The Ballad of Elenor Amell

The time has come for me to tell the story of the Traveling Woman. This event has been prompted by the fact that I'm still working on the Simple Chevron Scarf and it is not interesting to blog about.

This is the tale of both the shawl  and the tale of the woman that inspired it. Her name is Elenor Amell. She is my player character in Dragon Age: Origins.

Yes, I know this is Inquisition. It's prettier.

As a person who loves characters of all kinds, I tend to overthink my protagonists if video games give me the ability to choose who they are. Elenor Amell is quiet, stoic, and rational. She shows little-to-no emotion on her face and even less through body language. This ice-cold demeanor is the product of fourteen years of practice. Growing up in an inhospitable tower, surrounded by people waiting for her to lose control, she developed a vice-grip on herself and her actions. Everything she does is calculated.

Get underneath that, however, and you find a deeply emotional person. She cares far more than she will ever let show. She believes in the ability of people to do good and tries her best to be that herself. The people she lets in will never know a person that will give more of herself to a cause or a relationship.

She also loves really bad puns and uses her deadpan expression to her complete advantage.

She's my favorite. Because I am a dork, I wanted to make her a shawl. I decided on the colors long before the pattern. Elenor is the Warden-Commander of the Fereldan Grey Wardens and their colors are royal blue and white (I think it should probably be grey, but that's the devs' responsibility). I decided on just royal blue, because I thought those colors contrasted too much in a lace shawl.

She's so pretty. I love her. I'm a dork.

Then, I had to fit a shawl that fit her personality. Elenor is a bit of a plain Jane. She is elegant, but that elegance comes from simplicity. While I love lace shawls with lots of bits and bobs and fancy, those wouldn't suit her. Practicality first, style second. That's her jam.

Traveling Woman was Maker-sent. It fits Elenor perfectly. It's simple stockinette and eyelets for the set-up rows, plus enough lacy goodness in the edging to be elegant but not overly fanciful. The x-large laceweight size is light enough for decoration, but large enough to provide actual warmth. It's beautiful and practical, just like my Fereldan babe.

My decision to make the x-large size was aided by the fact that I was considering which would better impress her boyfriend/lover/hubby/snugglemuffin, Alistair. My friend suggested that I consider this and then I thought about how if she wore the x-large size, she could wear only the x-large size. It would be sexy and adorable.

I am aware these people are fictional. I am aware that I am a complete dork. I am aware that it is incurable. I have made my peace with this.

Anyway, my real point is that I love my characters to a fault sometimes, but I don't consider it a fault when I get a gorgeous shawl out of it.

Holy earrings, batman!

Being shy sucks when you want to take pictures of other people's knitting for your blog, but you're too nervous to actually ask.

I went to the LYS today and worked on the Simple Chevron Scarf. I'm almost through with the ball left-over from the first half, which makes me a little over half-way through the second half. Just a few more days of this and I'll be able to start work on something more interesting.

In the meantime, check out how cool this is. My mum's friend, Kate (no relation), does metal-working semi-professionally and makes her own jewelry. The talent is palpable, as evidenced by that gorgeous earring she's made.

Kate's invited to take me to SAFF this year. She is a beautiful person. This does mean, however, that I'm now on a yarn diet. No buying yarn until SAFF. With my own money, at least -- mum's buying yarn for her sweater.

In the background, there is the Chevron Scarf, being itself. It's going to be gorgeous when it's done, but the going is tough, blog-wise. I'm still working on Blight as well, but it's fairly repetitive right now as well and I can't seem to get good pictures of it.

I'm slightly worried it won't block well, seeing as it's partially acrylic. I might have to steam-block it and I don't know that my steam-iron will actually do the steaming part. Plus, I was hoping to block it here instead of at home. Mum isn't supposed to see it until Christmas.

A pretty awesome project

I started the second half of the Simple Chevron Scarf and I realized something.

I don't actually have a problem with the repetition of the scarf. I've complained about it a lot, but the truth is, I rather like the repetition. I went to a spoken word reading at the library today and it was the perfect project to work on without distracting myself. I watched almost a full season of Parks & Rec this week and it was the perfect project to keep my hands occupied while I watched Leslie Knope and Ben Wyatt being adorable. I've been grinding through side quests in Dragon Age: Inquisition like crazy and it's the perfect project to knit during cutscenes and loading screens.

(I also have classes and my livelihood and whatever, but how is that important?)

It is a pretty awesome project to work on. The problem is that it isn't a pretty awesome project to write about. There's no excitement in it. No changes in color, no fancy lace, nothing. It's the same row over and over for 40 inches (it was supposed to be 36 but I lost track of time -- I have enough yarn for it, so I don't care). Twice. It's about as interesting to write about as watching paint dry and I want to write about knitting.

