Knitting In Public

Yes - after the hustle and bustle of airport runs, house cleaning (thanks, Molly!), carpet cleaning, cookie baking, etc. - we had a wonderful Christmas with family in attendance. Next year big changes are in store as we will have to share Molly with her new in-laws.

Jenny brought two sets of fun cardboard “glasses” reminiscent of the 3-D glasses of the 50’s and 60’s, but when you looked through them at the mini lights on the Christmas tree, this is what you saw:

Santa’s face in the lights! (The other one made sort of stars of the lights - the photo I have is not as clearly cool as this.)

We spent Christmas Day hanging out with Anne & Carl, and Fran, Dale & Jerry came over for a visit as well. We’ll go to see Eleanor this weekend.

My Hanami didn’t get done. :(  I’ll continue to plug away on it, and then hopefully the Secret of Chrysopolis stole - but I have several new KAL’s that start in January. I may end up on the sidelines on those. I have some FO’s to show from quite awhile ago, but haven’t taken any photos yet. I’ll be heading off to scrap with the gang in two weeks - very excited to do that. I’ll have to take my FO photos by then! There’s also another thing to occupy my time: wedding planning. I’ll be helping Molly as much as she needs or wants. Molly would like to make her own wedding invitations, so we may spend our scrap weekend doing those instead.

I just thought I’d make a quick post so everyone would know I’m still alive and kickin’ (although a nasty cold has taken up residence). Hope you all had a fabulous Christmas!

I have joined so many lace KAL’s (see sidebar - I finally learned how to add buttons to my blog!), I must be nuts. On top of the incredible work schedule I have lately (keeping me from doing much knitting), lace is something that is not very portable, nor is it group-friendly.  These patterns have really been giving me a hard time. I haven’t frogged this much for as long as I can remember.  I do have some progress to show, even though I am far behind in the KAL’s:

Mystic Waters KAL. This is a triangle shaped shawl. The group is currently on clue 3, this is slightly more than half of clue 1. I’m using KnitPicks Alpaca Cloud in Tidepool Heather, with size 2 (3.0 mm) KnitPicks fixed circular needles.

Here’s a close up of the yarn - it seems kind of greenish when you look at it in the skein and wound into a cake, but when you look at the actual stitches, it is really several different colors blotched together. This seems such an appropriate color for a shawl named “Mystic Waters” and I’m loving it! The pattern is very pretty (I get to see the finished clues of others who are current in the KAL). Seeing the clues inspires me to work on it, but this will end up being for me so I’m afraid it’s going to go to the back burner for now.

This is the Secret of Chrysopolis:

I’m using KnitPicks Shadow in Vineyard color (deep purple), with size 2 (2.75 mm) KnitPicks fixed circular needles. This pattern was going so slowly. I have ripped more rows than I have knit. Finally, I have finished clue 1! (The KAL is officially over, clue 8 was posted last Friday.) The edging was the worst for frogging, but I also ended up changing the needle size as this was so big. I intend to give it to Jenny for Christmas, but it seems pretty likely it would be Christmas ‘08. (We only have 36 knitting days left for this year.)

I also decided to add beads to this pattern (although the designer did not include any):

The beads are darker, but they are not as obvious as they are in this photo. I also ended up changing from a round, ‘grape’ colored bead to these which are hex beads and are longer than the size 8 rounds. I changed because I lost the tube of grape beads! I had put in the first row of beads so I had to frog back and insert these other beads in order to keep going.

Last, but not least, is the Hanami stole for Anne. I decided to use the size 3 (3.25 mm) Addi Lace turbos, as it will result in a stole closer to the size of the original design which I think will be a better size for her. I’m adding more beads than called for in the original pattern, adding one to the center of each of the solid diamond shapes. In addition, I’ll add some random beads in the blossom section as well, following Angela’s bead placement.

This is about 1.5 repeats of the basketweave section, which calls for a total of 7 repeats. This will be the last I’ll show of this project until after Christmas….I don’t want to ruin the “surprise” of the gift!

Despite not having a lot of time to knit, I have actually managed to finish a few (non-lace) objects, but I’ll save them for another post. I’ll leave you with this teaser though, and see how many of you will know what it is! (Mary, Sue & Jean, this should be a no-brainer for you!)

I signed up for another mystery lace stole KAL.

Actually, two.

And S-O-C is in German! (No, I don’t speak, read, write or understand German other than about 3 words - none of which are knitting-related.)

And if you’re wondering: no, I haven’t finished MS3. Actually, it’s still at the same spot as the last photo I posted on the blog. I still intend to finish it, but this is the call of the wild…. Something new. Pretty yarn. Pretty new yarn. Beads.

So I bought some yarn for the Secret of the Stole (starts tomorrow - sign up tonight if you want to join in). They suggested earth tones, richer colors, perhaps silver or gold. So I thought of colors I’d like, or colors I could make if it were a gift for someone else.

Aren’t these pretty? And they’re from KnitPicks, so they’re (relatively) cheap. There’s enough for 4 stoles there. Beginning to see my problem? The two on the left are actually different colors. Shadow in Sunset Heather is more red. The Alpaca Cloud Autumn Heather has more highlights but comes off as closer to a brown. Any of these would be fine for the Secret of the Stole. But there’s more coming…. and this stole calls for beads. I need to find some beads to go with these colors….

I thought I should get some laceweight that I could use to make one for my sister Jenny. Not so much with the earth tones. Nope, she’s a purple gal. Hasn’t started wearing the red to go with it (to be a Red Hat lady), but she’s always loved purple and has lots of clothes that have purple tones in them. So I thought I could use a purple-ish laceweight for the Secret of Chrysopolis (this one closes tonight too, so sign up now and join me). I’ve seen the first “clue” knitted and it looks lovely. It doesn’t require beads, although I’m sure you could add them if you like. That yarn isn’t even here yet.

Thinking I could get some Christmas gifts out of the way while having some mystery fun, I thought I’d had it all figured out. I had already asked Jenny if she would be likely to wear a shawl of some kind (I asked for a different reason, but the answer was positive), so I finally came out and asked my other sister Anne if she would also be likely to wear something like that. Again, a positive answer!  With one hitch.

 I had seen the Hanami stole quite some time ago. It’s created by the same designer of the MS3, Melanie Gibbons. I wasn’t quite so sure I liked the asymmetry. Then AJ wore hers one day and I love it! So, I offered Anne the option of the Hanami or the Secret of the Stole. (The Hanami story has to do with the cherry trees donated to Washington DC, so I thought it might be special for Anne, although pink is definitely not a color for her.) So, Anne thought she’d like the Hanami. Hmmmm. More yarn.

Jaegger Zephyr wool-silk, Curry color.

Jaegger Zephyr wool-silk, Chrome color.

We were trying to get a “gold” color - sort of wedding ring gold. The Chrome, according to my sample card, looked very yellow. I suggested the Curry. Now that I see the Curry with the darker beads, it seems to pull more brown in to the yarn. So on impulse, I tried the silver-lined yellow/gold beads with the Curry:

So the picture isn’t the greatest, but the gold beads blended in with the Curry yarn!

I will take all my skeins to the bead shop on Saturday and see what I can find, but so far I like this combination. The beads shown are size 6 though, so I’ll need to get something similar in a size 8.

The bottom line? Not only do I have no self-discipline, I have no sense of realistic time commitments. Two lace stoles, finish C’s sweater, a sweater for DH, several socks needing mates, many years of accumulated UFO’s and a long queue of “must do” patterns. No, Mary and Jean, we will not mention the Eunny mittens either. So if this is a disease, is there a cure and do I want it?