Catch a Falling Star

We're going to try a little time travel here.

First, this is what I unpinned from my impromptu blocking area (read empty carpet with a sheet spread over it) this morning:

It is the Yvaine Pattern by Liz Abinante, whose patterns I wholeheartedly recommend. Even this, a free recipe for a very simple shawl, was written out in an easily understandable way. The original pattern was named after the main character in the Neil Gaiman book, Stardust. If you have not read this book, I strongly recommend that you do so. The movie is good also, but as in nearly every case, the book is superior. Especially when the book is by Neil Gaiman.

I followed Liz's instructions for the first section, then when the color repeats started, I began each color repeat with 4-8 rows of the seed stitch, then stockinette until reaching the next color shift.

A few weeks ago, this bit of lovely was this yarn:

This yarn is possibly my favorite thing in the universe. It is 550 yards of navajo plied polwarth that contains a total of nine stripes of color, from deep purple/red to grape green and back again, with dark, almost blackish shades in the color shifts. I also made it. It used to be a beautiful braid of polwarth fiber dyed by the most excellent and skilled Cloudlover.

This is a picture of a braid of the fiber in question:

I apologise that this is not in fact a picture of my braid of fiber, because the genius that is me forgot to take a picture before starting. This is the picture that I totally stole from Cloudlover's website, sorry about that. It's pretty well representative of what I spun, but really, stealing pictures is bad! I was so impressed with the fiber, that immediately after finishing spinning it, I ran out and signed up for the Cloudlover fiber club.

I got my very first braid from her a few days ago, and am very pleased. It's not a color I would have ever bought, but I'm completely in love with it. I really want to spin it next, even though I have other plans for my next project.

Next up, hopefully Thursday or Friday:

~I have once again expanded the stash by making an order from The Loopy Ewe, and I suspect it will be here by then.

~I have my very own spinning wheel, who is so beautiful that she deserves to be spoken of.

~There is more knitting to be discussed, as I am taking on the project of doom: EVENSTAR.

The one where I knit more than anyone should...

So, despite my attempt to forget I had a blog, I keep finding things to talk about. Admittedly, I'm pretty much sitting here talking to myself, but that's nothing new for me. Nor is it necessarily unexpected, since I just started writing a blog a few weeks ago.

In all but finishing, my fountain pen shawl is finished. I did an extra body pattern repeat because I knew I had more than enough yarn for it, and I like the length it came out. Or rather, I think it's a little short, but I haven't yet blocked it, so I'm sure the length will be fine.

Not having blocked it, it looks pretty much like a pile of yarn vomit with some beads thrown on for good measure:

I suppose I could have slightly alleviated that in the picture by not throwing it in a heap and snapping away, but it honestly doesn't look much better spread out right now:



Ahh well, the important thing is that it's finished. Mostly. I ordered blocking wires from inspinknity, but alas, I waited until after the shawl was finished to order them. Of course, this is actually a good thing, because I only heard about the blocking wires in question from the Knit Girllls a few days earlier. If I had ordered earlier, I would have gotten the KP ones, and well... yeah, I just think I've ordered a higher quality product this way. KP has its time and place, but that time is generally not when I'm looking for something I'll use for the rest of my knitting life.

On the subject of the other projects I wonder why I started in the middle of a busy school term, the answer is easy. Lots of knitting projects with deadlines makes me less likely to harm myself or others, because I'm too busy trying to figure out how to finish schoolwork and get back to my knitting.

I started my Camp Loopy Elisa Shawl on the evening of the 15th, and... well, after working more than 200 rows in lace weight on size six needles for the fountain pen shawl, working with DK on size eights is flying by so quickly I'll be surprised if it's not finished before the weekend is over.

This is a few minutes ago

This is this afternoon

All I have left is about 20-25 rows of lace pattern, two edging rows, and a bind off. Unless this is the hardest lace pattern ever, I'll be back to my Pride KAL very quickly.

Oh, and while I'm currently broke *grumbles about stupid local speed enforcement cameras*, I owe myself some yarn when there is money to be had. Yarndiet is my friend.

This is me, biting off more than I can chew.

So, since I can't actually bite into anything more appetizing than an egg white right now, apparently I've decided that I'm going to jump into more projects than I could possibly hope to complete in a timely manner.

At two weeks into this diet, I've actually done... okay. Very well the first week, and while I was very good the second week, I lost a sum total of one pound. (this is why I invariably quit diets. All that work for practically no return.) So I opted to indulge myself in a little yarn, in order to do another Kal-ish sort of thing.

The thing in question is Camp Loopy, brought to us by The Loopy Ewe. Since I am a poor college student, I have neither the time nor the money to travel to cool knitting retreats, but this one is a strictly at home event. Sheri is coming up with three projects that must be completed within the alloted time frame - a month each - and if we do so using yarn purchased at The Loopy Ewe during the correct timeframe.... well, I suck at explaining this. Go check it out, knit some cool stuff, possibly win Wollmeise.