That said, I think this blogging thing is going to work out better than I thought it would.

Stitchin' 'n' Bitchin'

I went to my first ever stitch 'n' bitch today. I know it's a crime that it's my first ever. I've been knitting for four years now, you'd think I would have gotten together with some other knitters in that time. Alas, I don't know any other knitters and my hometown has no LYS so there wasn't really opportunity to meet them. Now I live just outside of a city and there are plenty of yarn stores around.

Real-life yarn, how I have missed thee.

I have yet to figure out the public transportation system here, though, so I was picked up on campus by a friend of my mother's, who has recently taken up knitting and lives in the area. Her stitch 'n' bitch largely consisted of women in their sixties with personalities. Everyone has personalities, of course, but these ladies had big personalities.

I will tell you one thing: if you have the chance to sit around and knit with a group of older women with strong opinions and even stronger Brooklyn accents, take that chance. They called YouTube videos "the youtubes." It was a beautiful experience. I'm going again next week.

I kind of wish I'd had something more interesting to work on, though. They were working on beautiful scarves and sweaters and afghans while I stitched away at the Simple Chevron Scarf. It's getting fairly long. I'm thinking that I will cast off the first half within the week. I switched over to straights so I could start my mum's shawl and I've realized at this point that I will never have enough size 6 needles. Not possible.

I want to live in Canada

It is 62° degrees Fahrenheit in Toronto, Ontario right now. It is 68°F in Quebec City, Quebec and Halifax, Nova Scotia. It is 75°F in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It is 76°F in Fredericton, New Brunswick. It is 62°F in Victoria, British Columbia. It is 61°F in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. It is 77°F in Edmonton, Alberta. It is 61°F in St. John's, Newfoundland. It is 40°F in Yellowknife, in the Northwest Territories and Iqaluit in Nunavut and 42°F in Whitehorse, in the Yukon. The only place that I don't really want to go to is Saskatchewan -- it's 84°F in Regina.

My point isn't that I now know the names and capitals of Canada's provinces and territories. It's that Canada knows that it is autumn and most of the US hasn't caught on yet. It's almost the middle of September and I haven't seen a single yellow or red leaf, never mind orange. The only state that currently has its crap together, weather-wise, is Alaska at 53°F in Juneau, and their politics frighten me.

See anything other than green? Yeah, me neither.

This wouldn't be as big a deal if I didn't now live in the mountains. I was promised a respite from the horror that is fall in the southern states. Yes, it is 71°F today, but it's also been raining statewide for almost a week now. It might be a bit cooler but it's also as humid as Satan's shower out there. No fun.

I am a knitter. I was made for soft yarn and blazing fires and pumpkin spice and snow. My parents should know my pain -- my dad's from upstate New York (currently at 60°F) and my mom's from Moscow (52°F). Why they thought it would be a good idea to move to the gates of hell, I have no idea. It was 100°F here this year -- that's about 37°C for metric readers. That is not good weather to be working with wool. That isn't good weather for anything.

Still, I've been steadily working through the death-rays of sunshine. Most of this work has been conducted indoors, as I am not a masochist when it comes to heat -- only cabling. I've almost reached the end of the first ball of Palette and am on my way to the halfway point. I'm thinking another half-ball and then I'll bind off and start the next half. Then I'll throw myself off a bridge from a combination of repetitiveness and heat.

I have a schedule, you see.

Nightmares and progress

I had a dream last night that I knit five repeats of an Estonian lace shawl and then noticed a glaring mistake in the second repeat. Let's just say I didn't sleep well last night.

Progress is going faster than expected on the Chevron scarf. I have abandoned it at times for a different project (I'll get to that in a moment), but all things considered, the first half is almost 14" long. Usually, I would expect to have knit more stitches in a week, but considering how repetitive this pattern is, I count myself fortunate that I haven't abandoned it entirely.

Abandoned it entirely is the key word. While I haven't done that, I have begun work on the mother's shawl. She still doesn't know about it -- in fact, I get the impression that she is unhappy about my aunt presumably getting one before her. Which is actually pretty great for me. Who says I can't keep a secret?

I decided on Deborah Frank's Blight for the shawl pattern, instead of Nightsongs, like I had originally been planning. Blight has a more organic shape for its leaves than Nightsongs and I am picky. The yarn is self-striping, which has me worried a little about whether or not it will continue to self-stripe once I get to the high stitch count rows. Future Me can deal with that.

Speaking of my mother, I still have no yarn for the swirl jacket. Mum wants Preciosa Tonal in Stormy and that colorway is out of stock until the end of the month. Actually, she could probably go with any yarn somewhat soft, but I'm dead set on working with that 100% merino goodness. She just picked the color.

