Yikes!

How did that happen?  A month without a post?  It wasn’t intentional.  January whizzed by in a swirl of meetings, work insanity, un-decorating, volunteer commitments and more.  Happily, there was a fair amount of knitting, in part because of an injury that has kept me somewhat immobile.  (Yeah, I know you find that hard to believe.  It’s all relative.  But closing in on 7 weeks now … I have had enough!)  No FOs to show off.  But you’ve been waiting to hear from me so long, I may as well show you what I’ve been up to.

Birte – Lamb’s Ear

I’m just short of the finish line on this absolutely wonderful, textural (and reversible) cowl in Spirit Trail Fiberworks Birte.  Only a slightly complex bit of gymnastics ~ hands and brain must perform together ~ is preventing me from calling the Winding River Cowl done.  As written, the pattern has a thoroughly clumsy three-needle bind-off.  That’s just silly on an otherwise reversible piece of knitting.  I have set it up to kitchener it, but in K2P2 rib, there is the need to idiot-proof before I actually sit down to do it or mayhem will ensue.  The weather is right for it, now to find the RAM.

I absolutely love my Hawthorne from STF Lyra.  I wanted to do something fun with the skein I have from the club in the colorway I got to name (Santorini).  Lyra just cries out to be cuddled, so Rose Beck’s Cocoon Me called.  The texture is nice and

Cocoon Me in Lyra – please!

scrunchy and I know it is going to be toasty.  I put this on smaller needles than I would have liked, because in my experience, Lyra tends to relax quite a bit when it meets water, and I do not want to lose the “bubbles” entirely.  The pattern gives you a crescent shawl, infinity loop or standard cowl.  This is the former, just a couple of rows shy of bind-off (and a little over-exposed).  I worked some extra repeats to use every yard possible ~ details to follow.

Gemma shawl, the first mile

Then there is this hubba-hubba number.  My office-mate commissioned it, so I couldn’t exactly say no.  The pattern is Gemma from Quince & Co.  The pattern pictures made it look awfully stiff and perhaps too tightly knit.  I went a different direction with Cascade Heritage Silk to give it a bit of drape, and a larger needle for a slightly looser gauge than written.  It will be made bigger than written, too.  Right now, it suits the need for totally mindless knitting ~ no pattern necessary.

With all of these near completion and a trip on the near horizon, I have the most wicked, itchy start-itis EVER.  I am showing great discipline in taking two small projects with me.  I know what they are.  I know I will not finish them.  I know I will get very little knitted on them at all.  But I still find  myself endlessly surfing around Ravelry looking for more patterns to go with the yarn shop upstairs!  Sheesh.

Queue ‘em up!

*Yes, there is something wrong with my header. It should be nutmeg.  Some days it is.  WordPress has been asked for help.  Sigh.

Roundtrip

I know I’m not the only daft knitter who does this.

Can’t be.

Upcoming: 72 hours of travel through two time zones to attend a meeting in the desert, then turn around and fly back East.

What will I obsess over most before I leave?

What knitting to take, of course.

With my current project too close to completion, it’s a recurrence of startitis.

Key considerations:  A one-skein project that involves minimal tools, little swatching and nearly mindless instructions.  Because I have some sense, a pattern that I already own.  And a combo I can package easily this evening while packing the other stuff.  You know, clothes, makeup ~ things muggles consider necessities … before my wake-up in the owl-hours to catch my flight.

Sometimes I will spend days thinking this over.

I don’t have the luxury of time now.

But the answer is incredibly simple:  Knitspot’s Plain Jhaynes mitts with Spirit Trail Fiberworks Nona in Seaweed left over from my Phoenix Rising.  It’s a perfect use for laceweight remnants, and since the yarn just happens to be (ahem) in a basket on the coffee table, we can check that off.  Oh – and I have a skein of BrooklynTweed Loft and Pei within easy reach, too, so I can finally write some kind of a review.  Loft in the colorway Barn Owl, to boot. Or hoot.

Check and check.

Season 2 of Downton Abbey is loaded on the iPad.  A defensive measure for the one (long) flight where I appear to be stuck in a middle seat (gulp!).

Now to the rest of that packing list …

Possibilities

The blasted humidity has broken, leaving us with the kind of bright clear day that yields a sky the color of the Connecticut flag.

This portends a few things:

• I can finally get up into the attic-that-is-my-closet to put away the woolies and get out the summer clothes.  Really, it’s time.  (Because I can do it without threat of suffocation.)
• It is dry enough for blocking!

“Blocking what?” you ask.
Shawls.  There are three that have been waiting an embarrassingly long time.  It brings to mind a story Ann Budd tells of a co-worker who hates blocking so much she has a trunk full of shawls ~ that are all unblocked!  She takes them off the needles and chucks them in the trunk.  Imagine!

Cobweb Lace from Long Ridge Farm

I am closing in on the finish line on the current bit of lace, a confection of 100% silk and beads you’ll see soon.

Which brings me to a burning case of startitis.  You know, that time when you’re just dying to put Something New on the needles.   New yarn.  New pattern.   One look at the stash and the possibilities are rather endless.  I want to play with them ALL.

Fact is, I was a very industrious and focused Test-Knitting Owl the first five months of the year.  Monogamous to my projects in the most disciplined way.

