I found some pinkness

This poor old bit of a shawl was sitting in a corner, just waiting for me to return to it. I now have the perfect idea of what to do with it when it's done, so I dug it out and am once again having a ball with it!

It doesn't look very pink here, but it will, it will!

The bottom point, adding the 3rd row of scallops

Top left-hand corner, with pink!

The whole thing, thus far

I hope nothing terrible happens, like running out of yarn. Certainly I could add another kind of Noro sock yarn, but I'd rather not!

It's a bit of a scrumpled mess, but it will block out divinely, I am sure. 

 A bit of a pink leaf

It's done

I could still get myself a few teeny buttons, but the Noro cardigan is done! I wish the colours had turned out a bit more mixed up -- I didn't mean to be so matchy, matchy! But it is quite lovely nonetheless.

bad hair, nice cardi

The sleeve/shoulder join is a bit pointy. Setting in sleeves is not something I've done a lot of, really. It might also be a blocking feature, since it was lying flat with those shoulder seams folded, instead of being on a round shoulder!

I should have got my photographer to show you the beautifully mattress-stitched side seams, though, as they are marvellous.

and the back

Now onto the next thing! I am working with renewed vigor on the black witchy shawl, and have started a new lace stole... just what I need, non?

And! Now that I am finished with this, I can start in again on the Noro scalloped shawl -- I had run short of this colourway and now I know how much leftovers I have.

I still mean to make the rainbow Botticelli as well, but I slipped a bit on Ebay last night and got myself another Rowan magazine full of Felted Tweed patterns, so don't place any bets just yet.

So close

Firstly, happy π/Pi/Pie Day to you all. It is 3/14... 

I have been working diligently on my Noro cardigan, and ooooooh, I am so close!

Now, you know we knitters can be a bit "nitpicky" on occasion. I tried to embrace the weirdness of the Noro colours, but my sleeves turned out almost the same, and now look what is happening!

My fronts are getting all identical up the top!

Here is the source of the trouble. On your left, you see how the colours are "supposed" to appear after that minty green bit: turquoise, grey, muddy bits, green, gold... On your right, you see a jolting jump from minty green to the muddy bits! I was just knitting along and noticed the colour change, but there is no knot -- some dyer just missed the turquoise vat or something!

Whatever, it looks like the tops of the fronts will be very similar indeed!

Another few hours of work, and the sewing up can begin! Bets on when I will finish??

Surprises

Where the heck did this dark purple come from?

As you can see, I even dragged the centre out of the ball to see where the knot was -- this must be a crazy deviation!

But no, deeply hidden in there, I did spy another bit of purple, though it doesn't show anywhere on the outside of the ball.

I am really enjoying my little fans! It's a bit of a nuisance picking up the stitches, but this is all about the colour, so I'm willing to sacrifice some knitting pleasure for the colour pleasure, if you get what I mean! I can't wait to get to that pink!

I am also enjoying, right now, sitting in front of my computer! I woke up to a power failure this morning -- the juice was off for about 3 hours, and the lights just popped on as we were wondering if Elaine's school would be closed for lack of heat. We do have an old Walkman with a radio, so we are not totally adrift, but we are so dependent on this box for information, and we forget that in an emergency, it is not really any use at all!

It's all her fault, she started it

You may have heard of the recent outbreak of Startitis in Toronto. When I read this article, I boldly declared that, although I had knitting all over the house, and although I have unrealistic ideas about how fast I can knit, I might possibly be "immune" to this malady.

Not so! I think that even by reading that blog, I may have picked up some fatal microbes.

I was looking through my favourite shawls on Ravelry, just for fun, you know, and discovered that one I showed you last time: the Fan Shawl. And once upon a time I found an on-sale ball of a different colourway of Noro Kureyon Sock yarn, which would look so lovely knitted up in this way. Annnnd, the shawl is made in those little bits, so easy and quick, not really time-consuming knitting at all!

Oh yeah, and it snowed! A lot! One needs a new shawl (or cardigan or socks) in this weather!

Sweater and sock knitting

Now, I know that I have knit two whole things thus far: a square and the last bit of a pair of socks. But, really, how is the Noro cardigan coming?

It is coming along fine. I've stopped knitting both fronts at once, since I spent as much time figuring out which-way-to-go-on-what-piece as I did knitting, or at least it felt like it!



When I just have one of those little rows to do at a time, it zips right along. So one day I knit on one side, and one day I knit on the next, and I know how many pattern repeats I need to do before I start the armhole and neck shaping. So, all is well.

The camera battery died right after this picture, so you will have to wait to see another one with the bottom edges uncurled!

If only my hands were silky smooth, instead of winter rough! My nails are not perfect and the skin on my fingertips is rough in places. I feel like Scarlet O'Hara after working in the fields. Whatev'. I find that a spot of hand lotion makes handling the yarn less troublesome. What an innovation!

I am prepared to continue with my socks. Here is the first Waving Lace sock. This yarn is so soft! Not sure on whose feet these will end up, but they are certainly fun to make!


