See That Girl, She's A Knit Machine

This last month's worth of posts have all been about finished knitting. I really wish I had some adventures to talk about, but all my time has been eaten up by work (tis the season of the retail worker), The Book stuff, and gift knitting. My room is officially a designated factory zone. I finished the silk hankie sample for work. Rav page is here. It's made of two Abstract Fiber silk hankies. Colors are Smith Rock and Hopworks. If I were to keep it, I'd use it as a wide headband.

I finished my Rock Island shawl. I was ready to give it away as a present. But the more I looked at it, the harder it got to imagine it not being with me. So I'm keeping it.

It has more to do with who gave me the yarn than being a greedy knitter. Also, I had plenty of yarn left over. Even though the shawl is knit from the bottom-up and each row gets shorter, I was sure I was going to be short until I was 10 rows from the end. I did take AC's advice and knit it faster. Because, as all knitters know, if you knit faster, you won't run out of yarn.

I bought a skein of Fyberspates Scrumptious Lace in Purple to make a replacement gift. It will be a different pattern, which I'll stay silent on for now. I'm waiting on some beads to show up on my doorstep before I cast on.

So in the meantime I've cast on a different gift knit. The yarn is Curious Creek Fibers Wasonga in the Emerald City colorway. It's a shawl. But again, I'll keep quiet about the specifics on the blog for now.

In other news, I've ordered yarn for the last pattern for The Book. I spent quite a bit of time on Wednesday making different charts for different sizes. I'll be measuring my brother, who will be modeling, when he comes home in a few days. All going well, knitting will commence in the next week or so. Just call me the knit machine. (For some reason, I have the ABBA tune Dancing Queen in my head when I see the words Knit Machine.)

Maelstrom Of Rock Island

I now have a maelstrom of lace. The Rock Island edging is finally finished and I spent the afternoon picking up the edging and knitting the beginning of the body of the shawl. I'm embarrassed to admit, despite my knitting experience, I might run out of yarn. It seems to be disappearing a bit faster than I'd like. I do have a backup plan. I'll just bind off the shawl when I run out of yarn and it will just have a triangular divot.... you know, to fit the neck better.

I finished the first Skyp sock as well. It's lovely. Only after I finished this sock did I notice that Claire has released a sock pattern related to Puck called "Lord, What Fools." This yarn, colorway Puck's Mischief, would have be so appropriate. But I suppose Puck is so mischievous he decided he wanted to be a Skyp sock instead.

I've started a new project as well. I'm making a shop sample of the silk hankie cowl after participating in a workshop lead by Susan Stambaugh of Abstract Fiber. Knitting with mawata (silk hankies) is an interesting technique and I'm glad to have learned it. The red hankie colorway is Smith Rock. The more brown one is Hopworks.

As for the Rimu I bought last week. It's already been knit up into a secret baby shower gift. I'll be gifting it on Sunday, so I'll hold off on pictures just in case the recipient is spying on this blog.