Ack!

I cast on Gretel last weekend after picking up another ball of the Rowan Purelife British Breeds yarn from Purlescence Yarns.  I was just about to finish the first chart when I realized that I had missed the note 10 rows back that said that the beginning of the row moved by 6 stitches.  That would certainly explain why I thought the row after that looked a bit funny.  So, I ripped back and am now slowly making my way through the chart.

Meanwhile, I think I’m coming down with a cold.

Time? What’s that?

Thanks to work, looming trip to Monterey, and end of the year stuff that needs to get down before… well, the end of the year… knitting time is at a premium, so I can pretty much forget about blogging time.

The Christmas surprise for my husband has fallen to the wayside, but I think he’ll understand since he wants to see the shawl done almost as much as I do.

I have discovered one thing that sucks about knitting a white wool/silk lace shawl… no chocolate is allowed near the shawl (me, any white fabric, and chocolate have a ceasefire agreement… none of us are allowed in the same area at the same time). This is a problem because I think chocolate would help me to relax a little and enjoy knitting said shawl rather that trying to break land-based speed records and failing miserably (worst case: dropped stitches *gah*).

The fast and the furious

I have been trying to knit fast and furious on the Sister Shawl… I have to have it done and blocked by the 24th, which is when we’ll be driving down to Monterey. Unfortunately, with people staying at my parents’ house and the dog I can’t block the shawl there… of course, I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to block it at my place. The last lace shawl I dressed I pinned out on a full size bed. I have a queen in the guest room… hopefully, it will be big enough. I’m thinking of using fishing line as I have not had enough time to get dressing wires… okay, so I didn’t remember I needed dressing wires until too late. But, fishing line and T pins should do the trick. Although this raises the question of where one goes to find fishing line… huh. I’ll have to figure that one out. Anyways, the shawl… I’m up to only 116 rows cause I didn’t get half as much knitting done last weekend as I wanted to. I looking forward to tomorrow… I have nothing else I am required to do until 8:30 pm when I’ll be whisked off to a company Christmas party.

My sister emailed out a schedule for the 27th and 28th (D-day)… boy, am I glad that Josh and I did the simple yet sweet wedding*. This is insane. I must admit that I thought it was pretty funny that she reminds all the guys going to the store to pick up their tuxedos the day before to check for both the left and right shoe. *hehe*

Thankfully, I picked up my dress on Sunday… very pretty… of course, now my mother hates me. *sigh* She showed me a dress in a catalog by Spencer Alexis… the dresses are mostly flowy things using different types of fabrics in all the same color or nicely contrasting ones. Then, I found out a place in Carmel sells them, went in and tried one on, ordered one in what I believed to be my size, and picked it up a week later. Now, my mother is moaning over the fact that she wanted to get a dress by Spencer Alexis, but now she can’t cause we’d look like twins** even if she got a different style and color (her words, not mine), and what is she going to wear. *sigh* But, with my dress safely in my hands, all I have to worry about is the shawl and if the pins I bought on eBay are going to arrive in time. (I picked out a couple of sparkly pins, both of which are kind of art deco in design, so that I can give one to my sister to help hold the shawl on without needing to worry about holding it or tying it, etc.) I should get at least one before next Friday since it’s already shipped out.

Wheee… I am so glad this is not my wedding.


*We did the 20 people in the redwoods with a fancy dinner afterward… no dancing… no cake cutting… simple.

**People usually think I’m either my mother’s clone or her younger sister we look that much alike. Clone I don’t mind… but sister? Granted my mom is only 20 years older than me… I should just be happy that no one believes what age she is and that I got those genes.

Just say "Bah!"