I could tell you what my plan is for the next sweater, since I have changed my mind from whatever it was I last told you. But let's do one thing at a time, shall we? I have also decided on a shawl, for now. How about this in my leftover Noro Kureyon Sock? Several examples from Ravelry are here. We'll see how long this desire lasts, and when I will get around to it!

Really, the back of the sweater

Oh, joy supreme!

This morning I looked at my sweater back, measured, and did a little dance, because I could just shape the shoulders and I was done!

I still have the two front pieces to do, and so should not celebrate too much, but it is so nice to cast something off and start something new, even if it is another piece of the same garment!

I still have one more day of NaKniSweMo, so I'll certainly try to get started on a front!

The back of the sweater

First, this morning, I wrote the title of this post. Yessirree, I thought, I will finish the back today! Only 2 weeks behind schedule!

I knit a row and measured and something else came up. I found myself walking Elaine to a friend's house, down near Romni Wools. Aha, said I, I can drop in and get the last skein of cotton for Ribwarmer II. But alas, Romni is closed on Sundays! At least I got my walk!

So I came home, got ready for tonight's street dinner party, knit a row, measured.... Elaine had another playdate, I took the girl home at 5 pm, jumped in the shower -- we're going out at 6 pm. It's 5:57.

Tomorrow, I will finish the last inch of the back, and show it to you! Really!

That will cover November 29, and November 30 will deal with the end results of NaBloPoMo and NaKniSweMo!

A new ball of Noro

I like to rewind the Noro from the store-bought balls into my own centre-pull balls, so that I can find any knots. In the first two balls, I had one or two knots in each, but this last one had none.

I was also really pleased to come across that turquoise again, and can't wait to knit with it!

Back to NaKniSweMo

Progress thus far:


I think if I continue in a slightly obsessive way, this will be complete at the end of the month. The "want to knit" pile is getting huge, but I think monomania is the only way to go now.

This is hard to photograph

The light these days is wintry and grey, and it's always hard to get good pictures of laciness, I find. Next weekend we turn back the clocks, and then it's really winter and the darkness will really close in. But still, we carry on!

This is inside with a flash. What it is meant to show is the plain knitting in the middle of the back, and the two columns of lace on either side.


That didn't inspire me with confidence, so I held the piece up to the window and took this:


See, lace and plain... Okay, still not great... Let's go outside:



I really like this piece, but can't seem to show you how great it is! There are a couple of inches of the sleeve lace pattern all round the bottom, and then the main part of the body will be like this, plain bits and lace columns. The stocking stitch looks great, if I do say so! The colours are perfect and although it seems a bit rough for such delicate stuff, I'm told it will soften up with a wash.

Now my equilibrium is about to be messed with again, because I just got a new Vogue Knitting in the mail. The cover promises lace scarves... oh, no!

Plans for the sweater

Here we are again! This might get boring!

I have started the body of my sweater. After making two sleeves in this lace pattern, 2.5 inches more of it is about 2.5 inches too much! But, I will only need to do a couple of rows of that pattern today, and that'll be done.

I am making one or two big changes to the pattern. (Look, it's on You Tube!) The pattern calls for bands of a slightly different lace pattern straight across the back, and then tilty and short-rowed across the front. I don't want the short rows on the front, because, especially with the colour changes of the Noro, I think it would look .... terrible.

I could just do the horizontal rows of lace on both the back and front, or I could change it all up, and make the lace pattern vertical. The Noro stripes will be very thin, since they are designed to be on a sock and I am using them on my body, and I don't think the horizontal lace would add any excitement, but put the lace vertical and I think that would add pizzazz and zing and "it."

Now, since I so far only have about 2.3 inches of lace on the bottom of my back piece, I will get to work on that and I hope to get enough done to make an interesting picture for tomorrow!

Starting this November regime

This month I have 2 goals: blog every day, and finish my Noro sock yarn sweater! I'm happy to see many of my fave bloggers going for the NaBloPoMo, too!

The sleeves of the sweater are done, so my 50,000 stitches will be all in the body.

As you can see, the sleeves started out to be identical! This was not on purpose! One of the things we have to accept about this yarn is that the stripes will be different widths on sleeves, back, cardi fronts. There is no way to make the back stripes and the front stripes match, because the fronts are half the width of the body, so the stripes are over twice as many rows. And that is that.

So, one expects unevenness, disjointedness and general mayhem, colourwise.

You can imagine my shock when the sleeves just happened to turn out the same! How did that happen!?

You can also see where I had to change balls in this first sleeve. (Hint: tiny little row of turquoise.) Since I was embracing the mayhem, I just continued with the logical bit of yarn without trying to match anything up. And used just enough so that the second sleeve started at the same point in the sequence! Argh. Should I have found a new ball? We'll see when we get to the fronts.

I think enough mayhem may have been introduced with the second sleeve cap:


Now, since I mean to blog every day, I think this is enough for day one!