My knitting blog has moved! It can now be found at:

http://knittingaffairs.antinomic.com

Old entries will remain here, mostly just to keep the (few) comments available.

There's an RSS feed for my new blog, but if you don't use Bloglines, you can keep reading about all my knitting endeavors on LJ. Just add knittingaffairs to your friends list.

On Thursday, I was telling Jess that I needed to finish at least one WIP before starting anything new. Because it's not like I have all that many projects on the needles. It won't take me very long to finish them once I start, so it's just that I need to, you know, actually work on them. And I did actually make progress on my sock that night, too.

So of course, guess what I started on Friday?



It's Chart B (righthand side) from the Eris pullover. I've kind of been eyeing the pattern, and I finally decided that since I don't have nearly enough pullovers, it was about high time I got a new one. The body will bore me to tears, probably, but at least it's a garment and I can use it to figure out how I like sweaters and things to fit.

That, and the cables are nifty. I don't think I did too bad of a job, considering it's the first time I've ever done cables. I did them without a cable needle, and when I finally got the hang of that, it went a lot faster. Seems less fiddly than using a cable needle (though I wouldn't know...).

New goals for the rest of the month.

- Finish at least the collar of Eris.
- Complete at least one older WIP, preferably two.
- Start Lotus Blossum.
- Start fingerless gloves.

I'm pretty sure I'll get at least the first one done. I finished Chart B this morning and wanted to go on to the next, but then realized I really needed to get off my butt and do a bit of cleaning first.

I decided to try and start fingerless gloves this month, rather than my toe socks. I probably won't wear socks for at least a couple of months (since I'm allowed to wear flip-flops and other sandals to work, I'll do so for as long as weather permits). On the other hand, my hands are already starting to get cold at the keyboard, so I see myself needing the gloves shortly.

Oh, knitting, how I missed you!

I think I'm going to purchase laceweight from Handpainted Yarn for my Tina.

I now have to answer the all-important question: which color? I've narrowed it down to Pagoda and Roanoke.

Matching with my wardrobe isn't so much of a concern, because they should both match about the same number of clothes. I'm really just not sure which color suits the pattern better. Any thoughts?

Haven't touched the needles for a couple of weeks (I'm way behind on fixing up my place, and I was in a car accident about a month ago, so I've had too much related shit to deal with). But I've got all sorts of plans for when I finally do get back to knitting.

I still need to finish my Shimmer shrug (which really won't take all that long, I just need to sit and do it) and the Falling Leaves sock (halfway there!). I'm definitely not that good at seeing projects through to completion, I guess. :-P

I also plan to reblock Cozy, because I guess I didn't do it as effectively the first time. (Except I need to buy new pins first, because I think they were in the trunk of my car when it got smashed beyond recognition...)

And I have all sorts of projects in mind. I want to do a sweater, I just haven't decided on which one yet (I'm a bit picky). I've got some Cotton-Ease that I need to do stuff with. And, I definitely, definitely want some lace. I quit the Mystery Stole awhile ago, and I finally decided that the yarn from that is going to turn into the Lotus Blossom Shawl. And, I'd love to make the Tina Shawl as well - I'm thinking a nice dark brown/red for that one.

More socks to come as well. I will do stripey toe socks at some point, I've just been trying to figure out a couple of the details before I leap in and do them. Among other pairs.

Now let's see how many of these plans I actually execute this month...

Real life has been kicking my butt lately. That, and I've been getting reacquainted with some of my other hobbies. Hence, no real knitting progress has been made for over a week.

I guess this a down cycle. One thing I've noticed is that since I have way too many hobbies, I don't partake in every single one of them during any period of time. When I was spending hours in the library and bookstores, I wasn't watching anime. When I was knitting every single day, I wasn't building electronics. When I was heavily involved in a cappella, I wasn't playing ultimate. Etcetera, etcetera.

Right now, I think it's knitting's turn to lurk into the background.

I'll pick it up again in a week or two, I'm sure. There's all these yarns I want to work with and patterns I want to knit, and I know that once knitting becomes an active hobby again, I'll be a regular needle-wielding machine.

But for now, I'll be curling up on the futon with my Comic-Con acquisitions.

I'm 14 rows into step 3 of the Mystery Stole. So far, I'm not too thrilled with the pattern. But I dunno, maybe it'll grow on me, so I think I'll give it a full repeat before I decide whether or not to quit.

Part of the problem may be the striping effect going on in the stole. I didn't realize how dark a blue part of this yarn was - ah, the joys of relying on online pictures - so that might be affecting my view on this project. Slight variegation in lace is good. Full-on striping, though? Not so much. But I do like working with this yarn, at least.

In other lace news, I didn't quite finish my sock last week, but I'm just a bit over an inch away from being done.

Skipping the Whistlestop today, because as much as I'd love to go, I really, really need to get more stuff packed, because I'm not going to have much time to do that during the week. I won't be making as much knitting progress as I'd like during the next two weeks, but I guess that's what moving does to you.

I was originally going to play poker last night and skip Claire de Lune, but due to a couple of the guys getting sick and so on, poker got cancelled. Man, first they guilt trip me for never playing with them, and then as soon as I decide to join them, they get sick on me. Silly boys. :-P

Anyway, so Claire de Lune it was! I was fairly quiet most of the time, but it was fun just listening to all of the conversation and seeing some new faces.

