Blocked and Ready for Photos . . .

Remember this?

Well, now it looks like this:

This is my Event Horizon Pi Shawl designed by Donna Druchunas and Ava Coleman.

I knit it using Miss Babs Cosmic in the Galapagos color because I cannot get enough of this yarn!

I picked up one hank off destash, one from Miss Babs and two from Dena and combined them with the leftovers I had from making my Galapagos socks.

Remember these?

I still love this color.

Teresa

Rules . . .

. . .are they meant to be bent or broken? Is it bending or breaking my rule to cast on something new if I haven't finished anything . . . This is badly pinned, but it is gonna be fantastic!

The Rule

The rule is that if I finish one, I get to cast on another . . . no matter how many are already on the needles. So this is Romi's second annual mystery shawl KAL in A Verb For Keeping Warm's Annapurna yarn. The color is not accurate but it's name is The Sound of Cicadas. More and better pics later.

Sixteen and a half

Sixteen and a half points done but that leaves 47 or so left to do . . .

Traveling

The dogs are comfy and I've got my knitting - all set for the long drive to the beach. I am working on the edging on my pi shawl. I might actually finish the knitting by pi day. Won't be able to block it until we get home though, didn't bring my alphabet blocks or pins.

Blocking

for a friend because I haven't finished mine yet. This one is 66 inches across and absolutely gorgeous. I only hope mine comes out as nicely. This is the Event Horizon Pi by Donna Druchunas and Ava Coleman.

Failure

 I had a friend once ask me if I only posted the successful projects on the blog and Ravelry.  I had to answer yes because up to that point, I hadn't posted any failures.  Honestly, I have had very few failures, but there are a few.  There was a felted bag that I was making up as I went along.  The knitting went beautifully and the finished item looked like it was going to be very cool.  The felting didn't go well at all and I ended up with a big mess and a lot of wasted yarn.

This hat is another failure.  It was meant to be a Fairy Snow Cap by Rosemary Hill. 

As you can see, mine looks nothing like hers.

When I knit it, I was careful to get gauge and started knitting.  I am blaming the problems with this hat squarely on the yarn.  This is not nice yarn and it was not a good idea for this hat.  I had just enough to make a hat and since this is alpaca yarn, I thought it would be nice and warm and soft.  When the hat turned out so wrong, I decided to felt it lightly to make it wearable.  It is wearable and it fits a head and it should be warm, but it isn't a Fairy Snowcap or anything even close.  And it's ugly.  Really ugly.

So this one is a failure like the other one knit from the same yarn.  The yarn is cursed and the leftovers are getting chopped up for the birds.  (Every spring I put scraps of yarn in those mesh veggie bags outside for the birds to take for nesting material.)

Teresa

Airplanes?

I remembered how terrible airport security was the last time we traveled to Mexico - really terrible!  I got searched bodily and my luggage was searched in every airport we went to or through at every opportunity.  The big problem with that was that the girls' belongings were still being packed in my luggage, so my suitcase was really stuffed full.  That meant that it was difficult to close and every time the security folks dug through it and messed everything up, they left me to close it - in the middle of a crowded airport with people all around and the suitcase on a table with no leverage or possibility of my sitting on it to get it to close.  It was embarrassing and difficult and time consuming.

So, before I went to Mexico this time, I did a little research about whether or not knitting needles were allowed on flights out of Mexican airports.  Yes, I do know that they are allowed on U.S. flights, but that isn't the case all over the world.  And, my research showed that some airports in Mexico always confiscate knitting needles and others only do it sometimes but they pretty much all have been known to confiscate them and relatively recently.  

That meant I couldn't risk taking my socks because pulling those off the needles would have been awful.  Instead, I found a small project that I could do on the airplane but wouldn't be sad to lose and I brought some bamboo DPN's that I could drop in the bottom of my purse with the pens and maybe they would go unnoticed.  The yarn was a small leftover portion of a ball of Sugar & Cream that I got from Dena on one my visits to make the Corn on the Cob and the similar Potholder.  I still like the color of it.  The pattern for is called The Almost Lost Washcloth Pattern and it was something I saw and wanted to try making just for fun.  It was fun too!  Next time I will use a provisional cast on and graft the beginning to the end instead of sewing (hate sewing!) and maybe add one stitch to the center so the hole is easier to close up.  All in all, it's a nice wash cloth or maybe if made smaller, coaster.  I will make more because they are quick and easy and might make nice presents with a fragrant bar of soap.

Teresa

Been a while . . .

This blog has been sadly neglected of late.  It's not that nothing is going on, its that too much is going on.  Also, I'm not sure there are too many people reading it anymore.  I post here so my Mom will know what I'm doing and I'm not even sure she reads it anymore.  I will try to do better from now on, just in case.

These are the new socks I started on the plane to Mexico and finished after we got back.  The yarn is delightful.  It is Gypsy Girl Creations Transitions yarn from Stonebarn Fibers.  I got it a long time ago - like maybe a year and a half or two years ago.  I really liked the colors and wanted to use this for myself.  Well, I still liked it when I started knitting it but because the color was what the yarn was all about, I decided plain stockinette . . . which was incredibly boring, especially on a sock this long.  I knit this toe up so I could use up all the yarn because it has so many lovely color changes and they are so well done.  These babies are way tall and I didn't use all the yarn, but I did get almost to the last color which was a paler green but there wasn't a lot of it.  

I love this yarn and I love these socks but I don't think I will make plain stockinette socks this tall ever again . . . although I might use this yarn again because I LOVE the way the dyer does the color changes . . . .

Teresa

A Present

My Mom sent this very cool Tree Spirit to me . . . It is hanging in my office/crafting room. Really cool, hunh?