As I'm fairly sure I'm going to finish both the shawl and the scarf by the end of this month, my eye has started to wander. The "playing video games while knitting" thing has somewhat backfired, as I very much want to make these for myself.

It's important that I have them. The only thing currently stopping me from snapping up yarn to make them is that I can't find any in the right colors. Either the blue is too light or dark, or the red is too purple. Grey tends to be okay no matter what yarn I look at.

I know the best idea is to go to an LYS and ask them, but I'm not familiar with any in my area yet and I haven't figured out the public transportation system anyway. These are the perils of moving.

Laborious Pursuits

Labor Day, according to Wikipedia, is to celebrate the American labor movement. I didn't know that until I Googled it for the purposes of writing this blog entry. Learn something every day.

This year, Labor Day for me, is less about celebrating the American labor movement, though I am most grateful to all those who gave their lives and livelihoods to fight for the ability for all of us to have safer working conditions and earn living wages.

Labor Day is about getting to go home for the weekend. This is my first year away from home at college and I have yet to get to the part where I'm at home enough in the environment for it to be fun.

Being home for the weekend has the added bonus of giving me the ability to block shawls. Travelling Woman is finished. Ends are weaved in, it is all bound off, and it has been stretched across a king-sized mattress and soaked with water until it became the beauty you see before you.

I had a long post about this, because I have a whole line of long, complicated reasoning as to why this shawl exists, in this color, in this style. The short version is this: I have a player character in Dragon Age: Origins named Elenor Amell. She is calm, elegant, rational, and classy and I would very much like to embody those qualities. Therefore, I made a shawl for her me, inspired by something that I thought she would wear.

Not too over-the-top fancy, not plain enough to be missed. A beautiful, elegant, understated shawl in a shade of blue representing the Grey Wardens, an organization she counts herself lucky to be a part of. The shawl is a fitting tribute to a character I adore.

I can't work on my mother's shawl at home, so I've begun work on my aunt's Christmas present. After dismissing multiple patterns for being wrong (I tried one knitted lengthwise - that didn't work out well), I've settled on Aimee Alexander's Simple Chevron Scarf. I've also decided to make my aunt a shawl. I didn't think it was something she would like, but my mum laughed at that idea, so I think that means she would like one.

That's going to take a bit, though, because I don't know what colors she likes. Making a neutral-toned scarf is driving me mad and I think if I see another skein of cream-colored yarn again, I will rip my hair out.

Ahem. The Chevron scarf, while attractive, is somewhat repetitive. Just a little bit. I think I'm going to start my mum's shawl soon, just so I can work on a project that changes over time. In the meantime, I'm going to watch Castle and pretend that I don't have to go back to school tonight.

Gifts from the PO

I got mail today. I love getting mail. It makes me feel important, wanted. Like someone in the world feels I am worthy of love and envelopes.

Even if that person is me. KnitPicks had a 15% off sale last week, which was an amazing thing for a multitude of reasons. One, yarn was cheaper. Two, I need about 1200 yards for the sweater I want to make for myself. Three, yarn was cheaper. Four, I needed yarn for Christmas gifts. Five, yarn was cheaper. Six, there's some semi-expensive yarn I wanted for one of my mother's Christmas gifts (or possibly New Year's. Depends on if it's too hot to knit in the Caribbean -- that's a different story). Seven, yarn was cheaper.

You can smell the wool and burning hole in my pocket in the air.

Obviously, I found this the perfect excuse to buy a metric crapload of new yarn. Anyone who thinks this was a bad move can let the door close behind you on the way out. Have a great day, but don't enter this place again. We don't want your kind here, mostly because we don't think you would have a good time among us bad-decision makers.

The prized new stash item is these two skeins of Chroma Fingering Weight, in Lake Front. It will become a shawl in the future, probably Gail (aka Nightsongs) by Jane Araújo. My mum likes green and other colors, and she likes lakes, and she likes leafy things. She's into gardening. So, I think and hope she will like this.

I do love my mom though. She always appreciates knitted things.

 

Second up is three skeins of Palette Fingering Weight in Coriander Heather.  This will become something for my aunt. My aunt is classy, modern, fashionable. I have no earthly idea what to make for her. I'm going home for this weekend and I'm hoping my mother will be able to help me with this

I also have 10 skeins of Palette in Ivy, which will eventually become St. Brigid by Alice Starmore. I've chosen to try and pursue an Alice Starmore pattern because I quite obviously hate myself. Evidence that further supports this is that I was looking at it and thinking: I could totally knit the body partially in the round.

I think I might actually die of knitterly angst.

