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It has come to my attention that I am quite the lapsed blogger and pocaster and I plan on remedying that! I’ve been busy, I’ve been sick, I’ve been lazy, and so on but in any case there’s lots of catching up to do. Most projects I was working on for myself like the Kauni Eleanor Stole and the Mystery Stole (which has since been revealed to be based upon a Guinevere theme) have been on hold while I’ve been working on gift knitting for the holidays.

So, going back to where I left off, I did finally finish Dad’s birthday sweater about a month after his birthday.

Holy cow was this sweater some work! Superwash wool in this weight does weird things in water. I know now that I should have knit it at a tighter gauge. You can see from this picture where it is on Dad how the purls are stretched out wide:

All that cabling and moving stitches made for lots of stretching the yarn plus the looser gauge (4 stitches per inch) and the superwash made for a bit of a disaster when I first washed and dryed this thing. It got about 5 inches wider and 3 inches shorter. There was lots of ripping and lengthening and pinning back and hemming until I finally got it right.

Despite the headaches and the panic near the end, I really enjoyed designing and knitting this and I’m so glad that it fits Dad well and he loves it!

Stay tuned for more catch up posts on all the gift knitting!

Chapter 28 of Anne of Green Gables is ready for all my anxious podcast listeners! An Unfortunate Lily Maid is an awfully fun one - Anne ends up in a catastrophic situation, she and Gilbert have a testy exchange, Marilla despairs of Anne ever acquiring some sense, and Matthew, a man of few but wise words urges Anne not to give up on romance completely.

Here is a photo of The Secret of the Stole with Clue 2 finished:

That’s a pretty accurate picture of the color in the natural light. And here is the Kauni Lady Eleanor Stole in the natural light:

Aren’t the colors lovely? Here, look closer:

Very soft and rich, not at all neon like the camera flash tends to make them look.

And lest anyone remind me of my pledge, I have not actually knit anything new on these projects in the last two days. (Notice what a good blogger I am being, by the way?) Dad’s sweater is getting very close to its finishing stages! I can’t wait to give it to Dad and then show it to you guys!

I finished my Sockina Cotton socks:

I knit these from the toe-up with Judy’s Magic Cast On. Worked in Stockinette on 56 stitches, reverse heel flap with Eye of Partridge stitch under the heel and 3×1 ribbing on the leg. Very soft and pretty colors but, no matter how much nylon and acrylic you mix with cotton, it’s never got that nice stretch that wool has!

I started a new pair of socks, the pattern is Cabletini by Wendy Johnson and can be downloaded for free from The Loopy Ewe’s website. The yarn is Dream in Color’s Smooshy in Giant Peach. Now I understand the Smooshy obsession. Yes the yarn is nice and smooshy but it’s the slightly variegated color that I’m in love with. This picture is from a week ago-ish, I’m past the heel now:

The Kauni Eleanor Stole continues to be my favorite thing to grab for TV knitting. These colors are overly bright but you get the idea:

I’ll get a picture outside when the sun is out someday. I’m further than this, well into the purple, heading back towards red now.

The Secret of the Stole began on 10/5 but I started about a week late since I put off ordering beads till the last second and they arrived on 10/12. I love these beads, I bought them from EarthFaire:

I believe the color is called “Metallic Gold Iris.” So lovely with the KnitPicks Shadow yarn in Lost Lake:

I’m getting caught up slowly. Here is Clue 1 finished:

I finished Clue 2 last night and it is blocking right now. Clue 3 came out this past Friday so I may actually be caught up when Clue 4 is out. I’m absolutely loving knitting lace. I mean, real lace with laceweight yarn. It is definitely not TV knitting but working on it requires such concentration and focus that it is almost meditative.

And because I seem to have a real case of Startitis lately, I cast on for the Doctor’s Bag from Knit 2 Together by Tracey Ullman and Mel Clark:

I’m going to call it my Mary Poppins Bag because it looks like one of those nice big bags that you can stuff all kinds of things into and constantly surprise people with what you pull out of it! Here’s a close up on the lovely Herringbone stitch pattern:

The yarn I’m using is Cascade 220 Heathers in a lovely peach/pink color. The bag is knit with two strands held together on size 11 needles so I can only do a bit at a time before my hands start to ache and I switch to something else.

I’m still not finished with my Dad’s Birthday Sweater if you were wondering about that. I ran out of yarn on the second sleeve and even though my extra balls have arrived, I seem to have stalled out somehow. I knit so much on it so fast and so exclusively that I think I burnt out a bit. I suspect this is what is fueling my startitis as well but I suppose the only way to know is to finish the thing! And I want to, I’m really thrilled with how it is turning out. I just have so many other lovely projects in the works… but then it’s hard to enjoy other knitting when there is a voice in the back of my head reminding me that I really should be finishing the sweater. So I pledge right here and right now that I will not knit on the Secret of the Stole, the Kauni Eleanor Stole, or the Mary Poppins Bag until Dad’s Birthday Sweater is complete. The socks are fair game. Socks are always fair game and are actually absolutely necessary for travel knitting and TV knitting when the other option is a large object with cables and charts.

