I’m Still Alive – A Post with an FO and WIPs

Has anyone seen May? No? Me either…. where did it go? I thought it was around here, but suddenly it’s just disappeared!

I had every intention to blog during May. Seems that the month just got away with me and things have been busier then usual with school, though school plus work are the new “usual” for me these days. Spring term has just 5 school days left for me (term ends June 18th) and I’ve already registered for summer term. It’ll be tough considering it’s only 6 weeks with 10 weeks worth of material crammed into a shorter amount of time. It’ll be interesting to say the least!

Per the usual, despite the lack of blogging, there has not been a lack of knitting. I even finished something last month!

The current KAL going on for SSK (which ends today) is to knit something designed or inspired by one of the hosts (Laura, Leslie, and Carin). I chose to double dip and knit LaLa’s Simple Shawl both for the SSK KAL and the KAL in LaLa’s group, LaLa Knits. The photographs don’t show it well (and two of them are from my iPhone, sorry!), but there’s sparkle in the yarn! I think it turned out great. 🙂

LaLa’s Simple Shawl

Pattern: LaLa’s Simple Shawl by Laura Linneman (My Ravelry project page.)
Started: April 20, 2012
Completed: May 10, 2012
Yarn: Another Crafty Girl Twinkle Sock in Lagoon, 1 skein
Needle: US 6, Signature Circular
Notes: I was able to knit a total of 5 pattern repeats. Very easy and well written pattern. Easy to make larger or smaller. I used a fingering weight yarn and smaller needles, which made it into more of a shawlette.

LaLa’s Simple Shawl

LaLa’s Simple Shawl – Worn

I’m still working on Thin Ice out of Cephalopod Yarns Skinny Bugga! in the Leafy Seadragon colorway. Not a lot of progress lately, but here’s a much better picture of it.

Thin Ice

I’ve made a bit of progress on Magrathea, which I’m using handspun for.

Handspun Magrathea

After receiving some new yarn, my fingers were itching to get it cast on, so I decided to get a head start on Christmas knitting and started the Foreign Correspondent’s Scarf (free pattern on Ravelry) out of Cephalopod Yarns Nautilace in the Rainbow Trout colorway.

Foreign Correspondent’s Scarf

I frogged the stripey Jaywalker socks because they were coming out too tight. Need to go up another needle size, I think to US 1.5, for those. For now, they’re frogged and the yarn is wound back onto it’s cake.

I knit to the leg of the second of the Bonnie and Clyde stripey socks, but then found it to be too tight. This was after knitting the heel nearly 3 times because the stripes weren’t lining up right! Turns out my gauge on the second sock had changed. Guess I was doing a little too much pulling on my yarn as I knit. Oops. Frogged the whole sock and it’s in time out utnil I figure out what I want to do. I think I’ll likely go up a needle size for the second sock and hope that fixes the gauge issue.

Since I frogged that sock and the Jaywalker sock, I had no socks on the needles! GASP! I needed something more portable and less complicated then anything else on the needles, so I started a new sock. I decided on the Georgia on my Mind pattern (free pattern on Ravelry) and pulled out the SweetGeorgia Yarn in Hard Candy that I had. Great pairing, right? Not so much. The yarn at 64 stiches was striping for me and I ultimately decided I didn’t like it, so I frogged it and will be knitting something else with it soon enough.

Georgia on my Mind pre frogging

So, I’m back to no socks on the needles! I figure Summer of Socks will be starting at the end of the month and I’ll cast on for a new pair then. In the mean time I’m focusing on my other WIPs. In fact, I’ve started back on a WIP that I was thinking I was going to frog – the Rocky Coast Cardigan.

I was going to frog this one because the skeins are not well matched. Ah, Malabrigo. How I love your softness, but dislike your non-matchy skeins. I think it’s getting better, but I got these on sale and while they all looked very similar and well matched when in the skeins, after I started knitting, I found that they were rather different from one another. Since I didn’t start out alternating skeins (because frankly I just don’t like to do that), I figured I had a few options: frog the whole thing and use it for something else, keep knitting despite the rather drastic and obvious changes in color and just live with it like that, or frog it all and over dye it to even things out, frog it and alternate between 3 skeins (I have 3 sets that match, so this would be the best way to even things out). I didn’t really like ANY of these options, but out of those, I thought frogging and using it for something else might be best. After that, I put it in the bag and set it aside until I could decided what it’s fate would be.

Then, as I was going through all my WIPs that are hibernating, I thought “What if I finish it, THEN dye it?” I hadn’t considered this option before and I’m still not sold on doing that, but I am working on the sweater again and ignoring the fact that the skeins aren’t all that well matched. Here is a terrible picture of the current state of it.

I’ve finished the body and currently working on the collar. The color is not quite as bright as the photo suggests, but red is such a hard color to photograph, especially with my phone! Once I get finished with the collar, I just have the sleeves left. Shouldn’t take too long. After that, I plan on having my friend Karen dye up some of the leftover yarn (will probably swatch it first and have that dyed) to see if I want to dye it or not.

Next post, I’ll show you all some of the spinning I’m doing and talk a bit about my goal for Tour de Fleece which is coming up at the end of June.

Happy Friday everyone! Hope you all have a great weekend!