I am astounded that it has been over a month since I’ve written. It shouldn’t, as time seems to be flying by but still it does. This has been a shitty year. No other way to describe it, and I can not WAIT for it to be over, so I’m not going to complain about time moving fast. I’m just going to try to catch up, and I keep asking myself as the new year approaches “Are we there yet?”

In knitting news, I have some stuff to share.

First up — I started, finished, and gifted a project within the 6 weeks I’ve been gone that I never blogged about. It was a pair of socks for my best friend. He lives far away (Michigan, of all places!), and I neglected to get a photo of the socks before I gave them to him. Luckily, he took one that he told me I could use.

• Pattern: Loosely based on Thuja from Knitty
• Yarn: Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport in Charcoal
• Needles: US size 4 DPNs
• Notes: Because my yarn was a significantly different weight (therefore giving me a significantly different gauge), I fiddled with the numbers. I cast on 64 stitches, and after the gusset only decreased back to 66 stitches, based on the measurements of the recipient. Other than adjusting the numbers to fit my gauge and his foot, I completed the pattern as written.

Friend is thrilled with them; he wears them, from what I understand, much as my husband wears his socks — for around the house lounging around. This makes me incredibly happy.

In other sock news, I never did the second sock from my toe up pair. I plan to run the first sock (cotton/elastic blend) through the wash and drier and see if it will shrink a bit; as it is, I really really don’t like the fit. That’s on my to do list. Also on my to do list is two pair of socks for two more friends, the first pair in this lovely LL Shepherd Sock in the Jeans colorway:

Haven’t decided what pattern I’m going to use for this yet; still looking for the perfect thing!

In the “joyous news” category, I completed the knitting on Mother’s candy-cane bag (Via Diagonale)! I still have a lot of finishing to do (i-cord trim, handles, lining …..) but I am so thrilled to be done with main body that I can hardly contain it.

The red fabric will be used for the lining, whenever I get that far. I haven’t even gotten as far as WASHING the lining fabric. Why has this bag been such a chore for me??? At least the end is in sight.

In the last of my knitting news, the only holiday knitting I’m doing is a request from my sister for a “pink scarf.” I picked up some Cascade 220 and started the Lace Leaf Scarf from the Holiday 2006 issue of knitsimple. So far it’s going well:

That’s about as far as I’ve gotten. I plan to knit as far as two balls of the yarn will take me, which means I’ve got quite a bit to go. I’m hoping (very much) that I can finish, or at least make a whole lot of progress, in the car on the way to Mississippi tomorrow. The lace pattern is very easy and logical, and it’s moving very fast, so I do have hope.

(By the way, my apologies for the quality of photos in the post. This house has very very little good light, and these were taken on a very gray day — but sometimes we have to take what we can get.)

I still have Icarus on the needles, but she’s been pushed aside (much to my disappointment) to work on these other projects. I can’t wait to get back to her, as soon as sister’s scarf is finished! I also need to start on the shrug for other sister’s wedding at the end of February, but I’m having some hesitation with that — in the last six months or so I’ve lost 30 pounds, and it’s still coming off quite steadily. I’d hate to start knitting the thing now and have it not fit come wedding time. But I don’t want to not get it finished either! I’m planning to start shortly after the New Year and just cross my fingers that any fit issues are easily remedied.

In non-knitting news, I am still struggling with my health a great deal. I have in this past week changed antidepressant medications, and am hopeful that I will see more improvement very soon. I’m having a hard time with day-to-day at this point, and blogging tends to fall by the wayside.

My family is leaving to spend Christmas in Mississippi tomorrow. I hope to come back with a lot more new knitting to share, and I will keep counting the days until this damned year is over.

I hope everyone has a fabulous holiday.

and a little of that…

I finished my ugly dishcloth:

It’s so awful it’s funny. It makes me grin every time I see it, and I have been using it mercilessly ever since I completed it. I love it, even though it’s hideously ugly and even though I fucked up completely on the last pattern repeat (don’t know exactly what I did, don’t really care — it’s just a dishcloth! How — freeing!). What makes it even better is that I showed a photo of it to my best friend (who tolerates my knitting babble, much like my husband, with patient affection) and he said “It looks like the American flag dipped in hydrofluoric acid.” I cracked up. (I love that I know people who even know what hydrofluoric acid is.) It gives me even more reason to smile every time I see the thing.