Thankfully, my adventures in Starmore probably won't be started until after I finish Silken Dreams by Sandra McIvers. My mother bought me a book full of swirl jacket patterns last month, out of the goodness of her heart, and also because I told her I would make her one. I don't have yarn for it, because I also told her she could pick it out. I'm not telling her which jacket I'm making though. That is a surprise.

I'm kind of hoping that I haven't told her I have a blog yet. That would ruin the surprise. I don't think I have, or at least I don't think I've told her the name. We'll see.

The apprentice has become the master...

...of making a mockery of herself.

I have stepped over the line. I have forgotten my place. I have betrayed my acknowledgement of my place as a knitter. I am designing a sock.

It's going to be a sock with a french heel and a partner with a Latvian braid that mirrors the first one. It will be in a PDF and it will be on Ravelry, for free. If I finish it, of course.

This all started, as many things involving my life do, with me watching television. I was halfway through an episode of How I Met Your Mother, when my mind began to wander. At the time, I was working on the third repeat of the Traveling Woman's first chart, which was a decent-enough reason for my mind wandering. It's a fairly repetitive pattern.

I had been toying with the idea of Fair Isle for a while. While I've gotten comfortable with lace and cabling, colorwork is somewhat beyond me. I can't quite figure out how to make it work. I have managed to successfully accomplish stranded colorwork and colorwork while double-knitting, one time each. It is not a source of comfort for me.

Part of the reason I decided to do this now was because I still had three balls of KnitPicks' Sprout-colored CotLin left over from my mother's tunic and a ball of CotLin in Harbor from when I knit my first Best Friend Scarf*. I knew I wanted to use them together, but I wasn't sure what for.

I decided on socks, but knew that Fair Isle socks in DK or even worsted weight would not be the easiest thing in the world to find a pattern for. I was right -- there were approximately eight patterns on Ravelry, none of which looked appealing.

Then, I thought, in blatant disregard of my skill level and design experience, "I should totally design my own."

Which leads us to this moment. It's going fairly well so far. I managed a Latvian braid without much incident and the actual colorwork hasn't gotten screwed up yet. I do wish the colors contrasted more -- there is actually a pattern that you can't really see up there -- but I haven't massively screwed anything up yet.

We haven't gotten to turning the heel, though. We'll see if I cry then.

*in case you were wondering, the current one remains unfinished and will probably stay this way for a while.

Things I do right and things I can't do

"There is no wrong way to knit. The debate between throwing the yarn and picking it, using circulars or straights, choosing Fair Isle or intarsia...it's all a moot point. If you get something knitted at the end of it, you are doing it right. We should all agree to stop correcting each other and deal with the more important issue: How wrong crochet is."

- Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (The Yarn Harlot), At Knit's End

I feel this quote right now, for two reasons. One: I'm pretty damn sure I don't hold my yarn the right way. I've watched four videos trying to figure out a Latvian braid and everyone holds their yarn looped over their index and pinky fingers. I used to think that this was an English thing, but apparently you're supposed to do it knitting Continental as well.

I have been knitting for four years. I've knit lace, cables, fair isle, socks, all holding the yarn the wrong way. The fact that I didn't realize this until now is ridiculous.

Well, I've knit this entire shawl wrong. Guess I should rip it out and start over.

That said, I don't care that I hold my yarn the wrong way. Since realizing this, I've tried holding it the right way. The right way makes zero sense. The right way makes my stitches too tight (as an aside, I think I've discovered why my gauge is always so loose). The right way doesn't let the yarn run smooth. The right way gets tangled around my hands.

The right way is wrong for me. My way works. So I will keep doing it.

Image Source: Kirsten Kapur on Ravelry

The second reason I am feeling the quote right now is that crochet is wrong. It just is. My opinion on this matter may stem from the fact that no matter how many times I try, no matter who explains it to me, no matter how many times I pick up one of those hooks...I cannot crochet.

People always wonder at the complex puzzle that is knitting, exclaiming to me: "crochet is so much easier!" These people are liars.  Knitting consists of two stitches: knit and purl. Everything after that point is just the same stitches done a bit differently. Cabling is just moving things around, lace is just adding holes on purpose, colorwork is just everyday black magic.

Crochet has a hook and there's only one of it and the stitches hang off the hook when you aren't using them? How are you supposed to know which stitches you're supposed to -- what, crochet? -- into? And, most importantly: once you've put your slipknot on the hook, how do you make more loops without transforming your hands into a tangled mess of yarn, more hooks than you started with, wounded pride, and regret?

Knitting is simple. Crochet makes no sense.

Which sucks, because I really like Kirsten Kapur's Thorpe hat pattern. I've been ogling it for about a year now, since I started reading her blog and blew through three years of posts in two days. The colorwork is simple, the yarn is bulky enough to make it a weekend project, it has earflaps and it looks very warm and comfy.