Due to a various number of things, I feel completely drained. However, thanks to my sister’s wedding and me selfishly taking a week off at Thanksgiving, I am out of usable hours off. This of course means that I am at work and do not want to be. This means that when I have been at home the last few days I have thought that I should work on the Sister Shawl because the wedding count-down is growing terribly short, but I say “Bah!” I have been spinning instead… spinning a little bit of silk and now a little bit of baby alpaca which are dyed to coordinate with each other. I’m about half done with the alpaca, then there will be plying. I feel like a horrible blogger since entries have been sparse, without pictures, and rambling… this entry being a prime example.

I can only hope that the pain I am experiencing in my sinuses is from the sudden drop in atmospheric pressure affiliated with the rain storm that came through last night… cause otherwise I might be sick… without an usable hours off… and a manager who won’t let me work from home even though all I do is edit stuff. A co-worker has suggested I cough on him if I do indeed turn out to be sick.

Do I have to go back?

Back at work after a beautiful week off… if only the week had been longer… but we can’t have the week adding on extra days just for me, other people might get jealous… or pissed if they have to work. The unfortunate thing of the week off was I have come to realize that I need at least a month off from both work and school. The nervous twitch in my left eye actually went away for a couple of days; it was back this morning. *sigh*

I didn’t really get any knitting done… I finished my bookmark, so now I need to block it. I guess it will get into the mail eventually. I did get the spinning for my sister-in-law’s Christmas gift done… approximately 118 yards of fingering weight romney. I think I need to practice the whole spinning bigger. I’ve gotten damn good at spinning lace weight, which means I can’t spin anything else. Maybe if I got a lazy kate… just spin lots of lace weight singles and start making 3…5… 8-ply yarn… I’d be spinning forever in order to get anywhere.

Anyways, the yarn came out pretty nice; now I need to dye it. I don’t know my sister-in-law very well, so I have no idea what colors she likes. I was thinking of going with a green blue combo… everyone likes green and blue, right? Now to find a time my husband won’t be mad at me for making the whole apartment smell like vinegar and wet sheep.

Did I really say I didn’t get much knitting done a couple paragraphs ago? I did, look at that. *groan* I actually did work on the Sister Shawl at Thanksgiving. I can’t believe I forgot… especially since knitting seems to be one of the few ways I can impress my family. Knitted lace seems to truly amaze them, and it rocks my socks that it’s my skill they’re impressed with. I think it’s funny that my mother has told me more than once, “We never thought you’d be one to knit.” What she did think I’d do, I have no clue.

Sadly, knitting will be laid by the wayside for most of this week unless I need a stress break. Must get to work on the 15-20 page paper that is due come Saturday. Most of the work is reading all the articles and books I’ve been collecting… should have gotten started on it over the weekend, but laying around in my pajamas for a few days made me feel better. I’m such a procrastinator. At least I’m getting better… a couple years ago as an undergrad I would have just begun looking for sources right about now.

Now you know why I didn’t become a computer programmer*

I fiddled with the math some more cause something didn’t seem right, but all is well. My math:

1 leaf pattern repeat = 16 rows

16 rows knitted = 1.5 inches = 10.67 rows/inch

16 rows blocked = 2 inches = 8 rows/inch

To get 18 inches in length with a blocked gauge of 8 rows/inch = 144 rows

144 rows at 10.67 rows/inch gauge = 13.5 inches

Of course, there is the fiddly little issue of wondering if my gauge swatch is over blocked. The lace is opened beautifully… but looks a little flat… I don’t know if this means I over-stretched it or if it’s because it’s a 5 inch gauge swatch.

“Bah!” I say. Maybe I should take a break and work on my lace bookmark that needs to get into the mail by the end of the month. I want to try something with beads… so I will need to plan a trip to the bead store. I going to go simple for the lace pattern itself; I’m planning on using the Diagonal Maderia Lace pattern from Barbara Walker’s Treasury of Knitting Patterns. I’m thinking of adding a bead at each yo after a sl1-k2tog-psso… the beads should then sort of underline the diagonal lines. The yarn I’m using is a pretty french blue color… so I need to figure out if I want lighter beads… darker beads… or something completely contrasting.