Time to let down my hair and allow myself to get some shiny new things going.  That means all kinds of time in the black hole of “advanced-pattern-search,” browsing yardage against stash, looking at other knitters’ projects ’round and ’round in circles.  How does it get to be past midnight?  Something like this:

Do I want to use madtosh merino light in a shawl?  Or some silk lace in the new Ysolda Teague Barley Sugar, which is a wonderful year-round accessory and stash-burner?  Do I really want to knit (learn) all that brioche stitch right now?  How about getting some of that BrooklynTweed yarn on the needles ~ finally ~ so I can write a decent review?  That Kirsten Kapur Ziggity would be perfect for the really fine BFL sock yarn I have.  Wait, with like, 2914 patterns I need to BUY one?  How is that possible?  What about a pattern in my library that uses the same yarn?  How about beads this time?  It’s been a long time since I knitted with the original Sundara Sock I love so much; it would be fun to get that going again. (Then goes off to buy some of said yarn from a fellow knitter for no reason other than that it’s there and I’m thinking about how much I like it.) … and on and on.

Good thing startitis is only allowed to happen a couple of times a year.

But all this browsing has also allowed me to pick out some fun prizes for you!  Your names were selected the utterly old-fashioned way:  written on slips of paper, placed in a bowl, drawn by a co-worker with a quizzical look.

AngieSue, Nanci, Mary, Frieda, Teekay, Bullwinkle and Noallatin – you’re all winners!  Look for emails from me so I know where to send the loot.

And thank you to each and every one of you who wrote something.  It truly warmed my heart.

Giddy

Another. Shiny. Object.

Done.

Finished.

Over.

Dratted colorwork Christmas stocking #4 was finished and blocked in time for Santa.

I am a knitter without a deadline until April.

Yippeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

As a rule, I don’t mind knitting on deadlines.  The sample work I do allows me to test-knit yarns at no cost to me, and often, to be among the first to try them out.  That’s fun.  I’m not talking about deadline-knitting.  Obligation knitting ~ that’s another story entirely.

And as of now, my only knitting obligation is a new pair of socks for Darling Bebe.

So I have complete knitting freedom.  In fact, on the ride home from my parents’ on Christmas Day, I knitted on not one, not two, but THREE different projects.  Because I could!  (Note:  One of those projects included DB’s socks, of course.)

Generally speaking, I am fairly monogamous in my knitting.  I’ll be actively working on 2-3 projects at a time, mainly for reasons of portability, complexity and convenience.  Some lace charts with beading are not made for the dentist’s office; some cowls are too sleep-inducing for companion late-night PBS viewing.  And you know that those owl hours of the night are when I execute my best work.

An obligation takes all the fun out of it and puts all the other projects in Time Out through no fault of their own.

Not anymore!

Spirit Trail Fiberworks Holda - Fortune's Red

Instead, I can feel the tickle of the most severe case of start-itis coming on.  There is the adorable hat promised for a young lady with yummy yarn from my unexplained fall from grace.  And the Rosebud  hat for me after I made one for a charity project (and forgot to

Long Ridge Farm Silk Lace - Pewter

photograph) and enjoyed the knitting and the FO.  Because I do need more hats.  It is winter in New England.  And those Fallberry Mitts I want to get on the needles before December ~ and Cotswold month ~ is over in the woolalog.  And the new Spirit Trail Holda cowl for me in that zesty Fortune’s Red (above).  And the incredible Long Ridge Farm cobweb silk beaded project on deck for a special friend …

Well, you get the picture.

Just call me giddy.   Breathlessly giddy.  Yarntoxication at its best.

Who killed (Kil)kenny?

Sometimes a mindlessly enjoyable/enjoyably mindless project brings inattention.  Knitting auto-pilot.  The results are usually smashing.

Last night, I was thinking about Luann’s advice to add a few repeats to my Kilkenny Cowl.  At this point, there was far more yarn left than there should have been.  Suspiciously, I brought out the tape measure.

Nearly complete? I think not.

The project is four inches shorter than it should be.  Let’s check that gauge.  You know, the gauge you never bothered to check as you knitted and knitted and knitted …

For finer gauges, I know I tend to knit loosely, so I always start a couple of needle sizes below what a pattern calls for.  And for an accessory like a cowl, if it looks okay, I just keep going.  Repeat after me:  “Mistake.”

Lousy close-up

I’m getting 6.2 st/in versus the intended 5.1 st/inch.  That’s a mega-difference in the final circumference.

None of this is the fault of the very versatile Quince & Co. Chickadee, which has gladly produced the cables and lace throughout this sampler pattern.  The texture is certainly sproingy.  But perhaps too dense.  In fact, it could use some drape.  And some circumference.

In spite of being nearly finished, I know I can’t be happy with it leaving it be.

Decision made.  You know what comes next.

In lieu of lunch

The ball-winder joined me for lunch.

And I killed Kilkenny.  Only to cast on, again, of course.

This is only regrettable tragic in that it represents Knitting Time Lost.  KTL cannot be regained.  Battling a wicked case of start-itis (when I would like to start five new things this very minute), this development is most unwelcome.  But the pattern is wonderful and the yarn, more so.

I killed (Kil)kenny

At least with knitting, we get do-overs …

The mittens, shawl and mitts can wait. Really, they can. The yarn is not going to go bad waiting.  Really, it’s not.

You know you want to wrangle the WIPs to a minimum.

Stand firm, Owl!

It’s not like spring will be here any time soon.