Oh, right

I've not been feeling the blogging love recently - too much time in front of the computer at work, and lots of projects that are making progress, but aren't getting anywhere close to completion, making for somewhat dull reporting. I'm hoping for a bunch of completed objects soonish, but here's the current state of affairs:

1) Gathered Pullover: one sleeve done, need to pick up stitches for other sleeve and redo the neckline. I love the top-down set in sleeve cap. I think it's going to become a standard technique.

2) Ironman's Christmas socks: should be finished tomorrow, just it time for the August installment of the SAM knitalong. Next month's installment is scheduled to be Azure in StR In the Navy.

3) I finished the last 2 oz of Maldives yesterday, but haven't yet taken pictures to share.

4) My Ravelympics project continues on - it's still a big black blob with beads ever so often, but it's moving along. I'm torn between three or four repeats of Chart B - it may depend on how long the rows take me after 3 repeats.

5) SYB is limping along, but I'm running out of scraps to use. I don't really want to start recycling them yet, so I either have to put it aside and knit socks faster, or start cracking in to unused skeins. Hmmmm...here's where it stands though.

That's about it. Keep your fingers crossed that I get my butt in gear to take some photos so I can post some of these soon to be FOs.

Sticking the dismount

Or, in my case, not sticking the dismount. As in, taking a huge giant sideways step on the dismount, then falling on my ass and rolling off the podium onto the ground in a giant heap.

Can you tell I've been watching too much gymnastics? Or as Devil calls it, the monkey bars.

My grand, ambitious, long-anticipated Ravelympics project is probably not going to make it across the finish line. I'm loving the pattern, the yarn is gorgeously soft (mmmmm, baby alpaca!), and it's moving along. It's just that, well, it is kind of overwhelming. I'm maybe a third of the way in, and the rows are 400+ stitches and take about 12 minutes each. I'm finding that I want to savor this project, not rush through it. Plus black yarn plus black beads divided by spending much of my day in front of the computer makes for sore eyes. I worked on it on the bus yesterday, and by the time I got home all I wanted to do was knit stockinette sleeve caps. No more yarn overs, no more tiny beads on tinier crochet hook.

It is going to be absolutely phenomenally gorgeous when it's done. I just don't think it's going to be done by Sunday at noon. Oh well (Porpoise untangles herself from hurdle and stumbles across finish line).

FOs: Thank you brain

FO#1: a large research grant, which is out of my hands and off to the lovely administrative folks at my institution to submit to the Grand Poobah of Federal Biomedical Research Funding (otherwise known as the National Institutes of Health). I am looking forward to reclaiming my very worn out brain cells and returning to the land of the semi-coherent sometime in the next week or so.

FO#2: the North Roe shawl in my own handspun...

Pattern: North Roe shawl by Odile Buatois-Brand
Yarn: 70% merino/30% mohair, colorway Verdant, from Hello Yarn, 5 oz/approx 650 yds
Needles: US 8/5.0 mm
Size: preblock, 60 x 26 inches; post-block, 70 x 36 inches.
Mods/comments: Loved the pattern, loved the handspun, even though I ran out and had to spin more. I even love how the striping came out, and I'm not big on striped shawls. Since I was light on yardage even before running out, I worked fewer repeats of Charts 1 and 2 (4 repeats and 3 respectively), and made it 8 of 12 rows into the edging before I decided that binding off was the better part of valor. Since running out again and having to spin more "laceweight" at 10:00 pm Sunday night would have dissolved me into a puddle of tears on the living room floor. This is my third lace shawl, and as with all the others, I am enamoured of the process of taking unblocked blob:

and turning it into this:

Chart 1

Chart 1 morphing into Chart 2

Chart 2 morphing into edging

Bliss.

FO#3: will have to wait for another day - I can't put all the goodies in one post now, can I?

A near thing

Last summer Ironman went to Peru and brought me back some alpaca. In fact, he brought back lots of alpaca. 30 balls. Fingering weight. Two colors. It's gorgeous stuff, but since I wasn't sure what to do with it, I stuck it in the closet to marinate.

Recently I've come down with a major case of startitis. Whee - a shawl!...oooo, look over there, pretty fiber! Hmmm, I think I need a new sweater project... Some of this may have been encouraged by the lovely, but unseasonable weather that has been lingering in the Houston area, and the rest of it by the Website That Shall Not Be Named. But I found a lovely, retro pattern that was appealing, and decided maybe it would be a good fit for my lovely alpaca.

To recap:

Alpaca sweater.
Fingering weight.
Black.
In a Houston summer.

Does this seem like a good idea to anyone?

Thankfully, I swatched yesterday, and have been deterred from my path of madness. The yarn is gorgeously soft, knits up into a nice stockinette fabric, but the cables are pretty appalling. As in, they disappear into mush. This may change after a bath, but I'm not optimistic. So I think the alpaca will disappear back into the stash closet for a while longer, although I've got some ideas about other uses for it.

Do you see a cable here? I don't see a cable here. Nope, nothing to see here.

The North Roe shawl is still a shapeless blob of bright green and brown, but it's getting larger. I'm well in to the second chart and am looking forward to the last.

Unfortunately, I've reached that stage in shawl knitting where the rows take forever (~3 rows/bus ride, not conducive to rapid progress), and it's starting to drag. This may also contribute to the startitis a bit - I'm not going to mention the other swatching action that is ongoing. Best not to confess to too much methinks!