A bit lost in translation

Having spent part of February wandering around northern India in a completely overwhelmed daze (the colors! the textures! the smells!), I spent part of the weekend trying to transfer some of that inspiration to fiber.

My first source of inspiration is the Hawa Mahal in Jaipur - a towering edifice of pink sandstone with cream accents, all silhouetted against a brilliant blue sky. Something like this.

This was the women's palace, and all the carved stone screens were to enable them to look out at the world without being seen. What's really funny is that the building is now flat up against a busy street filled with small shops and carts selling fruit and veg. It's not quite as isolated and majestically quiet as the pictures seem to imply!

I spent a lot of time playing around with oranges and pinks, and I think I've finally got the balance right. We'll see how things go tomorrow.

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A blast from the past, aka productive procrastination

So...last week I finished up the first of this year's secret knitting projects, and have it mostly packed up to go out in the mail tomorrow. I'm jonesing to get started on the next secret project (which has a killer-soon deadline - I will be mainlining ibuprofen and icing my wrists on this one I think), but I'm waiting for the yarn to arrive. Thus I entered the weekend with no active projects on the needles. Woe is me!

I rummaged through the active stash (otherwise known as the massive pile of crap next to the couch in front of the TV) and came up with a number of options: 2 different pairs of handspun socks (one for me and one for he whose birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks - eep!), a sweater design that needs to be ripped back to the armholes and redone, a hat for Boo that needs finishing (which seems less serious given the remarkable fact of Blooming Daffodils in February!) - all very worth projects, some with that almost irresistable shine of New! But then I got to the bottom of the pile, and realized that I had something that would suit my requirements admirably. In other words, I had a project that was not-terribly taxing intellectually (garter stitch), was easy to pick up and put down (small modular construction), was in horrific need of being finally finished (started in gulp 2008), and would be perfect for someone who's birthday is coming up quickly (like tomorrow). Behold, I give you, the long lost Sock Yarn Blanket (of Doom).

That was the progress I'd made as of 19 January 2010. When I picked it up on Saturday, progress was more at this stage,

which means I must have worked on it at some point between 19/1/10 and 25/2/12, but I have no idea when. It took me several tries (read: ripping out and reknitting 4 squares twice) before I managed to remember how I did the decreases before. God forbid I go look at my notes on Ravelry and save myself some knitting time, FFS. Anywho, several tries later, I'm now at this stage.

Three more squares to go, a ~~bunch~~ Metric Crapton of triangles (30 to be exact), and a border of some kind. I think I've figured out a plan for the triangles, and the border is just going to be more garter stitch. If Boo is lucky, it will be done by Devil's birthday.

In 2013...poor Boo!

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FF: Bad porpoise, no cookie

I have been very, very bad. I probably need to be punished severely. You be the judge.

You see, for the first time, I have real-live, actually-has-a-deadline, secret knitting for people other then myself that needs to be done. Two projects even. And yesterday, I had set aside a load of time to finish off one, finish writing the pattern, proofread, get things packed up for the postoffice, etc. And instead I tranformed this

into this,

and then into this.

Yet another Lacy Baktus, this one done in Spunky Eclectic Falkland in "Change", bulky weight, 108 yds, US size 13/9.0 mm needles. In my efforts to use up all the yarnz I got a little overzealous, and ran out on the decreasing end. So it's not symmetrical. Big effing deal. It's squooshy and warm, perfect for a little neck kerchief type thingie next autumn.

Now...back to the secret knitting.

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