The perils of faithfulness

So, when last we had any knitting content on this here blog, I was gleefully starting my April socks after many evenings devoted to stranded colorwork, and bemoaning project monogamy.

Ehem. Starting those socks may have been a mistake. Because in the last week I've also cast on for a stashbusting "cat" bed and a new sweater design project. So much for being faithful!

The cat bed is actually for the SRD, who at his vet appointment today, tipped the scales at a whopping 3.13 kg, aka 6.9 lbs.

 

 Gratuitous cute puppy pic - he was looking at the treat in my hand.

This is kelp's Dotty Cat Bed. I'm using some random recycled grey merino, some leftover Karisma from IM's Aran, the last of the handspun pencil roving from the Northman Mittens and leftover Mountain Mohair from two incarnations of sweater. Excellent for getting rid of ~600 yds of yarn.

Socks are still singular, but are on to the gusset. I'm hoping to finish these in time for a May birthday. Hmmm.

I was about to start the last row before setting the armhole steeks on River Run last night when I realized I'd screwed up the stitch pattern at the beginning of the previous row. Grrrr....tink, tink, tink. After that I was too irritated to keep going on it, so I go the pattern going in the right order again and put it down to turn to this:

The prototype of my newest design. It doesn't look like it, but this is almost ten inches (of 12 needed) of ribbing. In a couple of inches, I get to switch to the lace pattern - yippee! This is going to be a cardigan with a deep scoop neck and elbow length sleeves (or a bit longer) - ribbing to just under the bust with vine lace on the bodice. The yarn is one of my favorites - Elsbeth Lavold Silky Wool in a dark purple. The real life color is much darker then I'm able to get a picture of for some reason. This is a batch I bought in Houston at the Yarns 2 Ewe winter sale right before I started my year-long yarn diet, and is the old formula (65% wool, 35% silk - currently it's 45% wool, 35% silk, 20% nylon). I love this yarn - it's soft to work with, but has a slightly crunchy feel from the silk. And the drape is awesome. I'm hoping to get the lace going tonight, but I've got to get the River Run steeks set first - there's a lot of armhole to go on the March sweater! Not to mention sleeves...

So that the ridiculous number of  active projects I've got on my needles. What about you? Are you a mono- or poly-knitting type? Anyone have more then four active projects going?

I'm not dead yet,

although part of me is kind of wishing I were. Allergy season hit with a bang at 11:34 pm on Tuesday, and I'm in the throes of snot rivers, hacking coughs, and bright red itchy eyes. It's been an absolutely spectacular week here weather-wise, and all I've wanted to do is lie on the couch while the girls watch videos. Not good. I finally perked up enough today to actually do some knitting, but I refuse to subject you to more pictures of a colorwork sweater that look exactly the same as the last pictures, even though it is growing ever so slowly.

I do have great plans in mind however, and I'm hoping that I can entice the girls upstairs to wind up some yarn for me. Usually they like doing that! And I hope to have more interesting things to talk about next week when* my pharmaceuticals beat my immune system into some sort of submission.

* Note: that's "when", not "if" because I am nothing if not optimistic. And possessed of a singluar faith in the power of better living through pharmacology. Whether or not that faith is warrented remains to be seen...

Monogamy is boring

Project monogamy that is. I've been slogging away on the handspun sweater without a break for the last week plus, and I'm almost to the underarms. It's lovely, but I've had to tink back 300+ stitches several times because I used the wrong color a few rows back, and I'm getting a bit tired of it. Thank goodness it's April 1st and I can start my new socks!

Originally this yarn was slated for Vinnland socks, but when I pulled it out I decided that particular pattern really needed a solid color yarn. So I cast on for Nornir, the Round 2 pattern for Sock Madness 5 - it's working beautifully with the short color runs in this yarn (Woolcraft Superwash Sock Yarn).

I also had a fit of procrastination last week and finished spinning up the Little Barn tweedy fiber I started at the last Spin Night at the beginning of March.

