I guess I don't totally hate socks anymore.

In knitting:
I cast on the second Felici sock.
It's obviously been awhile since I've knit socks, because my sock callous is gone and while knitting, the sock rocket pierced my finger. Just opened me up like a hot knife through butter. There was blood! Those needles need a warning on the package!

I decided to move away from the Felici sock for a while (for my own safety), and picked up a less dangerous sock, the second ugleh (aka Cabarat) sock that was partially knitted months ago. That sock happens to be on wooden hiyahiyas, which will be a lot gentler on my sliced open finger.
It's been so long since I knit socks that it's been kind of hard to get into the rhythm of sock knitting, but at least the leg was already knit, and I just needed to start the heel flap. Heel flaps are still fun and kind of magical.
Which leads to my first FO in a while; ugleh sock #2 done! yaaaas!

I have 43 grams of Cabarat left, I hanked it up, free to a good home!

That FO led to another sock being cast on. I'm still too afraid of my sock rockets to pick up the second felici sock, and to be honest, I'm just not feeling the self striping right now. So I cast on a sock using leftover Cascade heritage in Blood Orange, a colour I love as long as it's  not near mah face. This is also the sock yarn I used to knit the single pixie dust sock. I used a pattern out of a book and I lost my notes. I don't want to wing it because I'll end up with socks that are too different and I won't wear them. Anywhoo, I cast on with a knit 3, purl 1 rib, that I may or may not use to knit the whole leg of the sock.  Speaking of the leg; Cascade Heritage Sock has really decent yardage, but I don't want to push my luck. I think I can get 2 socks out of the leftovers if I make the leg around 3-4 inches. And if I don't? Oh well, I'll just just use the yarn from the pixie dust sock.
You'd think I'd use a skein I haven't yet knit with, work down that sock yarn stash a bit, but noooo, not this gal. Isn't it pretty?

 Okay, so I did knit the whole sock with the 3x1 rbbing, and even onto the instep.

Using a lovely skein of Fleece Artist Trail Socks, I cast on the Milkweed Shawl by Laura Chau...can I just say I love her patterns? I've made a couple, and they are always awesome, and super well written. Plus, as a Canadian, I really appreciate that her patterns are in Canadian dollars. Anyway, I cast on the shawl, and for some reason, I just couldn't make it past the 4th row.  I cast on and frogged three times. That was all me, not the pattern. I cast on late at night,  was overtired, and the light was bad.  When I tried casting on again the next day, it went just fine. I made it past the 4th row (and finished all of chart A), and still frogged it. The yarn is gorgeous, and the pattern is lovely, but I realized that the shawl would likely be too small and then I would never wear it. I couldn't stand the thought of not wearing this yarn.
All that being said, I eventually re cast on the Milkweed Shawl with some Mirasol Nuna in Blue Steel.

It's a sport weight yarn blend of merino, silk and bamboo that comes in a 190yd skein at a super affordable price. It totally feels like it should cost more than it does. I'm really enjoying this yarn, if I were to give it a rating on splittyness, 0 being non splitty-5 being super splitty, I give it a 1.  The yarn is not as drying to my hands as other silk blends, even after long-ish periods of knitting (like 45 minutes or so).


And that lovely, lovely sock yarn? I have to praise the Trail Sock yarn for staying so nice even after all the frogging and casting on, you cannot tell it's been abused by me and I've already started knitting another Be Simple with it! The first one I made using Blue Moon Fibre Arts, Socks that Rock (in deep unrelenting grey) and I wear it a lot. It's the perfect shawl (that's more like a scarf) for warmer spring days. This colour is called Tourmaline.

I was knitting on the Be Simple while I was at Awards Night for C (he won an award in Science and Tech) last week, and so it was dark in the auditorium and I don't know what I did exactly, but I must have dropped some stitches and then just picked them up and knit over them or something because there's this weird patch I discovered a couple of days ago. But it's so far back that I've decided not to go back and re-do it. It only affects 3 or so stitches and I just can't care that much about it.

I need to stop with the fingering weight shawls. I'm drawn to them, but they're just too petite for my awesome ampleness. Well, not stop with the fingering weight patterns, but stop knitting them with fingering/sock weight. From now on, if I fall in love with a fingering weight pattern, I'll upsize it. I'll go with a sport weight, or even a DK weight.



In yarny shoppings:
Julie Asselin did make an etsy listing for me and I was able to order that skein of Sevilla in Azul. Relief!  I cannot wait to get it so I can finish my Harvest cardy. I'm so close! I hope I can wear it a few times before it gets too hot and I have to put it away for the summer.

Here's me, running out of yarn again...

I had a big, wordy post all written up and ready to go, just needed pictures and some editing...and then all was lost in a browser crash. It was terribly annoying and I could not be arsed to re-write all that I had written, so here I am, trying to remember everything I wrote about and it's just not happening. I remember a lot of cursing.

In Knitting:
I know there wasn't much actual knitting content in my lost blog post, because I've been knitting monogamously on Harvest.
I guess I'll recap what's been going on with the cardy;  At the last post, I was working on the body, but starting to feel nervous about yardage. When I finished the skein I was using to knit the body, I decided to put the body on waste yarn and start knitting the first sleeve instead. That way, I could see exactly how much of a skein would get used and plan my leftover skeins accordingly. Well, it turned out that one of my sleeves takes almost a full skein. I finished the first sleeve, knitting the garter cuff to a length of 3 inches, instead of the 4 inches called for in the pattern because it was already thumb-knuckle length, which was long enough. So there I am, practically a full skein for a sleeve, I only have two skeins left and one sleeve and something like 6-7 inches to go on the body. There's no way this is going to work. I don't want a super short cardy, I want a long-ish cardy.
Immediately log in to Rav, look up the yarn (Julie Asselin Sevilla in the colourway Azul) and there is nothing. I swear a lot.  I check local yarn stores. I check online yarn stores.
Nada.
I go on Julie Asselin's website and see if there is any yarn on the website.
Nada.
 I sent her an email asking if there is any possible way I could get just one little skein from her, and wait with fingers crossed until she emailed me back, and yesssss! She's going to make a listing for me on Etsy.
Sooooo relieved.

So, at this moment, I've finished the two sleeves, and i'm back to working on the body. When I finish with the skein i'm currently working with, I'll have to find another project to work on until I get the new skein of Azul. I'm sure it'll be a week or so before the yarn is even listed on Etsy, plus the shipping so I really should start thinking about what to knit next.
I've had some moments of thinking I should knit some socks, like, maybe cast on the second sock for that Felici I have...lunacy, right??
Whatever. I need to figure out something soon, because knitting on an almost-finished sweater on public transportation is really awkward, and really bulky.

Here's some wip pics of Harvest:

                                          This is what is left after a sleeve!

In other knitters:
I love running into other knitters, especially the ones who love the yarn I'm using, fangirl with me over how wonderful Malabrigo, Tanis Fibre Arts and SweetGeorgia yarns are, and then say things like "oh you look like a Tincanknits model" (I was wearing my Andi Satterlund (un)cropped sweater at the time.)
I've never gotten so many comments on a wip before, specifically on how gorgeous the yarn is. Lots of "ooooh, what is that yarn you're using", as they reach out to squish it. Something about the Azul really seems to speak to people. I hope I'm doing the yarn justice!