First day of Fall!

Fall is officially here, and even though we had some cooler days earlier in the month, the warmer temps and humidity have made a re-appearance making it way too warm for sweaters (and even socks to be honest) but  it's been brisk enough in the mornings to wear shawls.  I've been wearing my Bosc Pear  almost every morning since I finished it last Wednesday. It is lovely, and it makes a great neutral accessory. Really goes with most everything in my wardrobe.

Because the mini skein set was very generous in terms of yardage, I knit two extra repeats of rows 25-36, and then an extra repeat of rows 25 and 26. I wasn't sure that I would have enough yarn for the bind-off, but my yarn chicken gamble paid off and I ended up with 4 yards left of the last colour, Bison.  I adore Bison, it's this gorgeous rich brown, that I would knit all the things out of, if I got my hands on some in DK and Worsted weights.
I won't be getting my hands on any though,  I'm  still knitting only from stash, yarn diet! It's hard though, because, I don't just want dk/worsted weight bison, I also yearn to get my hands on more Party of Five mini skein sets, particularly in the  Sea to Sky, Swell and Graphite colourways. I would probably want to knit  another Bosc Pear right away.  Once I got over the "omg why so complicated" feeling when I first started knitting it, it was actually a really fun knit, and after several rows, was a pretty easy to read knit.
Anywhoo, back to the yarn diet, I'm only knitting from stash until January 2017. I'm back on the parent volunteer committee at school, and i'm going to be volunteering in the library again* so my knitting time will be (and already has been) drastically reduced. Under those circumstances, buying new yarn doesn't make sense.  I have lots of yarn to knit from in stash, and I still have 2 months of my Yarn Crush subscription, so it's not cold turkey.
I'm also operating on the theory that if I don't buy new yarn, I'll be less likely to cast on all the things. Is it actually going to cut down on the startitis? Probably not, but it's worth a shot?

Speaking of Yarn Crush, I'm due for my second box soon! I'm pretty excited, there was a sneak peek of the yarn on the forum and it looks so pretty! I'm almost sorry I stuck with Neutral and not Warm or Cool colours, because they both look amazing!

So lack of time, and a bunch of projects on the needles, I'm kind of short on FOs. I did finish one legwarmer though!

Very rainbow, much colour, wow! I  cast on the second one, but I haven't actually knit much on it because I decided to focus on Margot for a bit. I finally got the raglan increases finished and put the sleeves on waste yarn. I've got about 2 inches done on the body, so only like, 11-12 inches more. Deviating from the pattern a bit, I added some stitches to the body, under the arms because I am large chested, and I'm making a smaller sized sweater than I normally wear.  There's no waist shaping in the pattern, but I'll do some decreases when I get to the waist area, and then increase a bit at the hips. Nothing drastic, but not totally shapeless either.
After the sleeves were put on waste yarn, I tried on the sweater. I'm not sure how I feel about the collar. It seems a little high for my liking. I think I would like the sweater a little more boatneck-ish and a little lower on the chest.  I'm not sure how I would go about undoing the cast on...very carefully, I guess. I may have to research the best way to unravel from the cast on edge. Also, the sweater calls for 3/4 length sleeves. Not sure how I feel about that. But, I'm pretty sure I don't have enough yarn for full length sleeves. That being said, I love how the Candombe is knitting up!

The pooling, strangely, is not bothering me. which is a good thing, because I couldn't be arsed to knit with alternating skeins. Also, I swear, it looks way better in person.

My second sparkly plum sock is getting close to the finish line, I've got about 2 inches to go until the toe decreases.

Full disclosure; this is actually a picture of the first sock, but since they are identical and I have been slacking off in the taking pictures department, it'll have to do. I'm hoping that by next Monday I'll have a new a new pair of socks to wear :D and a new  take-a-long vanilla sock in my bag.




*Due to budget cuts, our school only has a librarian once a week, that means each class can only go to the library once every 3 weeks. If we have enough  parent volunteers we can get the kids going to the library once a week, which is awesome because many of the kids in the school don't have access to books at home, or have access to the local library. Volunteer duties include checking out the books for the kids on the computer, returning books to the shelves, covering the new books that come into the library and repairing any books that need to be repaired. Volunteers also read books to the younger grades. It's really quite fun, but it is time consuming!

Sweater and sock weather!

Just in time, the weather has started to cool off. Last week, it was quite hot and humid and man was I ever done with it, but this morning, we woke to a chill in the air. Perfect for pulling out the Reyna shawl! I don't want winter, but sweater weather is pretty fantastic. Sweaters and sock weather. Knitted sweaters and knitted sock weather! Sit on the deck with a cup of tea and a shawl weather. Lovely! Even more lovely? Mah Knitta made me a pair of socks!

 I may have been whinging about how no one makes me anything and then I was presented with a pair of socks that fit perfectly (it helps that my feet are the same size as one of her teenage sons) made with SweetGeorgia tough love sock in Snapdragon.

