Since I spent my last entry discussing my failures, this one is going to be about my accomplishments. Namely, what I've been up to yarn-wise during the summer.
I started out by... buying yarn. I COULD NOT HELP IT OKAY. I had to go to Litet Nystan to get presents for Meg, and I accidentally also bought another skein of the shines-from-within Jaipur Silk Fino as well as a Zauberball. But it was all so pretty.
While visiting my dad over Midsummer, I FINALLY managed to pay a visit to a Biltema store to get me a blocking mat. So it's a bit colourful and whatnot; it does the job.
While I was there, I also mentioned how I really need to get a swift and a ball winder, and, lo and behold, my dad's reply was "you know, I think we have one of those swift thingies in the guest house". (My dad and stepmother bought a house a couple of years back, and the previous owners left behind their loom as well as a bunch of accoutrements). Indeed, in the loom room we discovered not one, but TWO wooden umbrella swifts, one of which they graciously gifted to me. Yay!
I'd cast on for an Annis using my Malabrigo Sock (which I stupidly decided to ball up without a swift, or a chair, or another person; I don't recommend it, it took me two days) and realised halfway through the decreases that I was wayyyyy off centre. I must have been drunk or suffering from heatstroke when I started them or something, I don't even know, because it was not even CLOSE. It was so not even close that I couldn't see any way of fixing it without ripping back to before the decreases started, which was a good four hours of active knitting time ago. Since I wasn't 100% satisfied with how it was turning out anyway (I was considering dying the finished product), I took a deep breath and ripped the whole thing out.
I then looked around for a good project to knit whilst travelling, since I had an 11+ hour flight coming up, and decided upon Ribbon Lace Scarf. Then, after spending about six million years fretting that my knitting would be taken away by evil TSA agents, I managed to get that sucker onto three separate flights... and did not knit one single stitch on any of them. Fail.
After all this flying I found myself in beautiful California, with two of my very favourite people in the world. ♥ We visited MeadowFarms in Nevada City, where I, erm, bought some yarn. Madelinetosh! And Manos! LOOK AT THE BEAUTY!
I also picked up some T-pins (really hard to find here) as well as one of those nifty stranded knitting helper thingies, which I'm hoping will make colourwork less aaaaaaaaaargh.
Oh yeah, and I gifted Abby with her snazzy Jayne hat, mutant pompom included.
While in California, we spent quite a lot of time knitting; I tried to teach Meg continental (it was not a roaring success, let's leave it at that) and actually taught Abby to knit, period. Well, she knew how to knit. Kind of. She knew how to make knit stitches... from both directions. Which, y'know, is a useful skill to have, but maybe not all that useful when it's all you know to do. So, having mastered the purl stitch, she started producing a mistake rib scarf.
She had quite a lot of time to work on it (and I on my lace ribbon scarf) as we travelled halfway across the US by train on the California Zephyr. Her nails matched her knitting. Mine did not.
In St Louis, I picked up some knitting books.
Looking forward to reading the Knitting Rules (I had to buy it after leafing through it in the store and finding myself staring at the header "five reasons to keep a stash" - I mean, come on, if that doesn't speak to me, what does?) and I think the other two can be really useful. I had absolutely NO knitting books before, so I feel a bit more like a proper knitter now!
I also visited Knit & Caboodle in St Charles and bought... more yarn.
In my defense, I'd promised two of my favourite guys that I'd let them pick out their own yarn and I'd make them scarves of their very own. Could YOU say no to these two?
And here's the finished result, wrapped up in late August:
Upon getting home, I managed to win an eBay auction for a ball winder. This was the result of one evening's heavy winding:
Once everything was balled up nice and proper (with a few snags; the merino lace I picked up two summers ago broke on me a few times, and the blue skein of was just tangled beyond my patience so I stuffed it in a bag and forgot about it; and... I may have gotten a bit too enthusiastic while balling the madelinetosh lace, causing it to fly across my kitchen like a torpedo. Oops.) I decided to actually enter my stash into Ravelry for all to see.
It's not THAT bad. Is it?
Current WIPs, not counting the poor dormant cardi, fingerless glove, or mitts:
Lace ribbon scarf, which has seen three countries and eight US states but remains unfinished.
Diagonal Noro scarf in Chroma, which is my easypeasy don't-need-to-think project. It's still a WIP because I haven't been thinking enough lately, clearly.
Ice Queen which I have no idea why I started, except I had a whole bunch of Mal lace left over and that is just a crime.
Hoping to have at least one of those suckers off the needles for the October entry.
I don't even know where this thing is. I do know that it's ugly, though.
I do really like the way this one looks, but man, I'm pretty sure it's bullet proof.
This one isn't half bad. Both this one and the bullet proof one were gifted to my mother.
Making stuff for kids is GREAT. They're so ickle and quick!
I do quite love this one. As does the recipient, which makes how annoying it was to make totally worth it. ♥