I made some progress on my Falling Leaves sock while I was there. I'll definitely finish it this week, which is exciting. I tried it on today, and while it's a tad bit looser than I'd like, it's not like it's falling off or anything, so I think I'll get a bit of wear out of this thing, assuming I ever get the second sock done... I somehow need to finish the second one in between all the moving preparation, though, so I'm not sure how long it'll take. I'm putting Shimmer on further hold until I finish the pair, because I'd like to at least try to get those socks done on time.

When I got sick of working with the 1s, I decided to tackle the first part of the Mystery Stole. What an excruciatingly boring step! Sure, it was boring enough for me to knit it and talk at the same time - which is why I brought it to Claire de Lune - but still...

I just finished it, though, and it looks like the next step will at least be slightly more interesting.

I discovered last night that I can't do a left-handed combined purl very comfortably with laceweight yarn. I can do it just fine with worsted, but I think the combination of the fine gauge and my fairly loose lefthand grip is a rather poor one.

In other news, I installed WordPress on my webspace, but I don't think I'll get to seriously play with it (and therefore move my blog) until after I've settled into my new place. I did, however, figure out how to display both my personal LJ entries and knit blog entries on the same page. The question is, do I actually want to do that?

Oh well, time for less talking and more knitting packing.

I've decided that I'm going to move my knitting blog off LiveJournal at some point. I miss hosting my own! Also, my knitting and personal journals have almost completely different audiences (not that I have much of an audience here, but that's not the point); not a lot of LJers reading me on their friends lists, so my knitting content probably won't be missed here. I can always just create a syndicated account for the LJers who want to keep up with this journal, after all.

I'm not sure whether I want to figure out a way to display my personal entries (the public ones, that is) on my website along with my new knitting blog. I don't know if that'll be more interesting or more inane.

Anyway, so that'll happen sometime in the near future.

As far as knitting progress goes, I finished the heel for my first Falling Leaves sock tonight! Very exciting. I'll have this thing done in no time! No pictures yet, and anyway I'm not sure if Jess would mind, since it's a pattern she wants to submit and if I recall correctly, she friends-locked all pictures of it on her LJ. But trust me, it's turning out nicely so far. I wasn't sure how much I'd like them beforehand, as I'm not the biggest fan of lacy socks and the variegated yarn versions obscure the pattern slightly. But now I can see myself wearing my solid green version (on the rare occasions that I actually wear socks, seeing as I can and do wear flip-flops to work).

My parents sent me my Knitpicks yarn yesterday so hopefully I'll get it within the next couple of days. And then I'll get started on that Mystery Stole at some point within the next week.

I started Clapotis with the yarn I'd dyed awhile back, but I don't know if I'll keep up with it. The yarn's a teeny tiny bit felted, so I couldn't wear it directly against my skin, but it's so pretty in those colors! Though it'd be fine if I wear it with a turtleneck... Or maybe I'll frog it and make a bag out of it instead. I don't really know yet.

Sale at Two Sisters and Ewe this weekend. I'm supposed to resist purchases because of my upcoming move, but it's not really that hard to move yarn, is it? ^_^* I'll be good and make a list first, though, so that I don't go completely overboard.

So my KnitPicks order arrived... at my parents' place. 7+ hours away.

*grumble grumble*

My parents' place is still my card's billing address, which is probably why that happened, but knowing why doesn't make me feel any better right now.

*pout*

I want my alpaca/silk yarn, damnit!

*deep breath*

Okay, mini-tantrum over, back to knitting...

Didn't do much knitting for the past few days, due to bad allergies earlier in the week and a nasty cold Friday and Saturday. No time to knit when you've got boxes of Kleenex practically glued to your hands, after all! :-P

But, reading one of Jess' posts reminded me that she needed the test socks done by July, and seeing that I hadn't done much with them since the last Whistlestop, I decided that today was my day to start again.

Jess and I stopped by The Grove first. I was good and only bought what I needed (size 3 circs), but of course I did a bit of yarn fondling before that.

Mmm. Yarn.

Anyway, then it was Whistlestop time. There were way more people than last time, and then my shy streak kicked into gear, but oh well. At least I wasn't a total clam, right?

I got through the toe and part of the first pattern repeat before we took off, which about how much progress I wanted to make while we were there. I've decided that I quite like the YO short row method - it's nowhere near as fiddly as the wrap method to me, and I'm certainly not as likely to break a needle doing the YO method, either.

I'll probably work on the sock some more while watching Family Guy tonight. It most likely won't take me very long to memorize the chart - once I have a pattern repeat or two under my belt, it'll cement my visual memory of the chart into my brain. And the sock will go pretty quickly for me once I've got the pattern down.

Other UFOs are my shrug (still haven't restarted the back) and my black lacy thingamajig; I found the latter again the other day, and chances are, I won't touch it again until after I've moved. As for the shrug, I'll try not to touch it until I get through one of the socks. That shrug will go fast once I get back to it, so I should still manage to get it done before I move.

I haven't started my Mystery Stole yet, as I ordered the yarn (Shimmer, in the Morning Mist colorway) last week. It'll probably arrive within the next couple of days. I realized that I knit rather loosely when I'm using alpaca, hence why I bought 3s for this project. Hopefully I won't decide I want 2s... ^_^*