Knitting, with Dogs

Secret of the Stole ii, Clue 2

Ok, I know my pinning out job looks like ass, but here's clue 2.

I'm using 8/2 tencel (I think that's the size, I know it's tencel), and I really like it.  I was originally making the Shetland Tea Shawl with this yarn, but I frogged it and started this KAL with it.

Here's something I've been wondering about:  I knit a lot of lace, but I feel like I'm doing Lace Knitting Lite mostly.  I wonder if there's an unspoken hierarchy of lace knitting?  I.e., if you join KALs and Mystery Shawls and such, you're just an ordinary, every day lace knitter.  It seems to me that if you aspire to the Empyrean, you have to knit the Princess Shawl or the Wedding Ring Shawl or something like that, or design your own.

I do own the Wedding Ring Shawl pattern and the Unst Bridal Shawl patterns, and I have a HUGE cone of very, VERY fine silk/tencel.  I figure with my eyes going the way they are, I have maybe a year or a year and a half left to do some really fine lace knitting.  After that, I'll be stuck with fingering weight or something.  :( 

I better get started.

 

Spring Shawl Surprise, Clue 4

Clue 4 completed!  The second clue for Secret of the Stole ii comes out tomorrow, as well as the first clue for Dem Fischer sin Fru.  That should be interesting.

Hmm, maybe I will...

I've been thinking about the Thing-A-Day in February .... thing.  It goes like this:

Thing-a-day invites you to join in a daily creative endeavor where everyone who signs up commits to making one thing (project, sketch, exercise) per day and shares it online...

Well, actually you're supposed to share it on the Thing-A-Day blog.  But I'm not sure I want to join OFFICIALLY.  I'd just kinda do something every day and post it here.  And use a very loose interpretation of "thing."  For example, one "thing" might be finishing a clue on a mystery knit, or spinning a bobbin of yarn.

I need something to kinda jump-start me into thinking a little more creatively.  I need to get out of my comfort zone a little, I think.

Lace knitting photos

Here's what clue 2 of the Spring Shawl Surprise is SUPPOSED to look like:

And here's Clue 3:

And Secret of the Stole ii, Clue 1 (sounds like a score, doesn't it???)

Meh...

I'm deep in the throes of midwinter I-don't-give-a-shit-itis.  Everything right now is just meh.

I am zipping along on the 2 lace KALs that started since the first of the year.  I'm about 9 rows from finishing chart 3 of the Spring Shawl Surprise.  And the Secret of the Stole ii started last Friday, and I've finished clue one of it. 

I quite like the SSS stole.  It's interestingly complex.

I'm withholding judgement on SotSii for now.  If I don't like how it develops, I'll drop it.  I wasn't that crazy about the pattern in the original SotS (based on pictures from Ravelry).  I don't really like fairly dense lace with lots of stockinette areas.  But the first clue was dead easy, and only took an evening to knit.

Yes, we've had snow.  No, I haven't been out in it much.  It's COLD!  And I am a fragile flower, apparently.

So I'll leave you with a link to a nifty video of dolphins blowing bubble rings and playing with them.  They're kinda like smoke rings, but you know, under water.  (Click on the picture to go to the video.)

When dolphins do it, it looks like magic.  :)

Dog in the snow

Y'all have GOT to see this video of a dog playing in the snow.

We certainly don't get snow like this in my part of the world.  :)

3 stages of lace knitting grief

or, What you do when you realize you've made a BIG HONKING ERROR in your knitting.

Stage 1:  Anger
At self:  "I did NOT use the wrong chart.  No way!  I'm better than that."  [looks closely at charts]  "Crap."
[stomp around house, screaming obscenities and tearing hair.  Dogs hide in fright, husband tiptoes away to play video games]

At the designer:  "Freakin' files were confusing!  It's not my fault!  Waaaaaaaah!"

Stage 2:  Denial
"I don't really HAVE to fix it, do it?  It's not THAT bad.  It's still nice and lacey."

Stage 3:  Acceptance
"Cripes, how many times have I seen other people make errors like this and thought 'Jeezopete, how could you miss THAT???'"  The Karma fairy has just tapped me with her wand.  Hubris is a bitch, my friends.  I just DIDN'T READ the name of the file correctly.  I am officially a moron."

