.

And the back:

No, my knitting is not crooked, I am.

It fits perfectly – I just need to decide on a closure. I ended up reknitting the piece with the missing bust dart. It took one evening of marathon knitting, so with only that one day setting me back, it didn’t feel SO terrible. I can see myself wearing this a lot – I really love it so much.

Amidst my finishing up the Manon, and the few days of misery once I realised I forgot my bust dart, I decided I needed to knit up something bright and cheerful to take my mind off it. When I was recently in NYC, I stopped at Purl Soho and fell in love with a demo project. I am normally not attracted to something so….busy, but I really loved how the colours worked together!

The two yarns look so ill matched in their separate skeins, but together, they play so nicely! The scarf is over 7 feet long now, so I think I might have to stop…but there’s still yarn left and I don’t want to waste any. I haven’t decided how I will deal with this. It’s either going to be an 8.5 foot scarf or a scarf and a headband. I don’t know! It’s sat in its near-complete state awaiting its fate.

And I also have a Maelstrom sock:

I was aching to do a sock, this one in particular. It’s much more progressed in real life than in this photo. I have half the foot left to go, having just completed the chart. It’s 2×2 rib across the top from here on out. Easy. I went up one needle size (2.25mm to 2.5mm) since I was worried about the circumference – thankfully this seems to have been a wise decision. I’m noticing that I should perhaps be making my heel flaps a little longer from now on since anything patterned seems to pull a bit differently (and is not as forgiving as stockinette), causing issues taking the sock on and off. In this instance it will be fine, but it’s surely a lesson for the future.

Finally, as it wouldn’t be a New Year’s post without a goal involved, my goal will be to crochet a garment this year. I have two I will potentially pick from, neither of which are your traditional mumsy crochet. Both are lacy and beautiful, it’s just a question of which one to choose! More details on this later though (as well as a spinning wheel update), as this post has already got too long.

The first stand I took my wallet out for was Creatively Dyed Yarn. She had SO much yarn and fibre. She had a particularly gorgeous braid of Tencel/Wool.

Tencel is something I’ve never spun before, it’s blue, and it was only $15 for 4oz! Fitted my requirements perfectly. It’s SO soft and shiny…I’m a magpie at heart, so shiny is always good.

Next, I acquired a Bosworth Spindle:

It’s a Mini in Ceaderwood, weighing .6 oz. It has a lovely smell, and is so smoothly polished. I couldn’t wait to start spinning on it, so I took out my newly purchased wool and started this while we rested for lunch:

Wow – I don’t know if it’s the wool or the spindle, but so far it feels like this stuff is spinning itself. It took a little getting used to, but I really do like this spindle. I’ve found this with all my spindles so far – they each have a way about them that takes a little adjustment, but once you get into the groove it’s effortless. I’m happy to say the same about this spindle.

Next I found myself at Shadyside Farm, where I bought some roving in Maryland. They had a lot of the same stock, but this time my eye was caught by some Alpaca/Silk. This stuff is simply stunning in real life – they took chocolate brown alpaca (70%) and blended it with Tussah silk that had been dyed in the most brilliant colours.

This one is Pumpkin:

And this one is called Soleil:

They’re both just enchanting to look at – look how the silk shines against the dark matte background!

I think they’re both absolutely amazing, and thus, irresistable. I have never spun alpaca before! I’m doing some reading, as it’s my understanding that it can be tricky to get the hang of. Some think it’s no problem though, so I guess I’ll have to test some of it out and come to my own conclusion.

Finally, I needed to find that sock yarn. I really wanted something in blue, but I was not having any luck. At Ellen’s Half Pint Farm, there was lots of sock yarn of many blends…nothing in blue, however. I was looking for solid or semi-solid, which is more challenging to find since the variegated yarns generate more oohing and ahhing, therefore probably sell better. My eye was caught by this beauty though:

It reminds me a lot of Colinette Jitterbug, if anyone is familiar. It’s 100% Merino, and should do the job nicely. If I do happen to find some blue yarn for the Maelstroms, this can always be used for another detail-intense sock pattern. There are plenty of them out there!