It also has a crocheted border.

I swear the universe is plotting against me.

Two Weeks Later...

Let's just ignore the fact that I haven't posted in two weeks. I started college. It was hard. It is still hard. Let's skip an update on that for now and get to the really important thing:

Look at those elegant background tables. Aren't they lovely?

I have taken to knitting in the cafeteria, and in the student union, and in the library, and on the quad, and before class, and after class. I am currently knitting Traveling Woman by Liz Abinante, in KnitPicks' Shadow Lace in Nocturne Heather. It was always my plan to knit this, so it shouldn't be surprising.

I am really liking this yarn. It is bluer than it is in the picture and it absolutely reminds me of the project's inspiration who is fictional and beautiful and my favorite. I will go into further detail in a later post. Right now, I have Computer Science homework.

The News You've All Been Waiting For

I finished Mass Effect 3 again. I know, I could hear your bated breath through the internet. I chose the Synthesis ending and then I cried. I think I might even slightly like the ME3 ending now -- I tend to like things that make me cry. Of course, it was 4:30 AM, so that might have been a contributor.

I also finished my East Gable Shawl, which is probably more interesting to those reading a knitting blog. It pinned out much faster than the Aeolian -- done after three episodes of How I Met Your Mother (do you think I watch too much Netflix?).

I would take twirly pictures with it as it is lovely, but now that I've finished with Mass Effect 3, I have to pack for university or something. I would rather be playing through Dragon Age again but my mum keeps prodding me and saying: "You only have two days" and "Half your clothing is still in the wash" and "How are you going to play video games at college if you don't pack your computer?"

I hate to say it, but I think she has a point on that one.

A kind of perseverance

I was fully expecting to fall to the temptation of winding the Nocturne Heather into a ball and starting on the Travelling Woman. As far as I was concerned, this post would consist of me posting a picture of the East Gable Shawl and then making a half-hearted excuse as to why I'm not working on it before showing you pics of my newer project. I don't know why I would feel the need to make excuses, but it seems to be an innate part of me.

This scene made me cry. For the fourth time.

Instead, I have found a solution to the repetitive knitting woes: knitting during video game cutscenes. The East Gable Shawl is actually the perfect project for this. Because it's repetitive, I don't need to consult a chart every five seconds to make sure I'm doing it right. I can just set it to the side while I'm shooting up the Citadel and then pick it up when I confront a Cerberus operative.

If you have never played Mass Effect 3, you have no idea what that sentence means -- suffice it to say, it's a long cutscene.

I am making steady progress on the East Gable now -- I'm almost to the purple end of the gradient in this yarn and I feel I'll probably bind off within the next few days. It will likely be blocked before I leave for college this weekend, though I'm suspecting that packing will delay that a bit.

For now, however, I'm going to return to blasting through the Silversun Strip and making out with attractive Canadian men voiced by Raphael Sbarge. If I'm lucky, more cutscenes are in my future.

Goodbye mountains, hello temptation

Have you ever wanted to have a skill but didn't have enough interest to practice or put effort into learning that skill? That's me and photography (and drawing and painting and visual art in general). I like to pretend I'm good at photography, a pretense aided by the panorama function on my phone, but I can't stage anything to save my life and I know nothing about lighting.

As a knitter who reads a lot of well-photographed knitting blogs, this can sometimes be frustrating. Then I discover the High-Dynamic Range Imaging feature on my phone and I can trick myself back into thinking that I'm a photographic savant.

Look at that shadow/light composition. I'm great at this.

I'm no longer surrounded by that panoramic view from above. I've returned home to the warm merino embrace of Knit Picks' Shadow Lace in Nocturnal Heather. It is bluer than the picture. It is also soft and it also reminds me of the person (or rather, character) that inspired me to add Travelling Woman to my queue. The explanation for that is for a later post, however. The explanation is very nerdy and ridiculous. You have been warned.

The East Gable Shawl is...progressing. The ellipsis makes it seem like I don't enjoy working on it, which is incorrect...but not exactly. It's not that it isn't gorgeous, it is. It isn't even that the yarn is taking longer to transition than I expected.

It's just that the shawl is the same 16 repeats, over and over again. While I'm sure this will turn out beautifully, it isn't the most interesting pursuit. I'm being tempted by Travelling Woman, even though it seems like there's a similar situation there.

Currently I'm still loyal to the East Gable, even if my loyalty is largely motivated by my resistance to the idea of winding 440 yards of silk weight into a ball. We'll see how long that resistance lasts.

The Vacation Diaries 8/6/15

The tunic is finished (Hallelujah!). I still need to block it and run it through the wash at least once to soften up the linen, but it's all seamed together and woven in and looking fine. My mum loves it. She already wants me to knit her a sweater.

