Through the fog...

Allergy fog, that is. Ugh. Either I can't think straight when my head is all stuffy or I feel drowsy and out of it on allergy meds. This allergy season is brutal. You can see the stuff flying through the air. Our porch had a lovely yellowish blanket on it until Dwight washed it off last week. I think it's already covered again.

I have gotten a few things done since my last post. These Marie Antoinette socks were finished earlier this month, but have waited a long time to be photographed. Even then, I tried to dash outside quickly to avoid the pollen. Most of the pictures of me wearing the socks turned out blurry. :-( I'll try to get better shots of the sock on my foot. These socks were a lot of fun to make. I've put them off for a while because I thought they were too complicated. The top edge is knit first in one strip, you sew it into a circle, and then pick up stitches to work the sock down to the toe. The directions are very clear (as always with Anne's patterns). The socks were surprisingly fast to knit.

The yarn is a new one to me. It feels a little rough, but softened up after a wash. The yarn feels on the thicker side of most fingering weight sock yarns. The semi-solid colors are perfect for patterns like this one.

Details:
Pattern: Marie Antoinette by Knitspot (Anne Hanson)
Yarn: Araucania Ranco color 103 (used 70gms)
Needles: size 1 (2.25) Knit Picks Harmony dpns for the top edge and Classic Circulars for the rest
Start: May 3, 2008
Finish: May 8, 2008

I've also finished two lace scarves and I'm working on another one. For one of the scarves, I found a great stitch pattern that I liked. I drew it in excel, mirrored it, flipped it, and it came out great! I plan on trying to write that one up as a pattern. I've known how to make a chart in excel, but I've now figured out how to get the charts out while still looking decent.

I've joined the Summer of Socks again. It's going to be different than last year. I'm not going to try to knit the most socks. Instead, I'm trying to make a few new patterns. I've searched through my stitch dictionaries and I think that I have a few stitch patterns that would look great on socks.

I've also joined the 52 Pair Plunge. I saw that last year and didn't think that I would want to knit that many in one year. I did knit more than that last year. I've gathered together most of the sock patterns that I want to try into one binder. Between this and Summer of Socks, there should be a lot of sock knitting this summer.

Late Laminaria

I knit this shawl a few weeks ago, but I'm finally blogging about it now. Things have been busy around here. I've been working on E's homeschooling portfolio. That is finished and has been reviewed. Phew! We got a dog. Well, we're trying out a dog. She's a black lab and almost two years old. She's a very well behaved dog, but we're not sure if a dog fits into our family or routines right now. On top of that, we're not sure if where we live is good for her. We have been finding a lot of ticks on her and around our house. She does have a flea/tick treatment, but I'm not sure if that's enough.

Back to knitting, this is Laminaria. I knit it out of two strands of Colourmart's 2/28 cashmere yarn. I wanted a dense shawl and that is exactly what I got. I bought this yarn as an odds-n-ends lot on ebay last year. I initially bought it to make a scarf for Dwight. It's just about the right shade of UT's burnt orange. I still have plenty left to make that scarf. I'm thinking about knitting another Henry scarf since I liked the last one so much. I love how this shawl turned out. It is dense, but it's light and fluffy. The cashmere does feel funny coming off of the cone, but a few dunks into very hot and soapy water softened it up a lot.

I picked this shawl because it has a few stitches that I haven't used in a shawl yet. Overall, it was quick and fun to knit. The
3-into-9 or 2-into-9 stitches weren't so bad to execute. I was using my pointy Knit Picks Options needles and they made it easy to do those stitches.

Details:
Pattern: Laminaria by Elizabeth Freeman on Knitty.com
Yarn: Colourmart 2/28 cashmere laceweight-doubled
Needle: size 5 Knit Picks Options
Start: April 18, 2008
Finish: April 25, 2008

Up next, I'm knitting a blanket or throw. I'm not sure what the final size will be, but it is going to be larger than a shawl. I'm knitting Snowflakes in Cedarwoods out of 4ply camel hair yarn from Colourmart. I'm only on the third chart out of 11, so it will be a while before it's finished. I'm hoping to finish it before the weather gets too warm for me to have this project in my lap.