So, that’s it! A small handful of purchases, but I love them all. I think I’m going to take a serious stock of what I have, and what I intend to knit…I will probably post it on here too, just to publicly shame myself enough to get busy. Once I finish the second Christmas shawl,the Manon, and possibly my nearly-finished unnamed grey cardigan that I am making up as I go, I should get to work on my big cardigan with the yarn from last year. It’s just time to get rid of the old so I can get on with the new.

Oh, and a little maintenance note – it somehow has completely escaped my notice that WordPress has a plugin that can handle spam. I am giving it a go, so for now the annoying word-verification thing has gone bye-bye. Apparently, Askimet has been quite successful in blocking obvious spam. WordPress.com uses it and they extend the service to self-hosted sites as well. So, I hope it works because I hate to put people off by typing in verification words.

I also learned that a yarn company recently issued a pattern book that has wrist warmers (or fingerless mitts, I really didn’t think that through) that are extremely similar to mine. This is ok, they’re not exact, and I can’t claim the original idea, and I very much doubt that they copied me in particular. But thanks to the wonders of Ravelry, the original pattern used in the show *may* have been located. It does look awfully similar, if not identical. It made me feel a little deflated that it was never worth my time to begin with, but there was no central pattern database like Ravelry in the summer of 2006, so who could have known? Some kind people on Ravelry assured me that it definitely was worth my time, which made me smile. Not really posting this for any reason, I just don’t know where else to say it.

As I mentioned above, I’m going to England next week until the middle of the following week. After that, I plan to be refreshed and ready to work more actively on my blog again. The past month or two have been a bit hellish on the personal front, so I’ve really let it slide. Sorry about that. When I get back there will be lots of knitting pictures. Promise.

Here is my haul: (click to make big!)

It’s all nicely labelled via Photoshop, but I shall elaborate.

We stopped at Tess’ Designer Yarns first. It was a mob scene as per usual, but it’s totally worth it. The sock yarn on the bottom right is for socks for me. The one on the left will be a baby sweater for a friend of mine who just had a baby girl. I meant to get a pattern for one of the adorable sweaters on display but I was too overwhelmed by the heat and the queue that I forgot. I also got a single skein (why did I not get more?!) of laceweight in a lovely deep purple colour – it’s 500 yds and is enough for a Swallowtail Shawl. I keep trying to resist the urge to make one, but every time I see one I’m taken aback by the pretty. So one shall be mine unless something else tickles my fancy.

My next acquisition is that Shadeyside Farms stuff. Oh. My. God. THIS is why I love spinning. It spins like an absolute DREAM. I have not spun anything with tussah silk in it before, but I will definitely want to do so again! It drafts SO easily and I’m getting a very fine yarn out of it. Look!

Which brings me to my gorgeous spindle. I wanted to get a lighter-weight Golding since I enjoy my other one so much. It’s a 2″ Purpleheart in the Le Fleur design. It’s made from walnut and is a mere .8 oz (about 22g for the metric folk). It’s awesome to use – I’ve barely been able to put it down since I got home!

Along the way in the main barn, we happened upon the stand selling the Koigu mill ends. There’s about $56 worth there…there will defintely be enough for some anklet socks, which I love wearing. I need to weigh them individually to see just how much I have, but I picked the biggest skeins I could find, and I think some are close to the market skein weight.

I also got some more silk hankies, one dyed and one undyed. I’d like to try dyeing them myself, and they were half the price, so I couldn’t resist. Then I found the undyed Merino roving at a different stand, and thought the same thing. It’s like touching a cloud in this state – quite gorgeous. I hope I don’t make it crunchy by dyeing it.

In the end, it’s not that much – I was WELL within my budget and I kind of wish I had got a few more things. Especially another spindle. I test-spun some Bosworth spindles, which I hear so many people rave about, and I did like it – but I was still in that phase where I was trying not to spend all my money at once. And then we didn’t make it back to the main barn when I realised I was going to have more money left than I thought. I nearly bought some yarn at Brooks Farm Yarns, but I held back then too. There’s always next time! And there’s only so much you can have on hand at once. I have enough yarn to make at least three cardigans/sweaters, so I’m quite kitted for the moment.

It was a very long day, but the weather was beautiful, and I have some pretty things to show for it. I also had a broken windshield to show for it, but let’s not focus on the negative. Did I mention the car was two weeks old? Yeah, not bitter at ALL.