Startopathy strikes again!

It's spring, and the weather is supposed to be in the 80s tomorrow.  So what am I designing in my head?

A bulky wool cowl.

Miss Dashwood - all blocked out and no place to go

blockingmissd (5)
Originally uploaded by Fat Angel

Well, she has someplace to go, I just need to get my act together and actually mail her out. I will be sad to say good-bye, I had fun knitting this hat, and the finished product is too cute. I accomplished my Knitting Olympics goal, and used a bobble/picot cast on that I had never used before. Blocked the hat pretty well, too, if I do say so myself. The brim flares out nicely and that crown is properly head-shaped. Hope it fits the intended recipient and that her mom sends a picture!

Newborn size is said to take 1 ball of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. It does. Exactly. Well, exactly 1 ball minus 17 inches. If I hadn't unraveled my swatch to use again, I would have needed another ball.

#knittingfail

bgs031710 (7)
Originally uploaded by Fat Angel

Total bummer - cruising along the neck decreases for Baby Gavin's Dale sweater, and hit a weird snag where there are 13 more stitches on the back then on the front. I will have to monkey with it to get it to work out right. I was REALLY hoping to be done with this by Friday so it could be washed, blocked and gifted by Sunday. We shall see!

I need a better name for startitis...

I've always understood the syndrome but hated the name "startitis."  "-itis" as a suffix means "inflammation of" and I'm pretty sure I don't suffer from an inflammation of my starter.  No, I suffer from a disease of starting, a disorder of starting, I SUFFER from a DISEASE of starting, so I'm gonna pick "startopathy."

Regardless of what we call it, I've got it bad this week.  I cast on for Matt's Sam Jackson sweater and just tonight, for no reason other than the fact that I'm insane, I cast on Citron.  It started because I have this skein of laceweight Malabrigo that I started knitting baby stuff in, then changed my mind about the intended baby, then stalled out on the sweater deciding to do hats for babies from now on.  I planned to repurpose the skein of Malabrigo into something else, like a lace scarf or cowl for myself.  I spent many lovely days looking through ravelry for single skein lace scarf/shawlette/cowl patterns and bookmarked several. Citron came out and I thought it was the perfect match.  And then I started thinking about it.  My skein is a lovely light butter yellow.  Perfect for a gender-neutral baby knit.  Not so great for a warm-hued redhead to wear up near her face.  I wanted to knit Citron though, so I dove into the stash and pulled out an ancient skein of Cherry Tree Hill Cascade Lace in Fall Foliage.   I'm iffy on the yardage, because I think it may have changed over the years, but I'm totally willing to try it.  The colorway is very odd, there is a lot of yellow and brown with weird deep purple in very small (VERY small) repeats.  It's fun to knit with, and the brighter colors may be more flattering, and if they aren't, well, then I'll give it to my mom who loves yellow & fall colors in general.

Tomorrow I'm off to my only solo grown-up birthday experience in years....and I'm bringing mindless knitting for the movie/restaurant.  Gavin's Op Art - ready for his first birthday in July, perhaps?

GOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL!!! er, GOOOLLLLDDD!!

I did it!!  Finished Miss Dashwood.  Will be posting pics soon.  All over but the blocking, baby.

RE: Knitting Olympics - I can see the podium!

I'm into the decreases on Miss Dashwood, and isn't that a relief.  At a party on Saturday I managed to push through the bobble row and start on plain ol' stockinette, which watching downhill skiing and discussing a possible group ski trip for next winter.  Baby Kaylee, who this hat is for, is still comfortably parked & overdue, so it is weirdly possible that the hat might be done before she is.  Not that I would wish that on my cousin-in-law, but it is kind of funny.  Pics soon, Charlotte helped me take some this morning, but I haven't uploaded them yet.