In other news (unfortunately with no photos), I have finished the gusset decreases on my second Hedera and will shortly be racing along the rest of the foot — it moves so fast after this point! So my Socktoberfest “celebration” is well underway. I have loved knitting these socks. I think I’ll have two new pair on the needles very quickly — Embossed Leaves, for my friend Lily, and I may try my first pair of toe-ups (most likely for another friend). I already have the yarn for the toe-ups (I’m going to use some stash Elann Sock It to Me in lovely shades of brown), but I don’t know what I’m going to do for the yarn for Lily’s. I may try some of the KnitPicks sock yarn.

A little progress has been made on Icarus — I’ve made it halfway through the fourth repeat of chart one. It’s looking delightful. It’s so easy and brainless right now — but still fun because I just flat-out love knitting with lace-weight yarn. Still, I’m looking forward to getting on to the “real” lace charts. It’s going to be a while, though, particularly given that for a little extra size I’m going to be doing an extra repeat of chart one.

No progress on Mother’s bag (picture red-faced embarrassed daughter here). But I am going to leave this afternoon to visit my family (including Mother) in Orange, and I plan to take only my Hedera (I just can’t abandon it so close to the finish) and the bag. I should have a lot of time to knit, because there will be plenty of folks ready and willing to entertain the boy-child, so maybe I will make some real progress. Maybe even get finished with the body of the thing — what an appealing thought!

I think that’s all the babble I have for today. I’m on my way to pack and I hope I’ll be back with some pictures of finished socks on Tuesday!

back again . . .

It seems this blog is often more about absence than presence. I’m working on accepting that, as it seems to be the best I can do.

As usual, the good news is that even though I’m not blogging, I am still knitting. I’ve got a couple of new projects, in addition to the old ones, and even one finished object!

Boring update first — Mother’s bag. This is such slow progress. It feels like I can knit forever on it and it just doesn’t grow. At all. That makes me want to tear my hair out. So this seems to be, again and again, shoved to the bottom of the WIP basket. However, I have finally reached the end of the first balls of yarn — and it all had to go somewhere, right? So that must mean that, despite what it feels like, progress is being made.

I doubt that this looks any different at all than the last progress photo of this candy-cane bag, but for the record here it is:

I’m thinking of making this my “at computer” knitting project rather than my socks. It is pretty mindless knitting, and maybe if I’m otherwise engaged while knitting it I won’t get so frustrated at its lack of apparent progress. I WILL have this finished by Christmas. Sigh.

I am also still working on the second Hedera sock. Progress so far looks like this:

That’s nine repeats of the lace pattern done on the leg. This one is not moving nearly as quickly as the first did, but I am still having great fun knitting it. Nate has begun Spanish classes, and I took Hedera with me to the second class (I thought I’d be having to participate, which is why I didn’t take it to the first class). The other mothers in the class were a little taken aback by my knitting at first, but once they realized that I would still be participating in the conversation, it didn’t seem to bother them, which is good. That will give me a 45-minute solid block to work on these at least once a week, so hopefully I will be done with the second sock soon. I find myself surprisingly tickled with the fact that these are for me, that soon I will be wearing my own handknit socks. I can not wait!

I think my next-up socks (for Lily, for real this time!) will be the Embossed Leaves pattern from one of the relatively recent issues of Interweave Knits (I don’t remember precisely which issue).

Okay, next in line — a finished object! These are for another friend of mine — Fetching handwarmers from Knitty, knit in leftover Kathmandu Aran yarn from Rogue.

I like these so much that I started another pair, out of a yummy soft green yarn that I had one skein of in my stash. It’s a DK weight, so they have a completely different feel than these do. I’ve finished one, and will be starting the second very soon. Pictures when they’re done.

