Its been a while since I’ve posted but plenty of knitterly things have been happening. I’ve finished the blue jeans shawl, which was a straight forward easy knit and gives me hope for one day designing my own triangular shawl.
Pre-blocked it wasn’t much to look at but it sure put my blocking mats to the test. 
Just starting out with the blocking here and wondering if I will have enough matting to get it done. Its not the first time I’ve thought of ordering a second set of mats, or hunting them down from a child’s toy store.
There it is when it was finally laid out and ready to dry. I’ve worn it a few times in the cubicle and loaned it out which led to a friend requesting one in black. Or at least a similar one. I’ve started on the Spring Thaw shawl for her in some Black Debbie Bliss Bamboo Wool Blend.
The Dalek is coming along and is actually nearly done. I just have to do the base and attach the arms. Granted it has been in this nearly done state for a couple weeks now.
Its full of stuffing and simply lacks a base and arms to go exterminating the population.
Lastly a picture a friend took at one of the many summer bbqs so far.
knitting
blocking, dalek, FOs, lace, shawl
I’ve been working on a shawl, pretty much since i finished the wedding shrug. This wouldn’t have been such a problem if I hadn’t kept frogging the shawl again and again.
It started with a pattern that was a LOT of ST and then when I started to feel the never ending hate one can begin to feel for ST. Then I learned I had misread the pattern and the finished shawl would be much shorter than I would want unless willing to knit a few more miles of ST. So that was frogged.
There were a couple of other patterns that I had to abandon when I could not make out the instructions, on how to do the lace repeat. I had hoped it would make it self clear as I knit but no such luck. Another moment where I was not sure if it was my lack of lace knowledge or too many beers (it was a beer and knitting), or a short hand that I have not come across and am simply missing.
So having given up on that. I hunted a new pattern down, and started on that. This seems to be going much better its the Blue Jeans Shawl, < ravelry link. I’ve made it farther than I have before and have memorized the lace repeat. So I’m hoping this continues to go well. Though I’ve picked up a new book that is cutting into my bus knitting time as I devour that instead.
Getting a Kindle and having that read to me may be a really good investment sometime in the near future.
No frogging and plenty of yarn left to keep going to make it a size to keep me warm on the bus of high AC and not take up too much room in the bag.
And I leave you with the sight that started my Memorial day weekend as I exited the building and crossed the parking lot to wait for the bus. Hopefully everyone had a good time this weekend and are ready to get back to the grind tomorrow.
knitting
lace, shawl
So I’ve made a few sets of stitch markers based on TOS. I blame this on listening to the Star Trek audio book read by Mr. Quinto himself.
So each set includes 4 red shirts and 1 blue and 1 gold. There are some left over red shirts that may be turned into earrings. I’d say keep your eyes on the Etsy shop for that.
I’m hoping everyone has seen the new spring Knitty? Its very pretty, but what jumped out at me was Anthemion. Its an amazing shawl, and though its possible I should have gone down 2 needle sizes instead of one I’m enjoying my first intricate lace pattern.
Its also amusing how slightly odd knitting habits cause pause. The pattern includes a K1 tbl. I insert my right needle behind my left when knitting, so I’m always knitting tbl but without the twist that it is supposed to cause. This video shows my normal knitting style when flat. So when faced with a k1 tbl like Anthemion I just sit there and look at the yarn and try to figure out what its supposed to look like at the end. In this case pretty simple. Though it took some frowning as i tried to figure out how to twist my stitches.
I finally ended up with a S1-knitwise (in the more traditional through the front method. Slip back to LHK then knit and viola! twisted stitch. More work but something I will likely have to keep in mind with the Pantheon project.
What’s that you may ask? Well with all the Greek themed movies that seem to be floating around I have planned to put together some designs basked on the Greek Pantheon, either based on their myths, their designations, or their symbols/representations in popular culture.
