Knitting ADD

Heel Stripes from Gentleman's Sock in Railway Stitch

Heel Stripes from Gentleman’s Sock in Railway Stitch

Sometimes I believe I have Knitting ADD.  Not only do I suffer from an inflated sense of how much I can knit but I also grapple with what to knit next.  Now admittedly, in my defense, I used to knit professionally and am well aware that I can whip out a sweater in a week.  Back in the day when I didn’t have failing eyesight, bad neck issues, and a full time job outside of the house.  

I have a habit of purchasing the pattern I will knit next, or the yarn I must cast on right away. My latest pattern acquisition is the lovely tam set designed by Lorraine aka Twisted Traditions called The West Wind.  I am fairly certain I have most of the yarns called for in my stack of shetland yarns.  Maybe missing the pink she calls for but I need to look at numbers on my hanks since I do not believe the colors are actually named. Anyway I am on a low to no buy yarn binge at the moment and hope I have everything listed–mainly because the # 1 reason I was drawn to the pattern was the colors she picked.

To get to the shetland yarns I have been wading through boxes and bags of yarn picked up for those small projects such as socks and mitts.  I decided to combat my Knitting ADD {KA from here on out} I would bag up all the sock yarns and put them next to my newly assigned knitting chair.  I also put my bag of Buachaille yarn purchased just when it was being released with the sharing same name booklet. Kate Davies is a lovely designer and writer. Her old blog, Needled, was one of my favorites.  I do admit that the new layout does not appeal to me although I am sure that if I delved closer I would find it equally informative.  But that one or two sentence just doesn’t draw me in at all.

Anyway onto the what am I knitting content.  Currently I am working on what I believe to be the loveliest socks ever knit in the universe.  In large part to Nancy Bush’s pattern and the excellent dye job on the yarns.  Deep stash: one of my precious two hanks of Sundara Sock yarn and Sanguine Gryphon {Verdant Gryphon as of 2012} combined to make the gorgeous stripes pictured above. My youngest, ever honest, told me that they were not the most beautiful socks imaginable since knee socks in those stripes would be lovelier.  boo. Still I believe these will fall into the most gorgeous items I have ever knit category.

I have also talked to a friend about making me a blocking frame.  My back can no longer take the bent over pinning out of shawls which was, as I have mentioned before, not something I enjoyed in the first place.  For this reason my Stonington is still awaiting blocking.  But in the meantime I am going through washing all the woollies, checking for repairs etc, prior to putting them away for summer. I found two holes in my Inky-Dinky Spider Stole which makes me want to cry.  I actually parted with the extra hank I had post knitting so am see sawing between knitting another, helpful in the stashdown goals, or finding a few yards of the yarn I used, not as helpful since asking for a few yards from somebody is trickier.  If you are not one for looking at holes please have a yarny day otherwise witness the sadness:

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Okay that is it for now….

 

yarny days and knitterly evenings~ Elka

 

Drunken Spider

Dorothy Siemens of Fiddlesticks Knitting gets major kudos for clear, easy to understand patterns.  This is the second design of hers I have worked and the process along with the finished product exceed all expectations.  The pattern itself was a gift from Stitchingirl Toni, whose blog is lost to time, in 2006.  The yarn is Knit Picks Shadow in Vineyard.  The Inky-Dinky Spider Stole combined with a nice strong grape ends up with a drunken spider.  Love!  Particularly nice touches were the working of edging along with shawl.  I really appreciate not having to slog a shawl when I think my knitting is done.  Somehow edgings always seem to take longer than the actual body of stoles.  Especially if you are not going to knit back backwards and have to flip it back and forth to work a few stitches perpendicular to body.

The Shawl incorporates two of my favorite shetland patterns.  Every time I see something with the birds eye pattern I am automatically wowed even tho it is not particularly difficult.  I do realize that different people call patterns by different names but here is what I am talking about:

 

 

The next pattern that I really love is what I consider to be spiders webs…. even before doing this stole.  I think of it as totally trip-y and very psychedelic.  My eyes get confused whenever I see it.  I have no idea what it is known as but to my mind it embodies Op Art and I love it.   My next project, okay current project, incorporates  it as well.

 

 

These two  patterns make up the bulk of this stole and if you can’t tell I am beyond pleased.  Knitting wise it didn’t take me much time although I started this one quite a while ago.  It has been languishing for months with a mere weeks work left to do!  Actually once I started it a year ago I was kicking myself for not working on it sooner.  I think my main reason for hesitating was fear of running out of yarn.  I ended up with over a full skein leftover so I just need to stop fretting about such things.  My shawl did end up a wee bit smaller than called for but I cannot imagine it at a looser gauge or stretched more tautly.  The extra 3 inches or so in length would mean I couldn’t have blocked it on my bed anyways.  Although yesterday, while I was pinning it out, I started musing if a person could justify buying a king sized bed for blocking purposes.

All in all January was a good knitting month.  I finished the SSK and a pair of socks for the flame and a lovely shawl for me.  I am full of stashdown Win!

yarny days and knitterly evenings plus one more shot, washed out unfortunately, of my shawl to show pattern transition:

 

 

 

 

It’s here it’s here it’s here it’s here it’s here

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Do you wanna know how totally sweet and adorable Miss Toni is? She is this sweet: So I loaned her some magazines to fuel her doily fixation and she sent me two Fiddlesticks patterns and the cutest little ceramic tiles/magnets you could ever imagine. Hey and do you see how she crossed out the price of the patterns as if I hadn’t sent her a link to exactly which patterns I most coveted? Just in case she really insisted on purchasing me something for loaning her a few magazines. Which I did assure her was totally unnecessary. Well I have been sitting on these for a few weeks and today I get the shetland cobweb yarn I ordered from J&S. On super sale click the stock clearance button for bargain of the century. Retail therapy does work sometimes ;^>

In knitting news I started another shawl. This one is Sharon’s hap shawl. My friend Liz gifted me with the kit for the holidays last year and it is just so perfect right now~ not as bulky as the almost done STT and not as chart intensive as Spiderweb. Retail therapy again~~ I purchased the newest HK offering: Shetland Lace Wedding Ring Shawl. Did you know that it costs as much as if not more than the book did when it came out? For some reason I think HK cost $40 when it was originally published but it is now listed at $55 is that right? The shawl came out to $50 can you believe that? When oh when will our economy improve…

OK off for today. Yarny days and knitterly evening