Next up will be finishing assorted Christmas presents and ordering yarn for a new baby project & some needles for the Sam Jackson Sweater.  I need to pull out that yarn and swatch, maybe even tonight so I can place that order.  This new baby is one I am super-duper excited for, and I have a lot of projects planned for him, knitting & embroidery.  I think I'm keeping the knitting to just a hat, considering that I still owe my nephew a blanket & a sweater.  I'm also getting the urge to knit for myself, some socks and a new Clapotis, perhaps?

Knitting Olympics!

So, I signed up for the Knitting Olympics on Stephanie's blog. I couldn't remember if I did them the last time around, and after a quick check, I saw that I did not.

On Friday I decided to cast on Miss Dashwood during the Olympic Opening Ceremonies. I didn't wait for the torch to be lit, just for the ceremonies to start, and I'm glad I did it that way. I cast on Miss Dashwood, which I've been try to knit for 2 1/2 years. The picot cast on totally toasted and befuddled my post-partum brain back then, and I've gotten a block about it, which is why a baby hat is challenging enough for the Knitting Olympics. My free time in the last few months has dwindled to about half an hour a day, which is an added challenge.

I totally enjoyed the opening ceremonies, and have pretty much decided that if I could move to Vancouver tomorrow, I would.  I tweeted quite a bit (username kissaroo), so I won't recap it again, but my favorite bits were the fiddling & dancing, and the aboriginal Canadians being such a big part of the ceremonies.  Can you imagine if the Atlanta games had invited the Cherokee to be a main part of the games and ceremonies?  I certainly can't.

The picot cast-on went totally smoothly this time, the only challenge being keeping count of my stitches.  I used my old trick of placing a stitch marker after every X stitches (25 in this case) so that I only had to count and re-count from the last stitch marker during the long cast-on process.  Picot cast-on uses a knitted cast-on, where you cast on 5 stitches, bind off two, so it's hard to keep track.  Once I was all cast on, I kept trucking from there.

Here it is, 4 days later, and I've gotten just past the ruffle row and I'm currently embroiled in the bobble row.  Hopefully I'll complete that tonight and put pictures up soon.  My first bobbles, except in swatches for fun, and I'm a little nervous.  I hope I can get them to POP.

Next up - food post.  Superbowl Southwest brisket to spicy brisket pizza!

Two things. Longer post later.

1. I think I'm going to make this into a cooking/knitting/crafting blog. Because I do a lot of cooking/baking, and want to blog about it, but don't have an appropriate venue. Since most of my knitting posting is "still working on X" it'll mix it up a bit. Plus, it's not like I have readers, so no one is going to make a fuss.

2. Joined the Knit Olympics. Gonna knit Miss Dashwood for cousin J's imminent baby.

Hooray, the Dale for Gavin is to the yoke! I have the sleeves on and it's all one piece now. It is so downhill from here, it is not even kidding. Let's just try and forget about 300+ tiny stitches a round and a jillion more decrease rows...the end is near!

This past weekend I also got to show off my mystery knitting to its recipient. I'm knitting my best friend Jen a pair of socks, Blackrose. They are Malbrigo Sock, bought from Webs, in RayonVert, which to me was the perfect rose colorway. A purple with bits of green. I'm in love with the heel on this sock - just the way it looks in this particular yarn. More pictures to come; I just have one in Ravelry from when Jen tried it on. I was afraid it would be too big - for some reason, it just looked slouchy (must be a visual effect of the lace section) and I wanted Jen to make sure it was okay. The bonus of her trying it on is that now she's totally dying for a pair of handknit socks, so I have a lot of motivation to finish it, and she has motivation to finish her first pair of socks that have been languishing on the needles for *cough*years*cough* a while.

Considering a loose sort of knit olympics challenge, but have too many MUST DO projects. Oh, and still no free time (and very little free space on the DVR!) in which to watch & knit. Maybe I'll use that time to bust through Charlotte's Dale, providing I've finished Gavin's sweater and Jen's socks first.

struggling...but not with knitting.

Struggling to get any free time, any at ALL.

Up to the yoke on G's sweater.

25% through Christmas socks.

SO MANY new patterns on my mind!

More post and pics soon.