I need to have a photographer friend, I swear.

That's the reason I now own the book above. knit, Swirl! by Sandra McIver is full of patterns for "One Piece, One Seam Swirl Jackets." Mum wants one and I have plans for Christmas.

The yarn in the photo has nothing to do with those plans. It is the ultimately soft 50 Shades of Gradient by The Fibre Studio. Approximately 560 yards of 100% Superwash Merino in Mallard. The picture doesn't do the colors justice.

Instead of waiting to get home to my Knit Picks' Shadow Lace and the Travelling Woman, I've started Judy Marples's East Gable Shawl. Never mind that I should probably work on the Best Friend Scarf sitting on my end table. That's one of the projects to work on when there isn't pretty gradient yarn to knit with. Plus, I'm sick of CotLin -- my last two projects have used that yarn.

Anyway, the point is I'm cheating on the scarf with a beautiful fingering-weight shawl. I know you've all done it, you have no right to judge.

The Vacation Diaries: 8/3/15

I have absconded away from my job and my upcoming semester and all of my responsibilities and have found myself in the gorgeous North Carolina mountains.

I was born to be in the mountains, I swear.

Vacations are weird for me. I can either find them incredibly relaxing or somewhat stressful. Last time I left home, I went to my college orientation and spent most of the time with anxiety in my chest and butterflies attacking my stomach lining.

So far, this trip has been a bit of both. First, we couldn't into the cabin we were renting, then we spent a full day floating down the Nolichucky River on a raft. Today, my arms are on fire because sunscreen doesn't work and I spent all of yesterday on a raft, but I've been knitting on the porch all day today. I can't decide.

But, with a mention of knitting comes the meat of this post.

I think I might reblock it when I get home to fix the weird edges.

I promised a finished Aeolian and a pretty dress, but I didn't bring the dress with me, so you'll just have to put up with those completely stunning random trees in the background.

I used to slander lace knitting for being difficult, but I've discovered my folly and have now sworn myself to the Cult of Lace. My upcoming project is Liz Abinante's lovely Travelling Woman, which I fully intend to begin as soon as I get home. I finally decided on the yarn I'll be using: Knit Picks' Shadow Lace Yarn, in a colorway that will be revealed in time. I haven't decided which size I'm making, but I'm leaning toward extra-large. 

In the mean-time, I brought my ball winder on vacation, which I maintain is not weird because I wasn't ever on a plane. Bringing extraneous knitting equipment is only weird if you have to explain it to a TSA agent.

The funny thing is, I remembered to bring my ball winder, but I forgot to bring my tapestry needle and my t-pins, which would both have been much more useful. Still, I can finish the pieces of the tunic and stitch them all together in a week.

Break-Neck Adventures

Usually, I wait to block until all of the pieces are finished. But, I'm impatient when it comes to lace and I wanted to see the finished back of the cardigan. Or, as I've been claiming since the beginning of this project, the back of the tunic.

It is officially a tunic now. I've decided to be daring and to try and change a project, by changing it from a cardigan to a pullover. I've made this decision for three reasons:

1. I think it would look better.

2. My mum prefers it and she's the intended owner.

3. I somewhat loathe knitting two front pieces. I don't know why. I only wear cardigans, so you would think that I would like knitting the separate parts of them.

My fingers are crossed for success in this venture. Altering patterns has always gone fairly well for me, so hopefully this will be no different. I even have a plan for how I'm going to do it and I rarely have plans for anything.

Siren Calls and Works in Progress

I am a complete sucker for nice yarn. Of course, that's practically synonymous with saying, "I'm a knitter," but it's still completely true. Currently I've been looking for a yarn to go with my next project: Liz Abinante's Travelling Woman. My adventures with Aeolian have made me ache for more shawls, even as I continue with the River Falls Cardigan.

Look at it and its seductive powers. It's taunting me.

The yarn that I am yearning for, despite its price, is KnitPicks' 100% merino wool Preciosa Tonal in Captain. Referred to by multiple Ravelry denizens as "super soft and squishy." Also, $12 for a 243 yard skein.

I was planning on making Travelling Woman with fingering weight, as it's finer, but this yarn is calling to me. "Buy me," it says, "I'll wait for you to finish the shawl. Under the hemlock tree, where we first met."

Then I blink and wonder why it's talking about trees, until its enchanting powers lure me back under its spell. The fact that KnitPicks' stock is low is not helping at all -- I fear that if I don't buy it now, it will be gone and I will forever regret my terrible decisions and my financial stinginess.

This is all a bit premature, actually. I am still in the throes of my torrid affair with the River Falls Cardigan. After navigating the treachery that was mistakes in its Chart B, I have finished with the lace portion.