Long story short (too late!), I used my yarn!diet goodwill from the past two weeks to buy the yarn to make my first Camp Loopy project, which will be the Elisa Shawl in Madelinetosh DK, in the colorways Ink and Ginger.

Less impressive photos of the actual yarn will ensue upon its arrival, since I stink at photography and ganked these straight from the madelinetosh website, and cropped them just to give an idea of colors. I apologise if this offends the people there, and if they e-mail me telling me I'm a horrible yarn-picture-stealer and threated to sue, I'll surely take them down posthaste.

I refuse to confess that this color choice has anything to do with Harry Potter. Okay, okay... truth be told, I'm not by any means the biggest Potter Geek, but I like the series  first five books pretty well, and enjoy the world Rowling created, even if I don't think her writing is all that and a big bag of chips. Since I probably need something in my wardrobe that is not green, I went with the closest facsimilies of dark blue and bronze that I could find in yarn format. While I'm sure other people could do better, others would complain that I'm using the book colors instead of the movies' blue and silver, and still others would just complain for the sake of complaining, this is what I decided. It works for me. Plus, all Potter-y aside, I think they're gorgeous colors and work well together. Now we'll just see if I can knit them into a shawl in under a month while dealing with school and my fountain pen shawl at the same time.

Hah!

This is me, procrastinating

So this is what I've been doing the last few evenings instead of homework. It's not that I don't like school, and don't obsess over my grades... it's just that I'm really tired of it all right now. Sign Language Interpreter training is full of the drama, and has the craziest summer term I've ever even heard of. I shall stop whining now, and speak of the knitting.

I've finished three and a half repeats of the body chart, and it's going quite well. That is, if you don't count the total of about two full rows that I've had to tink back, a few stitches at a time.

This is actually the first time I've ever seriously knit lace (There's been lacy patterns on socks, but it's definitely not the same.) and I'm learning a lot. Namely, the fact that I do not know jack. I had to learn how to read a lace chart, with particular attention to the fact that if I don't know what the big red circled parts of the chart mean, maybe I should find out before jumping in with both feet.

I'm quite liking the pattern. It looks a little like the cat's dinner, but I understand that's normal for a lace shawl. I'm also seeing the potential for how it will look after being finished and blocked. I think it's going to work quite well. I'm sure the picture looks like a mess, but I think it's going pretty well.

The dreaded nupps aren't even causing me any trouble. Perhaps I'll come back and post more information on how I'm doing them, since they seem to be a major issue for some people.

Finally, this project has inspired me to go out and spend some money on something I thought I was finished buying: stitch markers. I've been using a variety of things on this project; the safety pin style markers, plain metal jump rings, jump rings with a bead glued over the join, and snagless stitch markers. I have determined that the last of these items is that thing I didn't realize I desperately needed more of. The safety pins are big and awkward in lace, the jump rings catch constantly on the yarn, and even the beaded rings are just a little awkward to move from one needle to the other. The snagless rings? None of these problems, or any others that I've had. So off I went tonight to make another purchase from Seeking Sanity on Etsy. The ones I already have from her are amazing, and owning more will make this project easier.

On one last related note: No, I'm not getting anything for free, have no association with anyone I've ever linked on this blog, and am not being paid by anyone, for anything. It'd be nice, but it's not gonna happen.

June, the month of the KAL

So new am I to online knitting that I have never before participated in a KAL, or knitalong for any non-knitter reading this. (What's wrong with you? Why are you here, other than to mock... oh. Nevermind.) So when a Ravelry group I'm in, Pen Fetish Crafters, decided to knit a shawl that was already in my "OMG, I need one of those" list, I jumped onboard.

The shawl in question is the Fountain Pen Shawl, available at the entirely reasonable price of 5.50$US. Given my rather limited funds, being a full-time student who likes to eat and stuff, I opted to use some Knit Picks gloss lace yarn in Sterling that I had in the stash. I'd link Knit Picks, but seriously, if you can't find them on your own there's something seriously wrong. Since I somehow magically already owned a size 6 (4.0 mm for you metric peeps) addi lace circular and a little packet of silver colored jump rings, I was in business.

I am nothing if not OCD, though, so even though I didn't have a project on the needles as of the 29th of May, I could not start this until the suggested date on the group. I helped suggest it, it would be rude not to follow my own suggestions, wouldn't it?

Ironically, I'm also planning to take part in a Pride KAL for LSG (I'll warn anyone who doesn't know this already, no LSG link will ever be work/innocence/anything else safe. If you're easily offended, very right-wing, religious, or under 18, DO NOT CLICK!) I'd write something about that KAL, but while I know the yarn I'm going to use, I have no idea what I'm going to make yet.

So anyway, for anyone who's had the patience to stay this long, here it is, the beginnings of my Fountain Pen Shawl KAL:

Given how terrible I usually am on a deadline, I suppose we'll see how much of it I have finished at the end of June, particularly considering the fact that I'm taking full time classes +50% during the summer term. I did get win NaNoWriMo while doing school full time, but writing is easier.