FO: Girasole shawl

Wonder of wonders, I finished something!  And by finished, I mean blocked and photographed and uploaded the pictures.  Those last three steps are the hard part!

This is Girasole by Jared Flood.  I used the May installment of the Tanis Fiber Arts Year in Colour Club, a laceweight yarn in a colorway called Moonmist.  I think the colorway is perfect for this pattern, and I love it.  There are about a dozen other patterns I'd love to knit with this colorway.  The stockinette portions are gorgeous.

I knit this on US size 2 needles, and I love the stitch definition and the density of the lace.  It is, however, only 41" in diameter, a bit small for throwing on and wrapping around.  I'll still figure out a way to wear it, but I may have to have a shawl pin.  I have plans to knit Leaves of Grass this fall, so I'll keep in mind that bigger needle = bigger shawl.

This was a really fun knit, even when there were 640 stitches per round!  I love knitting things with a knit on border.  I love the process of the FO slowly falling off your needles and watching all those scrunched up stitches take shape.  I have yarn and plans to knit this pattern as a blanket.  I'm thinking I'll use size 9 needles, so it should be huge!

day dreaming

Moving is hard!  I'm sorry to say that moving has disrupted my sewing and knitting life more than having a baby did.  What does that say about me?  Or moving?

We've been in the new house for ten days, and I just put my sewing machine back on its desk this evening.  I've unpacked some of my yarn, but not all.  I've had a few internal temper tantrums over all the things I don't have time to be making.

Photo from the olden days before the move.

I have, though, been plodding away on my beautiful Girasole.  I'm about three-quarters of the way through the edging, and I'm worried it's going to be too small.  I'll block the daylights out of it, so I know it will grow, but I'm still a little discouraged.  When you only have time for one project, you want it to be kind of perfect. 

In the meantime, I keep seeing all these amazing garments and projects in the blogosphere!  And have you seen this amazing men's collection from the incomaprable Brooklyn Tweed?

Source

Since my knitting and sewing dreams are already exponentially greater than my knitting and sewing reality, I might as well dream of knitting a sweater that requires 1600 yards of worsted weight wool.  Can you imagine?  But oh, how amazing!  When we retire, honey!

Whew.

Packing + baby + packing + wrapping up work + packing + new house uncertainties + packing = headache. 

We're all a little on edge around here.  Poor Little A is being a trooper, but little things are setting her off into fits of tears, which is very unlike her.  Today when I picked her up from day care, she burst into tears because I hadn't brought her string cheese which she'd started eating at breakfast and had apparently left in Daddy's car.  She was looking forward to that string cheese all day, and when I showed up string cheese-less, it was more than she could take.  It's sad and sweet all at the same time. 

Thank goodness for beautiful yarn and an easy but non-boring pattern! 

This is Pink Label lace weight in colorway Moonmist from the Year in Colour Club, knit into a Fairy Mist.  I'm anxious to finish this project, but only because I'm going to keep knitting with the yarn!  I bought an extra skein so I can make an ethereal Girasole.  The colors are so dreamy and moon shiney, and not in the home brewed liquor kind of way.  Seriously, knitting is reducing my blood pressure and replacing the years to my life which moving is threatening to take away. 

In two weeks, we'll be in a new house in a new town, and I'll have a magical, airy cowl around my neck.  Ahhh. 

magic + wool + calm quiet + beauty + tiny bit of math = knitting

Mr. Postman, bring me some yarn ...

In terms of yarn in the mail, it was a banner week!  Webs has been having their annual sale, I treated myself to a special Mother's Day yarn present, and, most excitingly, the May installment of the Tanis Fiber Arts Year in Colour Club arrived! 

This is the pink lable, 100% merino laceweight.  There are 1000 yards in this one skein!  I love it.  This colorway is called Moonmist.

Swatch on size 2 on left, swatch on size 3 on right

I'm having a hard time deciding on the needle size, even though I knit a couple good swatches.  The problem is that I blocked the smaller swatch more aggressively, so I actually got the same gauge on both size 2 and size 3 needles.  That was dumb.  I think I'm going to go with the 2s and not block so aggressively with the FO. 

I am so loving this club.  I'm not sure I would have picked either this color or this pattern on my own, but I love this process of trying something new.  I pretty much love all Tanis' colorways, so I feel comfortable trusting the mystery and surprise. 

There are a lot of changes approaching rapidly in our family, so it's great to have a big lacy project into which to escape!  More about those changes soon ...

FO: Patina socks!

These are the best socks I've ever made.  I started with this:

This is the March installment of the Tanis Fiber Arts Year in Colour Club.  This gorgeous perfect-for-Spring colorway is in her Blue Label fingering weight yarn, and it is a perfect sock yarn.  I love it.  Tanis designed a pattern to go with this variegated yarn, something that would help the colors play well together while not totally obscuring the stitch pattern.  That is a very tricky line to walk, but I think Tanis got it just right.  

This yarn is completely amazing, and I am stalking all things Blue Label right now.  I'm dying to order a skein in the pink grapefruit colorway.  I need pink grapefruit socks!

It's (finally finally finallllllly) spring here, so I'm not wearing socks at the moment, but that's okay.  I have these beauties on my dresser, and I'm just admiring them as works of art.  I'll look forward to wearing them when the weather turns cool again.  And maybe by then, I'll have another pair of TFA socks to enjoy, too.

Ravelry page here.  The next installment comes in May!  I can't wait! 

Yarn treats

We are going to have a crazy next couple of months.  We're having a baby in a few weeks.  We're moving house in June.  Aaaaand we're not exactly sure where we're moving.  Yesterday we got some news that means our plans to move into another house in town might have fallen through.  We could still end up moving across town, or we could move across the state.  Or even somewhere else.  So it was a completely perfect day to get something wonderful in the mail. 

I've joined the Tanis Fiber Arts Year in Colour Club.  (How much fun is Canadian spelling?)  I've admired TFA's yarns for a long time, but I've never used any of them.  I decided that during such a year of transition and change, maybe I should treat myself.  This is a serious treat!  Every other month, Tanis sends out a one-of-a-kind colorway on one of her bases and a new pattern commissioned just for the club. 

I am so thrilled about both of these yarns that I can't even bring myself to cake them up yet.  I just keep looking at them like they're Tiffany diamonds or something.  The berry colored yarn is her Silver Label, 100% silk, and was actually the January yarn.  After seeing pictures of it on Ravelry, I decided I had to join the club, so I received it with the March yarn.  The March yarn is her Blue Label fingering weight, 80% superwash merino and 20% nylon.  The pattern is for a beautiful pair of socks, and I couldn't be more excited.  

I never thought I'd be in the position of having a newborn and not knowing exactly where we're going to live.  It's not a position I'm really crazy about.  But I have some beautiful yarn and some great knitting to do, so take that, life.