This is going much faster than I expected. I think I actually will be done before I leave for college, which was originally just an optimistic joke.

I think I can finish the back within the next two days and next week I'll have plenty of time to work on the two front halves. While trying to ignore the siren call of Preciosa, of course.

Operation: "Actual" Lace, completed

I don't have blocked pictures of the Aeolian yet, because I don't have the current ability to take pictures that will do it justice. There are scenic mountain views and a gorgeous dress in my future, so I'm saving myself for those.

That doesn't detract from the fact, however, that I was finally freed from my curse of binding off and got to blocking.

Blocking lace is harder than blocking everything else, apparently. No one informed me. It took me a full viewing of Donald Glover's Weirdo and halfway through Legally Blonde 2: Red, White, and Blonde, to finish pinning down this thing. If the entertainment had been less entertaining, we would have had a big problem. Well, a bigger problem than that I actually enjoyed Legally Blonde 2.

We'll discuss my taste in stand-up routines and movie sequels later. For now, let us (or at least me) rejoice in the fact that I finished my first "actual" lace project and I love it.

We can also rejoice in the beginnings of my new project, the River Falls Cardigan. The very beginnings of it. I've decided that I can't knit the thing with my mother around, so I've mainly confined this project to my workplace and bedroom. She hasn't even seen the color yet, which could be a good or bad thing. The color is a mite brighter than I was expecting. It's much greener than it looks in the picture. Much greener. Greener than Ireland and I've been there -- Ireland is pretty damn green.

I actually swatched something, for once in my life. I'm really bad about swatching -- I've learned over the years that I usually need to go about two needle sizes down to get the result I want, so I usually don't bother putting more thought into it. The swatch convinced me that to knit a medium size the way the pattern says to, I would need to knit it with size 2 needles. That's not happening, so instead I cast on for a small and hoped. As it turns out, a small knit with a slightly-too big gauge, comes to 19 3/4" across. Way too big for the 17 1/2" small, but just right for a medium. I think it was the green of it, sapping from the luck of the Irish.

We'll see if it holds.

Binding off Aeolian...

...and binding off, and binding off, and binding off...

I know I should have realized that with a project ending with 600 stitches on the needles, binding off would be a pretty mighty endeavor. But I didn't and now I'm in a monotonous cycle of "p1, move 2 to left needle, p2tog-repeat." A cycle that might never end. I will probably grow old and wizened, binding off these last stitches, doomed to repeat the tale of my folly to any errant wanderer unfortunate enough to encounter me.

I'm melodramatic when I'm bored.

I might be a bit naughty and cast on the starting row for my next project: Susan Adkins' River Falls Cardigan. A box of Knit Picks' CotLin arrived yesterday and is being tantalizing. 12 skeins of Sprout for the project, plus 3 skeins of Pomegranate for me.

The Sprout is for the cardigan, which seems more like a tunic to me, but who's judging? Green is not my color, but it is my mother's. Since I'm "abandoning her to pursue a quality education, like a traitor," I figured that I would make her a going-away present. With all this binding off, I most likely won't have it done by the time I actually abscond to university, but I do have three weeks.

The Pomegranate will go toward a second Best Friend Scarf at some point in the future. I made my first Best Friend Scarf for my own best friend and then decided I wanted to keep it. I didn't keep it, of course (although I could have, considering she didn't know it was for her), but my stupid love for my friend won out. Instead, I elected to plan for my own in the future, in the same yarn brand for best friend matchy-matchy purposes.

A Needle Appreciation Post

In knitting circles, there's a lot of yarn appreciation. Why shouldn't there be? Yarn is soft, warm, colorful, fun to squish. It is all of these things, regardless of whether one is a knitter or not, so it can start up a conversation with people who aren't part of the secret society of those who know what the meaning of k1p1,yo means.

Other knitting tools are less appreciated. Tools like needles, ball winders, swifts. It's not that you don't love them, it's just that it's a lot easier for others to understand why you absolutely adore that merino/silk blend you just bought. It's not that you don't love needles, but they are cold to the touch and they hurt you if you try and squish them. Of course you love them, but it's a quiet, more dependent love.

So, this is an appreciation post dedicated to my size 5 (3.75 mm) ChiaoGoo Red Lace stainless steel circulars. These needles are some of the best I've ever worked with. The steel is slick enough for quick knitting, the cable is very flexible and memoryless, and the cable's red color makes me feel like a knitting bad-ass. I bought the ChiaGoos to knit my Aeolian (above) and the second I cast on, they became my closest friend.

