Restarting a restarted new start

I haven't had the time to block and take pics of my Hitchhiker yet, but it is finished. All 42 beautiful teeth of it!

Since then, I've started two new projects. (It's amazing that I kept it to only two new starts.) The first is a toque for my brother. I'm using a pattern by Tinksdarkerside called Ribbed for his pleasure… It's a free pattern, and while the name is funny and describes the pattern well, it's kinda weird to knit it for my brother. Anywho … it's a simple 2x2 ribbed hat in fingering weight yarn. I'm using Cascade Heritage Silk Paints (an 85% superwash merino, 15% silk blend) in green. I particularly like the crown design. It's so pretty! I've read that it makes a pointy tip right at the top, so I might try doing the decreases on 5 needles instead of 4. I'll let you know how that goes.

It's great travel knitting, though I find it very slow going. I'm not very proficient at purling and switching between knit and purl slows me down too. However, I think it looks great.

The other new start is another Hitchhiker. This time though, I'm doing it in a worsted weight yarn - Cascade 220 Superwash Paints in Iris Garden. It goes fast and is getting big quickly. I have 2 skeins, so I'll just keep going till I'm out of yarn.

Now the title of this post is a little cryptic. I started my first lace shawl (Haruni by Emily Ross) in mid-September at a mentoring session at my LYS. I brought it home and screwed it up almost immediately. Hence the restart. I made it much further this time, all the way to row 30, and I even put in a lifeline a few rows before that.

My lifeline didn't work (or I couldn't make it work might be more accurate), and so I had to rip out everything. All the way back to the beginning. I'm restarting my restart. At least I'm getting practice with doing garter tab cast ons:

Le sigh. I'll get the hang of lace someday.

Never Enough

That's right … you can never have enough stash. That's my motto! Seriously, I am bad, bad, bad. Etsy has become my new best friend and it isn't the best relationship I've ever been in. It's fun, but something is gonna go wrong eventually. I just know it!

Anywho, I've recently deveoped a desire to learn to knit socks. Nothing fancy, just plain stockinette toe-up stripey socks with an afterthought heel. I have the stripey yarn, now I just need to learn how to do the rest. That might have to wait, but at least I have the yarn!

I bought 4 skeins from String Theory Colorworks in their Continuum base (80% superwash merino, 10% cashmere, 10% nylon). It is wonderfully squishy and the colours are so bright and fun!

Solar Flare:

Atom:

Fluorite:

White Dwarf:

The company is not shy about tooting their own horn, and I have to agree with them!

I love buying from indie shops, they almost always add a little something extra into your package. Each skein had a coordinating stitch marker with it.

I also accidentally-on-purpose bought some more stitch markers. I found the dangly ones I was using on my lace project were a pain in the ass, so I got some non-dangly ones from Jennyanydotscrafts on Etsy. The stitch markers are so wee and adorable!! Omgooses! Each set had 10 markers in it, but some are in use already.

And another little "extra." Love it!

There have been other stash additions lately, but I still need to take pics of those.

On the Knitting Front

The last time I talked about my knitting, I was 12-14 points into my Hitchhiker Shawl. As a novice knitter, it was inevitable that I would screw uo somehow, and I had to put it down for a few days before I could take it in to my LYS for a little help. Dropping stitches at the end of a row = bad idea.

So what does a knitter do when a project is put on hold? Start another, of course!!  I started the Honey Cowl by Ann Maria at Madelinetosh. I used Misti Alpaca Chunky in gray and cast on the small version. It is SO soft and squishy!! Oh my gosh!

The colour is totally off in this pic - sorry!

It didn't look like much at first, but it got prettier as I went.

After my screw up with the Hitchhiker was fixed, I kept working on that and made great progress. I'm not quite done yet, but here it is at just over 39 teeth.

As motivation for working hard on my schoolwork, I bought some mentoring sessions at my LYS and today was my first one. I decided to start my very first lace shawl - Haruni by Emily Ross using Knitpicks Stroll Tonal sock yarn in Summer Blooms. Look!! You can see two leaves (kinda). Yay lace!

Once I got home, I felt a smidge guilty for having so many projects on the needles, so I hustled a little and finished my Honey Cowl.

Now I just need to wait for winter!

An unplanned hiatus, an apology, and a Turtle Trot

I did not mean to fall off the face of the earth. I'm so sorry. I was super busy working in July and then went on vacation to the US for a week at the beginning of August. By the time I got back it was almost the beginning of the school year and I had crazy amounts of prep work to do for my classes.

I haven't touched a needle since the end of July. No cross stitch and no quilting has been done. I'm usually too tired by the end of the day to concentrate on such things. On top of that, I must admit that I am painfully addicted to knitting at the moment. On the rare occasion I have both down time and energy, I have been knitting up a storm.

I do have a progress pic that should have been up ages ago, but I just never made it to the blog on time. Near the end of July I made some great progress on Ciara Blue, and so I am posting those (late) pics now for the September Turtle Trot (hosted by BAP Attack).

I will update on the knitting front next time (and I promise that won't be 6 six weeks from now).