"And dude, you know that if you didn't fix it, EVERY TIME you looked at this shawl, you'd see that error.  Because it's big, and it's honkin'.  You gotta fix it.  Just suck it up and do it."

So I did.

Here are Janice's tips for frogging back to the big honkin' error.

I don't use lifelines.  So when I do something like this, I just pull the needle out and frog rapidly back to approximately where I need to restart. 

On this project, the section before the error had a purl back row.  If you have that option, frog to a purl row.  I wanted to pick up sts from one of the purl rows, because nothing makes you scream in frustration like trying to tink back through a bunch of sk2p or k3togs. 

At this point, you want to tink one st at a time.  If possible, put your needle INTO the st before you pull the working yarn OUT.  You're less likely to have a stitch go running down the work if you can do this.

Don't worry about yo's.  You can always just lift them up when you go back.

Check what you've done.  Twice.  I like to knit from charts, because you can easily see the st relation from one row to the next.  I start at the beginning of the row, and just slip the sts from the left needle to the right one, correcting stitch orientation as you go.  You do have to be able to read your knitting, to know whether that little thing on the row below is a k2tog or an ssk, or a sk2p.  Pick up any yo's you may have missed.  Then do the same thing again. 

Then knit your first CORRECTED pattern row, paying CLOSE attention to how that row fits with the row below.  If anything doesn't look right, STOP RIGHT NOW and find out what it is.

The first time I started to pick up my sts, I was about half way through the row before I realized I needed to go down about 4 more rows.  No problem.  Rip them out and pick up again.

Now I have the right chart.  I'm 2 rows into it.  So far.  :)

Spring Shawl Surprise, Clue 2

ETA:  That third motif that's different marks the spot where I started knitting with the wrong chart.

head/desk/repeatedly

Ok, I should have looked at the clues more carefully.  In slight defense of my mistake, there are 4 freakin' versions of this pattern.  Jeezopete.  That's what I get for trying to get it done.

I thought the bottom of the center section looked a little funky too.  If it wasn't for that, I might just leave it.

/walks off to print correct chart and frog back and start again./

Whew.  I had a marathon knitting session today, along with everything else going on.  But I finished the second clue of the Spring Shawl Surprise:

I really hate pinning out works in progress, so I just kinda sorta pin it out.  But you can see the general principles of it. 

I just had to run back and look at the pattern, because I just noticed that the 3rd edge motif from the bottom is different.  When I look at the pattern, I'm pretty sure I knitted it correctly.  Kinda stinks that I didn't notice it till now though.  But I've always been much better at seeing the trees than the forest.  Hell, I didn't even realize I was making little circles in the middle till I looked at the picture.  That's being a little TOO closely focussed on the stitches.

This section of the pattern was lots more interesting to knit than the first section.  Lots more going on, and some rows have lace patterning on both the right side and the wrong side, plus various combinations of knit and purl sts.  Good stuff.  So far, so fun.

And so we begin

First off, thanks to all who commiserated with me over my stolen Christmas presents.  No, I don't think anything will be recovered.  The dollar value of the items lost was pretty low, really.  I've already replaced my phone (the new one's a RED one!), and the kind folks at the Needle Nook are on the lookout for anyone claiming to be me with a gift certificate.  :)

I don't do old year wrap-up posts, or New Year's resolutions, really.  There are some things I want to DO this year, though.  Here they are:

• Finish more knits (using up stash as I go), especially lace projects
• Walk in the woods more
• Keep the house neater
• Read out loud more
• Play more music.  I've got half a dozen instruments languishing in my "music room"

Modest wishes, eh?  :)  However, I reserve the right to add to my list as the year moves on.

In the meanwhile, I've finished Clue 1 of the Spring Shawl Surprise:

The color is pretty true on my monitor.  It's some yarn from handpaintedyarns.com that I got in a yarn swap a while back.  It's a pretty orchid (pinky-purple) color single with a little color variation.  The yarn's a little splitty, and I just kinda sorta pinned it out, because I hate pinning out WIPs. 

So far, so good!  It's an easy pattern.  I think I've signed up for about 20* of these mystery shawls so far this year.

*slight exaggeration