The first circulars I ever bought are probably the cheapest circulars I have ever bought. As you can probably see from the image below, they are not magic-loop friendly. They have the memory of a champion speller and the flexibility of a paraplegic. No matter how loosely you cast on, your  ends up too tight. I've used them maybe twice since I bought them.

The ChiaGoos are a complete pleasure. Continuing the metaphor of friendship, ChiaGoos are the friends that pick you up from unpleasant places at the drop of a hat. They always remember your birthday, they know all of your siblings' names, and they threaten to stab anyone who breaks your heart (they're needles - it's their only available recourse).

The needles above, whose brand I have long forgotten, are more like Facebook friends. You met them at some event, they friended you, and you confirmed their request because it might be useful to have them around. They constantly post random junk that conflicts entirely with your political stance and the contact they have with you directly comes entirely in the form of Candy Crush requests.

The Chiagoos are the ones that eventually convince you to unfriend them and get rid of their stressful influence. They were never good enough for you anyway. The ChiaGoos, though? Those are worth appreciating.

Stripey Socks and 80's Classics

Sometimes life takes you on interesting journeys. You move out of Chicago to a tiny town in the Midwestern United States. You start a new school, wondering what it will be like to completely change your entire pace of life. You make unlikely friends with a guy whose first instinct is to insult you. You realize that the town you are now living in has outlawed dancing and the residents are about two seconds away from burning every copy of Slaughterhouse Five that they can get their hands on. You meet the preacher's daughter who is a bit off the hook and definitely has a death wish, considering her attitude toward playing chicken with eighteen-wheeler trucks. Together, you embark on a quest for a senior prom and find romance along the way.

Or was that Footloose?

Kick off your Sunday shoes and show off your socks.

I started Simone Van Iderstine's Maritime Wool Socks because I was waiting for my Gloss Lace to arrive from Knit Picks. It was supposed to be a stashbuster, as I was never going to use the yarn if I had a choice (it was thrift store yarn from the days before I had a job and knew how merino/silk blends felt -- pretty sure it's Red Heart, but I wasn't certain).

I cast on 40 stitches instead of 48 because even with a gauge, I knew that since the socks were designed for an adult man's foot, they would be too big for my lady feet. Using this handy dandy guide to turning a heel, I determined the correct amount of turning stitches and went for it.

These socks remind me of Ally Sheedy more than Lori Singer

Note to self and others: write down your modifications to a pattern. At least write down how many stitches were on the needle once you finished turning the heel flap. Luckily, I figured it out. Or, rather, I decided to screw it and just keep going and it worked out fine.

I did remember to keep the k3p1 ribbing going to the end of the toe. It was a trick I learned when I knit Tiina Kuu's Merenkulkija socks and I loved the look of it. I continued to love the look on the Maritime's and I'm glad that this particular executive decision on my part was successful.

I finally finished the second sock while watching Footloose for the first time. This was a good decision on my part. That movie is a great movie (and hilarious from 2010's dancing standards) and the colors of the yarn had been reminding me of a decade I couldn't place. I decided on the 1980's.

WIP: Aeolian, Begun

I work in my local gym, which would be a more interesting job if people in my hometown ever wanted to work out. I spend most of my day checking in the few members that actually show up and taking phone payments for memberships that are never actually used.

While this is sometimes mind-numbing, I recently realized that I could use this time productively; by knitting. My supervisor doesn't care what I do as long as I answer phones and smile at the members when they come in. So, I've taken this opportunity to begin my first real lace project: Elizabeth Freeman's Aeolian.

Behold, the brilliant photographic lighting of my workplace.

Technically, I've knit lace before. I made Deb Mulder's Abstract Leaves Cowl for a Mother's Day present and my best friend just got Cindy Bajema's Best Friend Scarf for a Belated Birthday/Happy 4th of July present. But there are two things about this pattern that make Aeolian "legitimate" lace in my eyes.

One: It's made with Knit Pick's Gloss lace yarn, which is lace weight. All of the other lace I've knit has been fingering weight at the lightest and there's a definite difference in terms of pattern and texture. Also size: when I next knit something sport weight or above, my hands will feel tiny.

Two: It's a shawl. I always associate "real" lace with shawls. Shawls are big enough to be really complex and intricate. Even though I've knit lace before, it never felt like lace. Which might be because I've been addicted to blocking before/after photos on Ravelry.

Technically it's a shawlette, I suppose. The shawl size is huge and somewhat impractical for my fast paced life of sitting around waiting for the fall semester to begin and then the sitting around in class and sitting around writing papers. It will get ruined with all the action going on.

So far, I've worked four and a half repeats of the Yucca pattern. I'm going for six and then two Agave (including the final) and then the edging. A lifeline will probably be used at the edge, depending on how much yarn I have left at that point. I'm liking the pattern so far. I've only had to tink back to a mistake twice.