SYB Update

I have slowly been plugging away on the Sock Yarn Blanket. It is a much better project to work on during the Olympics then my actual Ravelympics project - lace and beads do not make for good TV watching. Although they do make for much muttering and cursing from my corner of the living room. For the same reasons, the SYB is a good Thursday knit night project - I am much more successful if I talk and knit garter stitch at the same time.

Here's the current state of affairs:

Slowly but surely it moves. I think I'm now 20% done, so maybe by Christmas? Of course, if I finish this one for Boo for Christmas, I'll have to get the Duck blanket done for Devil, just to be fair.

I'm starting to think about how to fill in the missing triangles along the sides. I can't decide if I should try to keep the orientation of the garter stitch ridges, or just pick up one stitch in the valley and knit a triangle to fill in. Any suggestions?

I love swaps

Even though this is the first one I've ever done. What could be better then getting a big pile of goodies in the mail out of the blue?

My Hush Hush Handspun Hootenanny loot from Liz:

1) a beautiful skein of greeny bluey orangey 2-ply handspun loveliness that is going to be a winter hat for me
2) a 4 oz braid of handdyed domestic wool from Poppy Flower Fibers
3) a cute sheep card
4)2 oz of handdyed bombyx silk (!) from Miss. Babs
5) some fizzy bath treats
6) last, but not least, some sock yarn leftovers for the blanket!

What fun! A new fiber purveyor, a new fiber type (what in the everloving heck am I going to do with that silk? I can't spin it - it's too gorgeous!), cute sheep and sock yarn scraps.

Thank you so much Liz! I can't wait for the next round.

FO: Swallowtail shawl

This has to have been the fastest shawl ever:

Cast-on: 7/28

Bound-off: 8/5

Either that, or I'm just getting better at lace. Which is good given that I'm supposedly knitting a beaded lace shawl for the Ravelympics...

Pattern: Swallowtail Shawl by Evelyn A. Clark

Yarn: Handmaiden Sea Silk in "Mineral", 440 yds/100 gr - I used most of one skein

Needles: Addi Tubo Lace needles US 5/3.75 mm

Comments: I was worried that I would run out of yarn, since I only had the one skein, but there were a bunch of Ravelry folks who had done this pattern with one skein, so I set forth. The yarn is incredible. So soft and silky and smooth. And the pooling didn't turn out too badly at all.

The nupps (which I had never heard of before!) were a breeze with the Addi Turbo lace needles - pointy, pointy, pointy. In fact, the only bad thing about these needles was using them in combination with the Sea Silk - a bit too slippery! I think there are going to be some Harmony needles in my future for just this occasion.

We had a fantastic trip to Colorado. The weather was good (up until the wedding - oops!), the four-kids-under-5 thing worked out pretty well, and Devil and Boo were dancing queens at the recpetion on Saturday night.

A very sleepy dancing queen

It was a wonderful trip, and very hard to get on the plane on Sunday to come home. We're already planning a trip back for some skiing once winter hits.

The swap package is on the way...

I sent off my first swap package today, and let me tell you it was a near thing.

I love this yarn, and I want to keep it and display it on my kitchen table for the next ten years:

It's soft and squishy and the colors are To. Die. For. (you know, if you're one of us who has a thing for blues).

This is a handpainted Targhee top from Woodland Woolworks, in the colorway "Winter Sky". Spun/plied (navajo plied) at 10:1 on a ST folding Lendrum. 4 oz, ~290 yds, 13 wpi, making in approximately sport weight. I tried to overply a bit and then gave it a fulling wash (hot/cold/hot/cold/hot/cold), so it came out very springy!

I'm hoping there's enough here for my swap partner to get a pair of socks. Or maybe some mittens. Anyway, if she doesn't like it, I will pay for her to ship it back to me.

As for TS Edouard, he pulled a Rita* and all we got was a bit of a breeze and some good soaking rain, which was desperately needed. May the rest of the season go as well!

* pulling a Rita means that the hurricane/storm makes a beeline for Houston and, at almost the last possible moment, swerves and hits the poor folks on the TX-LA border. Thankfully this time, it was a much smaller storm.

A change in plans

For the last few weeks, I've been making a concerted effort to be more consistent about my training. Part of this has meant starting up yoga again - before Devil was born we went to yoga twice a week. When she was about a year old, I started going at least once a week, running from our house to the gym. And a couple of weeks ago I finally got my act together to start up again.

So Tuesday mornings I now get up at 0:00 dark-thirty and run 4 miles to the gym, where I arrive, dripping sweat and thoroughly awake, just in time for yoga class at 6:00. Then the fambly picks me up, we drop the kids off at daycare, I shower, cram some food down my gullet and hop onto the bus for a nice long nap on the way downtown. It's something that is only possible if I do it every single week - the habit is the only way that training ever happens for me.

However...I suspect that tomorrow it is not to be. You know, given that that little blip in the Texas coastline - the one right smack dab in the path of TS Edouard - is my current location.

Ironman's company has already announced that their campus will be closed tomorrow, which means no daycare for the kidlets. So maybe we'll all hang out at home and play in the rain. Maybe I can finish off the 2 oz of Maldives left and free up that mixing bowl again. Or maybe Devil and I could dye a bunch of yarn. Some many things, so little time!
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July FOs:
H^4 spinning - finished 7/31 and not yet blogged because I need to send off the package
Spiraling Coriolis socks
Brambler (finished knitting, but not yet blocked/blogged - does it still count?) (probably not)