 

It's actually a lot darker in real life - teal and navy and fuschia. The two big skeins are 562 yds of true 3 ply, fingering weight. The teensy skein is the remaining singles chain plied - I didn't both to measure the yardage, but it's probably somewhere in the range of 15-20 yds. Aka not much. This is not the softest yarn in the world, but it will be okay for mittens or something like that, somewhere down the road. Spun/plied at 15:1/12:1, drafting style was short forward draw from the fold.

I've also got a couple more sweater projects on the brain, so there's been much swatching going on.

This is the latest one. The plan is to knit up the prototype in the next month and write up that pattern for testers to finish by early June. I think it will be cute, but we'll see.

So, Month 3 is done - socks were finished, sweater was not, but I'm still plugging away. Hopefully it will be April's sweater.

Seventy two months, plus or minus

Dear Devil,

On this exact day six years ago, I was at our house in Houston, supremely grateful to be out of the hospital and to have my mother around, and more then a little gobsmacked at the job we'd taken on. I was counting your age in hour and days. Then, for the longest time, whenever anyone asked me how old you were, the unit of time was weeks. It eventually shifted to months, and now it's finally reached years.

You are six years old. The cliche is that time flies, and that's exactly how I feel, even though I remember events all along the course of those six years. Somehow it's gone by so quickly that I look at you and can't figure out where you came from or how we got here. We recently had to go to the US Embassy to renew your passport, and one of the things we had to bring was a photo montage to show how you've grown from a total standard looking baby to the gorgeous creature you are now. While I was putting it together, I realized that I could see the person you are now in those little baby and toddler photos, but I never would have extrapolated forward from those points to now.

This past year has been an incredible one for your brain - in the last few months something has clicked and all of a sudden you are voraciously reading everything you can get your hands on. You told me a few days ago that reading was your favorite thing ever, and I have to agree with you on that one babe - it is amazing. When you and Boo don't want to go to sleep right away, she climbs up on the top bunk with you and you read her stories by the light of a doll someone gave us years ago that has a necklace that lights up. Not the best thing for your eyes no doubt, but I have fond memories of doing the same under my covers with a flashlight for years, so you come by it honestly. And very often in the morning we'll find the two of you snuggled up together cosily, having fallen asleep together the night before.

You and the SRD are huge buddies, and you take your responsibilities as dog trainer very seriously. After an initial attempt to take both of you along to puppy class, your sister stayed home with me last week and you and Daddy had a much better time of it. You came home all excited to show me how to make him lie down, and you love taking him for walks on the Common. And I think all the attention from your friends and other people at school about the dog has made you much more confident - last week Daddy and I came to assembly to hear your class talk about their day at the Golden Hind and Tate Modern. You had to stand up and recite a line about the trip, and you did it with nary a hesitation or stutter - a far cry from last year's end-of-term school play. I'm not sure whether it was knowing the audience, practicing more, or just feeling more sure of yourself, but boy was I proud of you.

I love you sweet pea, even more then ever, and I can't wait to see what the next year brings for you.

Love,
Mumma

March socks: Aquaphobia

I do not have aquaphobia. I do, however, have a lovely new pair of socks. And since my sock output so far in 2011 has been all for other people, these are mine! All mine!

Pattern: Aquaphobia by Crystal Smith
Yarn: Hill Country Yarns Sweet Feet in "Blueberry Wine", 400 yds/100 gr.
Needles: US 1/2.25 mm
Start/finish: 1 March - 20 March 2011
Gauge: 10 sts/11 rows per inch in stitch pattern, 8 sts/12 rows per inch in stockinette.
Comments/mods: This is a terrific pattern for breaking up variegated or handdyed yarns with lots of contrast. The slipped stitch pattern lets you break up any pooling (except around the gussets there on the foot), and makes a really nice cozy, thick, cushy fabric.

Sorry for craptastic night time photos - will replace ASAP

The designer included a two-stitch cable on either side of the instep to give a bit of extra stretch. This was a great feature, and the pattern, while written for a women's medium, easily fit around my US 10s. I might have had to make them a bit longer, but that wasn't a big deal.

Fast knit, great breaking up of colors, new socks. What's not to love?