Knitting, Botany, Mycology, Nature, Adventure, and Life... in no particular order.
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Back in Block
I’ve been pretty bad about updating the blog here. I’ve got lots to catch up on but I figured I’d come back with my blocking shawl!
The Juneberry in my Magestic Blend Windy Valley Muskox! Merino, Qiviut & Mulberry silk in a lovely lavender color!
It turns out that I needed about 2x as many blocking pins as I have (I added some sewing ones after this) and I think that even without using them that blocking wires must be the best things ever.
So, just in time for Rhinebeck, I’m back!
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Pattern Choice Help
Calling to all of you with opinions! (though I may not listen) I would love some help deciding on which shawl to knit with the yarn I bought myself over the weekend. (Tales of the weekend, NYC and adventure to follow soon.)
I went to the marketplace at the Vogue Knitting Online Live event at the Hilton in Manhattan and walked away with this:
That’s right folks! Qiviuk! (Which is from Musk Ox) This is Windy Valley Muskox’s Majestic Blend. The color is actually pretty accurate and the yarn is actually 15% Qiviuk, 80% Merino, and 5% Mulberry Silk.
So here’s the question, which shawl should I knit?! Originally I thought I would knit the les Abielles shawl. It’s lovely and lacy and a quick knit. Then I noticed that I also could knit the Juneberry Triangle. It calls for slightly heavier yarn, but I think it would be fine. I should have plenty of yarn for either one.
So, who’s got an opinion?! I’m leaning towards the Juneberry, but do like both a lot. Perhaps you have another suggestion entirely (that uses about 650 yards or less of heavy laceweight/light fingering weight yarn).
What d’ya say?
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Oh well
My goal was to complete a pair of cabled mittens between February 12th and 28th. I figured with about a week for each one how could I go wrong.
Well, I went wrong. It turns out I just didn’t push all that hard and often opted for not knitting instead of tired knitting. (Which is more of a problem with a complicated pattern on little needles with little yarn. Tinking sucks. I avoided it.) I am only just now ready to put the thumb stitches of the first mitten on a holder!
So I’m a Knitting Olympic non-medalist. Next time. I did manage to watch a lot of olympics, finish my shawl, and just enjoy myself overall. I also managed to not need to tear out any part of my mittens. I made it there, I participated. Not everyone gets a medal.
To make up for it, here are a few pictures of my lovely shawl. It’s the Citron pattern from Knitty! (Which I am sure I have mentioned before.) Ta-da!
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Miles to go before I sleep
I am fully immersed in the Knitting Olympics! I have been watching the actual Olympics, I have been working on my mittens, and I have been up on knitting olympics/Ravelympics forums. However I still don’t think I’m in the full swing of things. (If I were I would be much farther along on my first mitten.)
So it is the 4th full day of the Olympics (both kinds) and I am tired. Not of knitting or watching people do amazing things, actually sleepy tired. (From staying up too late watching skating and knitting.) And as I was sitting here, thinking about how it is only now the end of the workday, my favorite poem popped into my head. At least the last couple lines did: “but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.” (For those not in the know: Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening by Robert Frost) And it is true.
Here I have ahead of me my French class and then heading home, normally to bed, but probably to watch some Olympics and knit before bed. However, in a longer sense, I still have not finished my Citron shawl (only about 10 rows to go) and the deadline is Friday if I want it for NYC and I am only on round 47 of my first mitten (this includes the cuff… the main mitten is 81 rounds before the joining and I am only on round 7). The possibility of finishing these things seems impossibly far away, though the timing seems impossibly close. Yet I promised myself that I would achieve these things, and I plan to keep that promise.
Still, the whole prospect excites me, and like in the poem, I feel like it is ok to sometimes pause and take a look at where you are and the amazing sites around you, even if for me it is only my knitting or mug of tea or (currently) the snowy evening and the sound of snow shushing off the roof at work and thunking onto the ground below. It reinvigorates me for the journey ahead and the promises I have to keep. I may have miles to go before I sleep, but I’m ready to be on my way.
Note 1: You can be assured this poem will come up again in future posts so you might as well memorize it if you haven’t already. Note 2: I promise my next post will have pictures of knitting if I am going to talk about knitting. I have none with me right now though. Sorry.