So there’s the knitting news. I have a new chapter of Anne of Green Gables recorded and plan on editing it in the next day or so. I wish I could get them out more often, it is just very difficult for me to read or spend long periods of time on the computer with my dizziness issues. But I promise I will finish out this book, hopefully by the end of the year.

Maybe if I make a schedule for myself I’ll blog more often? I get in this pattern where I put off blogging (because I’d rather be knitting) and then it’s been so long since I blogged that I get overwhelmed with the amount of picture taking and uploading and writing and linking necessary to blog. Silly isn’t it? I’ve simplified my photo uploading process (no more resizing or naming individual files) and that speeds things up a bit. And an especially discouraging development was when my memory card went wonky this past week and ate all the pictures I’d taken, thus requiring reformatting the freaking thing and taking said pictures again. Except for the pictures of the lovely cotton washcloths I made for my grandma for her birthday and which have already been sent off to Arkansas for her. I’m planning on making more of the same for other birthdays and holiday gifts so you’ll get pics then but in the meantime, they were pretty and pastel and soft. Happy 77th, Mema!

Okay, knitting! Remember the Kauni Cardigan?

I started it a while back and was super excited and knit on it like crazy for about a week and then got sick of it and put it in hibernation. I told myself that it was because it was too darned hot to knit with that wool but when I pulled it back out again I realized that it is more than that. I love this yarn and the long subtle color changes all the way through the rainbow. The thing is that the way this pattern plays the colors off each other is a bit much for me. It’s sort of visually overwhelming and that’s not good for a girl who is easily visually overwhelmed with the result usually being some degree of dizziness and/or vertigo. So I ripped it out and started a new project that I’ve been wanting to do for a while - the Lady Eleanor Entrelac Stole by Kathleen Power Johnson, found in Scarf Style by Pam Allen. I was waiting for the right yarn and I realized that the Kauni yarn has the perfect coloration for it, although it’s not the weight of yarn called for. But I simply made a few small modifications to the size and number of the entrelac rectangles and, voila:

I’m loving the way the colors work with the entrelac so that the new color dips down into the old color and makes it visually interesting but not overwhelming. I’ve never done entrelac before and it’s really quite easy yet it somehow makes me feel tremendously clever in a totally illogical way. Here’s a closer look at the colors and the entrelac:

Just lovely.

Maia has released the final clue for her Mystery Socks and, wow, what a gorgeous pattern!

Close up of the leg:

The front of the socks:

And the back:

And a couple more:

It is rather difficult to take pictures of your own feet and legs, let alone flattering ones so please excuse the shots that make my calves look like tree trunks. They really aren’t that big.

There is plenty more knitting and even some spinning going on but rather than overload this post, I will end it here and leave a few things for next time which will be soon, I promise!

I’m finally taking the time to blog, fall is finally here, and I finally finished a few projects. (I know I’m behind on Anne for the podcast but I’m hoping to get in some recording time tomorrow.)

Behold, Clapotis:

It’s so beautiful and elegant, I’m not sure when I’ll ever have occasion to wear it! But doesn’t it look pretty with these flowers?

And a reminder, the yarn is La Luz Silk from Fiesta Yarns in Amethyst and the pattern is Clapotis by Kate Gilbert.

I also finished the Anniversary Socks:

I think these are beautiful and elegant too but unlike the Clapotis, I’ll wear them all the time! I think ultimately that is the greatest appeal of knitting socks to me - they are so practical.

The yarn is Regia Silk in Cream and the pattern is Anniversary Socks by Nancy Bush from the book Favorite Socks.

Here is Maia’s mystery sock through clue 2 (although I’m nearly finished with clue 3 and clue 4 should be out any day now but this is what I have a picture of):

I’m still enjoying it very much, in clue 3 the pattern wraps up the back of the leg - very creative!

I got a bunch of great sock yarn from The Loopy Ewe with birthday money and among them are a new yarn called Sockina Cotton which is wonderfully soft and self-patterning:

It’s nice and easy stockinette and the patterning keeps me amused. Also notice I’ve started knitting socks on 2 circular needles and like it very much! Of course there are still times when DPNs are more practical so I won’t be giving up on them by any means.

Well, there are a few other things in the works but the thing that’s taking up all my time is a sweater for my Dad’s birthday (which is Tuesday, 10/2). He decided he wanted a traditional Irish/Aran cable knit but in a deep red color. I happened upon a great old book at the library (and have since purchased a used copy from Amazon) called The Harmony Guide to Aran Knitting. I picked out a few cables and motifs from it that I thought would go well together and I’m quite pleased with it so far! No pics yet of course but hopefully soon.

Well, that’s plenty for now. I’m trying to get back in the habit of blogging more often but I guess when it comes down to it I’d rather be knitting!