Unnamed Cowl

Cowl finished
pattern: 7 repeats of feather and fan around (18 stitch f&f)
yarn: “Source of Gilgamesh” 2-ply leftovers from RedFish Dyeworks (bought at Stitches West 2008) 19g [1].

From cowl one

(Click on any thumbnail to be taken to the larger image page.)

cowl.

I finished the cowl. It is very nice, but looser than I would have liked. I really should have found a way to cardiganize it so it did not need to fit over my head. (Pictures later. I am going to need to shoot outside for you to see the lacework.)

In other news…. my camera is so old now that discount memory card places do not sell cards small enough for it to use. Less than three years. However, my camera takes better pictures than a lot of brand new cameras… though largely that is due to the minimization of user interference on my camera’s part. 

My hand seems mostly recovered, and, as long as I do not abuse it, it stays that way. I am definitely taking a few more months off sock knitting since that requires a lot of tight knitting. 

The cowl was knit to an enormous gauge, intentionally, but that was also helped along by using smaller needles so I did not have to pull anything and my decreases were easy due to almost sloppy stitchwork. But since lace blocks out huge, there really does need to be a lot more slack than I would have guessed.

Finding the blue something into the deep.

I am blocking my bent scarf today. First real “lace” blocking. Lace being a bit of a misnomer since I just swapped in needles that were 6 sizes bigger every 6th row or so. But that was more interesting than dealing with yarn overs. 

Sock progress has been slower than expected. I am a handful of rounds from starting the heel. But the slog from toe to heel took ages. 

I am looking into my next knitting project and fiber-related things for the year.

Spinning projects are pretty much set. I have that “Source of Gilgamesh” to finish spinning singles for and then its plying. With the fiber club shipment here, I feel some obligation to actually spin it so I can participate— but pink bamboo yarn and a kiddy sweater? Yeah, zero enthusiasm. Who makes unwashable things for children anyway? That has to be on par with giving a kid a one-man band. By the time I finish the SoG yarn, I might need to skip ahead to the February shipment though. I wanted to spin the January shipment and post about it to the Rav group so I could collect praise, but I do not want that enough to interrupt a big and dear project.

Knitting projects upcoming are:

• socks– possibly Leyburns but several people said the pattern is wonky and they had to revise it but I have not found a definitive source and I would like one. Monkeys come highly highly recommended but I just cannot seem to really enthuse over those. 
• Leuca sweater
• hat for me from “Cadberry” yarn — no real patterns in mind but I am thinking something more like a beret.
• neck/hood/capelet thing for me from “Source of Gilgamesh” yarn— I want a cowl thing to have around my neck, but I want it to be able to pull up over my head into a hood. I want it to go around my shoulders and I need it to fasten with buttons instead of being a tube that pulls on like a t-shirt. In other words, even my imagination does not have a good picture  of it. I think what I want is sort of a cross between Little Red Riding Hood’s cape and Romi’s “Ice Queen”. I could easily make the “Ice Queen” flare out and be longer, but it would still have to go over my head. Somehow, even if it was not lacework, I do not think it would fare well from steeking. I want it to be called “Bloo Glooming Hood” and I doubt I will be satisfied until I find something suitable to that title. 

The world is flat.

For almost an entire year, I made projects exclusively in-the-round.

Then I started asking myself what I wanted to knit for me.  Because, really, no one else wants anything. And if I do make them something, the only thing they want to know is if they can machine wash it.

I wanted to make a leafy shawl because I thought it would be beautiful. I bought some really glorious “musk” colored undyed alpaca 3-ply [2.5] (but they call it “worsted”) yarn. I had someone in mind who would be beautiful in it. That was when I found “Dancing Leaves”. Later, as I think on this, I realize that really, no one would appreciate the effort that went into that when it takes up a king-size bed to block if it ever gets humid.

I did not want to buy a single pattern for $10. I may still, but talked myself out of it. That was when I found the Hyde book, Wrapped In Comfort. I am vastly disappointed in this book because most of the patterns are ugly and the main trick of making the yoke and body different was not worthy of a dozen repetitions. I do not think it was not worth the money because I got the 35% off price and paid $13 for it. I found three things in there that I liked, most especially the water turtles motif. Just possibly I could combine motifs and come up with something that pleases me. I admit that the semi-circular nature of the shawls in the book does entice me and I am certain I can apply that trick to the best suited motif and have something glorious.

A number of people bought Cat Bordhi’s pamphlet on using 2 circular needles instead of dpns. That cost more than this did.

I ended up with some unmatched single from the horribly-dyed superwash merino roving. It is about a [1.5] and I looked for a very lacy scarf pattern. I figured that pallid brown and gray and rust pastels would make for the kind of scarf which would make a good gift for just about anyone; lace would maximize the yardage use and make it more impressive; a scarf will not take the kind of abuse that a garment does so using a single would not be inappropriate. I found “Palette“.

The Palette pattern suggests it would be good with handspun and was originally written to use a mere ounce of fiber. That means I should have about the right amount. I am making mine a little skinnier, 27 stitches across rather than 31, to ensure that the length is still desirable. The pattern says merely “CO 31″ without giving any advice whatsoever on what type of cast-on would be desirable or what caveats should be accounted for. I  Googled. Eunny Jang’s site was down but the cached copy suggests that “lace cast-on” and plain “knitted cast-on” are identical. I kept looking. I found a good explanation in another blog “Grin and Frog It” (April 2006).

[You should know that I am terrible about keeping up with the blogroll here. I add things to my Google Reader and the import process is not as smooth as I would like.]

Palette has something in its lace motif that scares away even big-name knitting people like Franklin (The Panopticon) Habit,  the wrong-side is not just straight purl. There is texture/pattern work on the purl side. What I liked about the Palette motif was that there are no rows with knit and purl stitches. All knitters seem to have an Achilles’ heel; many knitters fear the purl stitch; some knitters think cables might be too difficult; others may not want to block or divert from the written pattern— for me the thing I find most irritating is the transition between knit and purl. I find that it takes me nearly thrice as much time to do k1p1 ribbing as it does to k*. But many knitters prefer their lace motifs to have a “resting row”.

There are no pictures. I have no pictures of the spun yarn because it is unworthy of photography. I have no pictures of the in progress Palette, which I have named “Zag Lace Scarf” on Ravelry, because it looks like a couple rows of pale gray yarn next to a big yarn barf. I really need to find a better way to wind handspun yarn….