Some examples – Hades – hat/cowl , Hephaestus- Gloves/Gauntlets
I’ve started on a Aphrodite lace scarf, with the reclaimed yarn from a sweater ages ago, that I plan to also make my first try at dyeing once its knit up. Right now only the first section of lace is done, to look like ocean waves.
craft, knitting
pantheon, plan, red shirt, shawl, star trek, stitch markers, tbl
So first off Happy 4th to all my Americans, its still the 4th in the other time zones.
So I headed to the park, for a pinic, and I brought knitting.
See I do sometimes venture into nature. I grabbed a bag of sock weight yarn in, blue, navy, white, and black. So naturally I thought Tardis, not to mention the shirt I was in.
So mostly using my shirt as a guide I created :
Much to the amusement of the other knitters and Who fans around me. So it is about 4 inches long and I backed it in black felt. It is the first of my Christmas Ornament experiment. The final goal being a set of geeky ornaments for aspect of my geek; TV, Books, Movies, Comics, etc…
Read more…
knitting
blocking, Doctor Who, ornaments, shawl, Tardis
So the office Shawl is Done, now all I have to do is block it. Right now I’m having an adventure finding something large enough to pin it down with I have a little less than 1/5 of it still unpinned.
That right there is the bottom. It’s pretty much huge. I can’t wait to block and have this as drape for when I’m freezing! at work.
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knitting
blocking, FOs, shawl
Back from beer and knitting, it was still a bit more crowded than usual but not as bad as last week. ( I found a knitting book with pint glass on the cover) The title already escapes me but it was something about simple knits for the social knitter. The Devil’s Panties covers this well. Don’t let the name scare you, the worse thing about the image is some profanity at dropped stitches and not the @$%# kind.)
So I have gone with the three color vertical line plan.
So we have colors and I hope I have actually worked out how to keep the three edges about the same size.
Also hit up Barnes and Noble today to get Skin Trade. And while I was at it I picked up a copy of Reversible knits.
As you may remember it items created from the book by the author were at Gotta Knit the day I headed over there. to get more shawl yarn. There are a couple techniques from it I want to try (it states 6 for making items reversible) though one seems to be garter. 
I flipped through on the train and with my 35% off (20% Members discount 15% coupon) I am not complaining.
More on the shawl….
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knitting
books, color-work, double knitting, shawl
How do we have Progress and fail all in one? Remember the candle flame shawl I started? In shades of purple blue and greens. Well I had always planned to use that yarn for a shawl. The only catch was I had planned to make a much lighter one. So I knew I didn’t have enough yarn. I headed over to Gotta Knit during lunch to get more and of course that color scheme is long gone.
This yarn fuzzes like there is no tomorrow, or like there is mohair hiding in its acrylic wool blend. So frogging is not an option.I have gotten maybe 1/2 of the way done with 2 1/2 skeins of the 3 I had.
Its coming along well. I have memorized the repeat rows after leaving the pattern in a friend’s car and in fact being able to knit for hours without it. But right now it drapes over my 13″ MacBook. You know the one the background for 95% of my pictures. Not nearly enough for keeping me warm at work. I may also in the future attempt a shrug for the same reason. The weather has been weird enough that the AC has not been cranked up to max yet. Though today it was fixed to be “cooler” in general.
But back to the shawl. The ladies at Gotta Knit were very helpful, and helped me select the three above colors to continue the shawl. My only questions become what order should they be knit in, and should I do two repeats or one. two repeats would give you one solid flame and half of another. One would be 1/2 of a flame though opposite ends.
Or take the advice of a friend and have vertical lines of color. \ | / So each of those lines would be and equal part of the pattern. I may have to go on Ravelry and look around and see what else has been done to this pattern and if its what i have in mind.
At Gotta Knit they were also looking at things that the Author had sent for their copy of Reversable Knits. I will likely be picking up this book at some time as from what I saw all but one project was double knit. How could I not? Just the lace weight scarf was enough to get me wondering. And the DK scarf that was cabled on one side and striped on the other.
WIP, knitting
books, lys, shawl
