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.