Finally, my big new project:

Even the little details look just yummy, as far as I’m concerned. This is the Icarus pattern, by Miriam Felton, from the Summer 2006 Interweave Knits. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw the pattern and the name (in fact, I’m not sure that the name isn’t the majority of my attraction to it, but I’m weird like that). When I started seeing finished shawls pop up in blogs, and saw how lovely they were, I knew I neeeeeeeeeeeded to knit this. I was craving serious lace anyway, but I think I may have been soured forever on Kiri. So I cast on for Icarus about a week ago, using Misti Alpaca Lace yarn in color 7120, a lovely subdued blue-green color, and US size 4 needle. (Much as I love my Denise’s, when I was swatching for this I was desperately craving some of these!)

I have, so far, completed 3 repeats of Chart 1.

This part of the shawl is pretty much brainless knitting — I’m finding the pattern so easy to read it’s almost impossible to screw up. I did have one error which I *gasp* didn’t go back to fix — I would have had to tink two long rows, and I was able to fudge a fix that I think is almost completely unnoticeable (hubby couldn’t pick it out, either). Other than that, the only issue I’ve had is forgetting to put in a yo, and that’s easy to fix on the next row — no ripping or tinking required. So I’m very much enjoying this knitting.

I think that’s all I’ve got on the needles right now. I just ordered the yarn to make my shrug for my little sister’s wedding in February. I decided on the Knitpicks Andean Silk in Pitch. I’ll have a look at it when it gets here and decide if I like it enough to use it for that purpose. This is the first purchase I’ve made from KP, so I’m anxious to see how I like the experience.

I bought Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush earlier in the month and thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I haven’t decided which pattern I want to make first, but there are a few I plan on making. When I purchased it, I had a nice chat with the lady in line behind me at Border’s. She told me she had made several of the patterns from it, and really enjoyed them, so we talked a bit about knitting. She was somewhat surprised at how recently I started knitting, and gave me a card — apparently she does private lessons, and will also meet with you to help you “fix” your knitting. It was pleasant, and for some reason, surprising. I just don’t know many knitters in real life, so running into one in such a random manner was quite unexpected.

I hope to be back with finished socks soon!

. . . but I am. Oh, how I am.

I unpinned my Branching Out. It seems the blocking “worked” to do what it was supposed to do, and I am utterly, completley in love with this scarf.

A little more detail:

I am IN LOVE with this scarf. (Oh, did I say that already?)

Okay, some details:

• Yarn: Kidsilk Haze in shade 581, one ball
• Needles: US size 8
• Pattern: Branching Out from Knitty, 35 pattern repeats
• Finished dimensions: 5″ wide; 85″ long

I am just thrilled with how this turned out; though it is a lot longer than I expected it to be, I think I’m going to be really happy with the length. If I just drape it around my shoulders, it falls to my knees on both sides. If I wrap it around my neck, with lots of “drape,” it still falls to my waist in front and back. I think it just about the perfect length and I just LOVE the way it looks. (Have I mentioned yet that I love it?) I’m glad I chose the KSH to work with; I enjoy how it feels on my neck and face, and the gauzy look the scarf has really works for me.

I am still pinching myself over the fact that I MADE this. I’m so proud of that. I know I’ve got to get over it, but it’s really giving me a kick right now when not much else in my world seems to be going the way I want it to.

I am playing with this because I’m seriously considering moving my blogs over to WordPress, on my own webspace. Before I fooled with all the uploading and figuring things out, though, I wanted to see how I like WP. Convenient that there’s this free service here to let me do that!

So, I finished my Branching Out and it’s blocking:

Click for larger image

Doesn’t it just look like it goes on forever? Pinned out, it’s 86″ long. That’s 35 repeats. Wow. Just — wow.

I did, while I was pinning it out, find a mistake in one of the repeats. It’s almost like I forgot half of a row or something. It’s not immediately obvious when you look at it, but I’m still just not really sure how I missed it while I was knitting. Usually I’m very good at catching my mistakes before I get far at all in my knitting.

Anyway, we’ll see how it comes out when it gets unpinned. I have high hopes.