Back to school anxiety has sparked some startitis, and the casting on of projects,
I cast on my second sparkly plum sock, my travel sock; though with B in school, the only real travelling I've been doing is the back and forth, not particularly great for knitting.

I cast on my second 58 chevy sock. No actual progress done on it, I just wanted to cast it on for that moment I'm all "must knit this sock". Which, honestly, could be never. Second sock syndrome is real!

I cast on my second Zuzu's Petals by Carina Spencer...which may have been an odd choice considering that I don't even wear the first one. I liked it at first, but I had only worn it once (after taking a picture of it) and started finding it scratchy within half an hour of wearing it. It felt soft when I knit with it, but maybe there is something in the dye or processing that irritates my skin? I think it's pretty telling that I've never bought another skein of that yarn, that I originally claimed I would buy more of (I was a wee bit obsessed with ombres at the time) .  I also liked the colours at first, but I don't like them anymore, and stopped liking them shortly after I knit up the cowl.  So why make another one? Because I think (hope) a worsted weight one would be awesome! I'm using that gorgeous Joma yarn I got in my yarn crush box.*

Next, I cast on Bosc Pear by Tetiana Otruta. I'm using the SweetGeorgia Party of Five sock yarn that I rescued from the Reverb shawl. I was 2 colours into the Reverb shawl, and I just could not force myself to finish it. It's a great beginner shawl pattern, but  I was just so bored by the knitting, and I love the yarn too much to allow it to be abandoned. I think because I'm also working on some very basic projects without too much interest (vanilla socks, basic raglan sweater) I needed to work on a shawl with a little more interest, like the Bosc Pear shawl.
At first glance, Bosc Pear seemed like a hella complicated pattern, the first rows were hairy and stressful, but eventually started to make sense to me. and now I'm just knitting away and enjoying it very much. Basically you have to keep track of two sides, one pattern for before the marker, and one pattern for after the marker. If you take good notes, it's much easier to keep track of both patterns.
For some reason (yunno, like skimming the pattern instead of actually reading it), I thought the Bosc Pear and the Reverb called for the same size needles, so when I frogged the Reverb, I kept the needles aside. My bad, the Reverb is knit on 4.5mm, the Bosc Pear calls for 4.0mm. I like the fabric on the 4.5mm needles though, so I'm going to keep it.
Also, the thought of frogging that yarn again makes me want to cry.
When I frogged the Reverb, the yarn was super kinky and so I figured that if I would it up in a ball and left it on the winder for a day, it would relax and unkink a bit. This did not happen. Instead, when I took the ball off of the winder, it exploded into this squiggly, spaghetti barf mess. It took an hour to untangle, and I ended up with three little balls of yarn instead of one.
Knitting it up while it's all kinky is going fine, but the part of the shawl that was knit with the kinky yarn doesn't look very nice. It looks pretty messy at the moment and I am counting on a good soak and blocking session after it's completed to  make it look better.

If it doesn't, I'll have to suck it up and wear a semi-wonky looking shawl, or give it to a muggle who wont know any better.

I cast on the BiscotteYarns Griffon in the Arc-en-ciel (rainbow) colourway. I was going to make mittens and a matching hat with this yarn, but I decided that I'd rather have leg warmers. Yup. I am an almost 40 yr old woman who is going to wear the fuck out of some rainbow legwarmers. I'm basically making the pattern myself; size 9 needles, CO 56 stitches, and knit in the round forever (or until I use up all the yarn) in a 3x1 ribbing (which I think looks really pretty in self striping yarn). I'm doing the top inch (or more accurately 3/4s of an inch) and the bottom inch in some leftover black wota to get as much mileage out of my yarn as possible, I've got long, easily chilled legs, yo.

Besides wanting legwarmers, the other main reason I've decided not to use the Biscotte yarn for mittens is that I've decided that this year I'm knitting myself the thrummed mitts from the Fleece Artist kit I bought yeeeeeears ago. Oh yes, this will happen.


I finally decided on buttons for my Fractured Light hat and now it's actually finished and wearable! I'm really looking forward to wearing it, it's so pretty!  I never thought I'd knit a sport weight hat, since I begrudge knitting with smaller needles so much, but I think I might be slowly converting.

And obviously, having different weight hats for days when it's cold but not freezing, when you just want a warm head, not a sweaty head, is a good thing.

*So, I finished my second Zuzu's petals, and I am definitely happier with this one. I enjoyed the yarn more,  it was just so vry, vry soft. I like how fast it knit up (3 days of here and there knitting) and I like the fit a lot more.

I soaked it with the SOAK I received in my Yarn Crush box (fig scented) and the scent is actually way nicer than I expected, I may buy a small bottle when I finish the Eucalan I have.

I haven't worked on my Margot with all these new projects to cast on, but as soon as I'm done the shawl I'll get back to it. I figure by the time Bosc Pear is done, I'll be eager to go back to plain old knitting in the round.