A Little Yarn On The Side

It's finished, blocked, furred, the ends are woven in, and it's wrapped and ready to go. Theo is in mourning. This is the second sweater I've made from Elann's Shawl Back Shrug pattern, which can be found for free here . It's definitely one of my favorite patterns, and I used 6 skeins of Elann Peruvian Quechua DK-weight alpaca. I'm distinctly proud of myself this month. I have finished two projects, and have not yet cast on a new one. I am choosing to view this as personal growth rather than a reflection of having run out of room in knitting bags for any more projects. I cling to what I can. Instead, I have chosen to continue working on the plum scarf (and Daniele is right--I do seem to be having a purple lace obsession lately), which is this far from being done: It will be a decent-sized scarf, I think, but it will definitely be done when this yarn is gone because I don't have any more and don't remember what it actually was. I have narrowed it d...

Bright and early this morning, I added the ribbing to the shrug, and with Theo's "help," washed and rinsed it-- which is very thirsty work-- blocked it and finally got Theo away from it. which I'm sure is only a temporary situation. Nothing excites him so much as blocking knitting or something without a layer of cat hair covering it. There are still about 3 loose ends that need to be woven in, but I like to do that after blocking--I always think that there's less chance of causing any tension problems that way. Tomorrow I'll wrap it up and ship it off to the birthday girl. As hard as it is to believe after the Marathon Mohair Monster that is the Lady's Circular Cape, I found myself missing working on lace, so this long suffering scarf has gotten some attention this weekend. I started it sometime last year, but have never been very excited about working on it as the lace pattern is a bit too fussy for me to have memorized, so I have to sit with the Barb...

Last night the Stealth Project got all the attention, largely because the skein was so close to the end that I was able to post the 57th ball used from the stash late last night. I was going to wait until morning, but I was so excited that I finally got out of bed to update the tally! Obviously, not buying yarn for extended periods of time is bad for one's sanity. I spent a little time with the Lady's Circular Cape, but didn't make it very far on swoopy number 9 before I was just too exhausted to stay up any longer. It turns out that it might not be the swoopies themselves that cause a problem. I caught Theo playing with the mohair, and a few seconds later I was not aware that mohair was powerful sleep aid. That could explain some of the problems with the shawl. Either that or the edging just goes on forever...

Last night I just couldn't bring myself to face the mind-numbing-endless-abyss that is the mohair edging, so I spent a little time with Sitcom Chic: And the Top Secret project: which is safe to photograph for a while as it is still in "amorphous blob" stage and could be anything--sort of like knitting in general. I don't want to get distracted from finishing the Lady's Circular Cape after having come this far, but I just couldn't face the mohair again. To put things in perspective, I dug this out: Many of my friends cross-stitch and they absolutely rave about it--how relaxing it is, how enjoyable it is, etc. I can actually see how it can be relaxing--there is something very soothing about doing little thread x's all over a piece of material. What I don't get is how there are ever finished cross stitch projects. It takes forever . I worked on this thing for at least half an hour and do not even have a square inch to show for my efforts. Know who w...