You Bought Yarn, Didn't You

Yesterday was a normal work day. When I got home, I walked by the sink to drop off my sandwich container, like usual. And as I reached my room, I heard my Mum call out, "You bought yarn, didn't you." How the heck did she know. My bag didn't look suspicious. I'd only been home for two minutes.

Turns out the receipt had stuck to the sandwich container. But it's ok. This yarn is for a baby shower gift. As I'm sure most knitters know, it doesn't matter how big your stash is. You never have the right yarn for gift knitting. Especially when that gift has a tight deadline.

The other knit gift is now a longer pile of noodles. I'm still in shawl edging purgatory. Only 30 more repeats until I get to the next bit. The yarn is 100% mulberry silk. I've never blocked out mulberry silk. I hope it opens up well.

My Skyp sock is coming along well... now. I had to rip out large portions of the sock twice. Both times were my fault. I messed up the pattern once and it was noticeable. The second time I missed a repeat of the pattern before the heel. I decided it would be easier to rip the heel than to edit the pattern to accommodate my mistake. But I have tried on the sock and it fit great. I think Socks That Rock lightweight might be a new favorite sock yarn. It just feels like it is going to wear well.

I have to confess that even though it looks like I'm being productive, I am so stressed right now. I have more shifts at work, knitting commitments, and I've been working really hard to learn how to grade sweaters. Sweater sizing is really tough. (Or maybe I'm a little ambitious with what I'm trying to design.) I know that everything will pay off in the end and I'm thankful for the opportunities that are coming my way. But it still feels like my body is being squeezed.
On a positive note, I've noticed that there are a fair number of Celestarium KALs planned in the new year on various ravelry boards. I'm really excited to see people's projects in the coming months.

Not Superwash? The Horror!

I've had a knitting tragedy. I was about to start a pair of Velomeister socks out of the yarn in the picture below when I read the label and discovered that the purple isn't superwash. The horror! (I fully realize that if this is the worst thing that is happening in my life, I've got it pretty good.) I think I'll be knitting the socks anyways. I'll just have a hand wash pile of laundry somewhere. But it is a little annoying not to be able to throw socks in the regular laundry pile.

 The purple is Koigu in the Prince colorway and the yellow is Tosh Sock in the Edison Bulb colorway.

I'm still swatching for design #9. At first I had chosen a yarn that was a little too dark and didn't have a tight enough ply to show off the design. So I've swapped yarn, but I'm still having trouble getting the pattern to pop. The voice in the back of my mind says that it is a scale issue, so I'm back with the graph paper trying some new things. But, of course, I can only show you the underside of the swatch for now.

So I'm back to knitting my mitten. I only seem to pull this out when all my other knitting has made me more angry than working on the mitten. There is nothing really wrong with it. Although I've had my share of ripping, re-knitting, and various adjusting, the actual knitting is pretty easy now. But for some reason I just haven't had it in me to finish it yet. Hopefully I'll have them done by the time it's cold again. After all, I only have this one left to finish. Good thing the yarn is a delight to use. It's Kauri fingering in the Green Peka 04 colorway.