*I couldn’t get passed the 3rd semester of calculus, and I didn’t even want to try the 2nd semester of physics. I understand theories… they make perfect sense… it’s the implementation of them (especially in relation to exams) that I have trouble with.

Where am I going?

It dawned on me last night that I could measure the current knitted state of the lace shawl and compare it to my blocked swatch and just get a reliable preblocked/blocked ratio. Thus, I now know that one leaf pattern knitted to one leaf pattern blocked is 1.5:2 inches. This is good to know because it means I will have to knit 13.5 inches to attain 18 inches of blocked shawl. I’ve got 7.5 inches knitted so far. Makes me feel a little better…. cause part of me feels it’s going to go on forever and I won’t get it done in time.

Confusion reigns supreme

It appears that the entry I thought Blogger had eaten wasn’t very tasty as it’s been returned… you can see it below… you can also see it was nothing spectacular.

It also appears that I am losing my mind at the young age of 27. Of course, I know people who would claim I never had one of my own to begin with… I am a blonde after all… for all I know my brain case is just full of hot air… which would explain some of the things that come out of my mouth.

Sadly, there will be no knitting tonight as the husband and I are heading into the city (that’s SF, for those of you either south or east of my location) to see Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing at the American Conservatory Theater. The lace is too complicated to try and knit during the show. At least I got 4 more rows done last night, bringing the total to 60 rows completed… only about 84 more rows to go, which certainly sounds better than 144 rows to go or even 100 rows to go. Twelve more rows and I’m half way through the row count, if not the shawl. I need to ignore the fact that each row is going to take longer to knit as I go along.

I’m still thankful that the pattern is not a pain to knit, and it’s not boring either. The last lace shawl I did was getting tedious by the end because it was a 3 pattern row repeat. The Sister Shawl is a 4 pattern row repeat… but the way the repeating section is written it looks twice as long…. so my mentality has been “Which row is next?” rather than “Row 1, Row 3, Row 5… and back again.”

Finally getting back to knitting

The last week has been grumpy… well… okay… I was grumpy. Between the election results and having a paper comparing Terry Cook’s and Luciana Duranti’s appraisal models* due on Saturday not much knitting was done… okay, no knitting was done until Saturday evening.

I had written an entry about the lack of knitting and furious paper source reading that had been occurring, but Blogger ate it. Hope it was yummy.

But, now, thankfully, knitting has recommenced. I got 12 rows done on the lace shawl. Somehow I feel accomplished, but I also feel like I’m getting nowhere. I have to keep remembering that every 4 inches stretches out to 6 inches. But the end still feel a long ways off… I’m on row 56 and I estimated that I need to have 144 rows done to get the desired length without the edging, which I’m guessing will add approximately 2 inches in length… the numbers all work out nicely that way, which could mean I’m horribly wrong**. I have decided that I need to get cracking on it again since December 28th is looming, and I need enough time to block the thing.

Now, back to work.


*This particular link goes to Cook’s theory, which is the one I sided with… cause I know you all care. *grin*

**I did, in fact, knit a gauge swatch… which I promptly forgot to measure before blocking, so my 4 inches knit = 6 inches blocked is, simply put, a guess… an edumicated guess, but a guess nonetheless.

The Black Beast

Here it is… Le Bete Noir…

I’ve only got a couple more inches before I can begin the armseye shaping.

I got a few more rows on the shawl done at my LYS on Saturday. So, I’ve got 44 done so far… about 100 left to go and then the edging.

I think I need to start alternating which project I work on each night. Le Bete Noir is nice to do while watching TV since it’s knit plain. The Sister Shawl requires more attention, but I need to get it done (I’ve got about 2 months left to finish it and I need time to block it properly)… it’s just not conducive to paying attention to the lastest episode of CSI. Maybe that’s the problem… I watch too many shows that make me think and want to pay attention… I need to watch more stupid shows.