The struggle is real.

I've been having a hard time keeping up with the blog, partly because I feel like I need to have a FO every time I blog which is really not easy to sustain unless I'm knitting shawls out of DK or Worsted weight yarn.  And partly because I've been enjoying instagram so much! I get to see what other people are knitting, and the yarns they are using or dying or spinning and it's been really inspiring! Plus, I'm getting feedback from people that love knitting and yarn as much (or in many cases, more than) I do and it's become this nice little community.
I don't know too many knitters IRL and I kind of wish I did, I love knowing what people are knitting, what yarn they are using, what pattern they hated/loved, what yarn they hated/loved. If I wasn't such a bloody introvert I'd probably start going to a knit night.
That being said, I do actually have a couple of finished objects-my Spindrift Shawl by Helen Stewart.

It's the perfect shawl for this time of year, it's light, and it has a really great shape. I'm going to have to make another one at some point, since I screwed up the pattern and didn't even notice until just under half way through  the eyelet section. The rows before and after the eyelets are supposed to be garter ridges-oops.
I sort of finished one of my afterthought heel socks, I'm waiting until I finish the second sock before I knit the heels. But that kind of counts as an FO?
I also finished my third Reyna (today actually). No finished pics yet, I still need to soak it and block it.  But look! WIP pictures!  Look! My favourite stitch marker!

A couple of Sundays ago, mah knitta and I went to Maison Tricote as it had been a while since our last visit. It was a bit intense at first with near incessant baby crying + an unoiled swift squeaking loudly, but it did eventually chill out and we were able to actually hear ourselves talk and focus on knitting.
I had planned to buy a skein or two of Fleece Artist Trail Sock, but they only had a couple of hanks in the sale bin and they weren't colours I was interested in-I suspect they won't be carrying the yarn anymore *super sad face* Where oh where will I find my Trail Sock now?
So instead I bought a Gleener and some sock yarn; a skein of Riverside Studio MCN (merino cashmere nylon) in Walk in the Woods and a skein of Hedgehog fibres sock yarn in Shiver.

I paid for my purchases and happily continued knitting until mah knitta came over with three skeins of Biscotte that she couldn't choose between. Quick as a flash, I snatched Lilas et Moi and growled "miiiiiiiine" and then I bought that too.

A few days after that, I received a package in the mail from loveknitting that I had forgotten about because it took so long (I was planning to call their customer service, figuring it got lost in the mail, turns out it was held at customs for some reason) and got my new 2.25mm karbonz (remember that I've decided to go down a needle size for socks) in 32 and 40 inches, and some Lorna's Laces Solemate in Zombie BBQ-which is a colourway I've been coveting for a long time, and if I bought the yarn I'd be eligible for free shipping and a discount code-it'd have been silly to pass it up.

Libby is very not impressed.


Mother's day happened. M and I (and B) went to visit the moms and then I was treated to a bit of a shopping spree at Espace Tricot, where, along with all the other moms who were spending their gift certificates, I bought three hanks of Quince&Co Lark in  Carrie's Yellow, Winesap, and Peacoat (I have plans to knit a sweater in a neutral colour with those colours as stripes on the arms) and a skein of SweetGeorgia Tough Love Sock in Smitten. I also bought another bloody ZigZag stitches boxy bag in the Sheep in Hats print.  Plus, some dryer dots by Gleener. (which work pretty well) My very sweet 16 yr old was suit shopping for his grad that day, and after shopping, he went to the florist and bought me some flowers. (apparently he did not like the first bouquet the florist made so she made him a new one lol) Overall, it was a lovely day.

                                   (Please note the above picture is from the Espace Tricot website)

Somewhere in the last couple of weeks I also bought some Artfil Belle in Fireworks

and the new self striping/speckled sock yarn called Bis-sock Marmicelle from Biscotte yarn in the colourway Sweet Dreams.

 And most recently, because I CLEARLY needed another project bag, I bought a super cute Kitty Heads project bag from  Etsy seller NSPDesigns, who was offering a great discount code (which I found through Instagram btw. Yay IG)
The bag is a really great size, perfect for shawls, the beginning of sweaters and blankets, as well as notions. Besides being freakin adorable (<3 cats), it's also well made, and most definitely not a Regretsy.

If you're keeping track, that's a lot of new sock yarn from someone who wasn't going to buy sock yarn anymore, but sock yarn is just so affordable, and so pretty that it's hard not to buy...Seriously though, I'm dooooone. I'm cold sheeping until Twist.
Luckily,  I've decided to knit a couple of sock yarn shawls since I love my Spindrift so much.

So, I had cast on Reyna 3.0 in the Riverside Studios MCN (my first Reyna with sock yarn!) shortly after buying it and I finished it today while chilling with mah knitta (since today is a holiday for many, we opted to meet this afternoon) Anyway, I finished it and as expected it is very very lovely. You really can't go wrong with Reyna. It's fun, it's easy and it always turns out beautifully.
I suspected that I might finish it while out with mah knitta, so I loaded up my fabulous kitty bag with two possible projects, since I couldn't decide which one I should make.  I brought some Knitpicks Cotlin to make a summery version of the Aiken sweater by Andi Satterlund and I also brought Artfil Belle (sock yarn) in Fireworks to knit the Close to You shawl by Justyna Lorkowska.
I ended up casting on the shawl, using my the addi olivewoods that I had been using to knit Reyna, I hadn't yet put them away, and the cord was just the right length, sooooo...

Freshly cast on, it's barely even a wip!

Rain rain go away...

It's still raining. Even I, who enjoys a good grey rainy day, is finding this near constant rain a bit much now. I have been getting to wear a lot of hand knits, as wool does such a good job of keeping the dampness out. And there has been much dampness.
There has been a lot of flooding over much of southern Qc and Ontario, but thankfully, no one has died from the flooding, and hopefully it stays that way as we head into another couple of days of rain.

I finished the Aperture shawl. It was a reasonably quick knit, and really enjoyable. I've knit two Ambah O'Brien patterns now and I have to say I am definitely a fan! Nifty construction, very well written pattern, and yet the shawl comes out looking like it was complicated. In fact, before I knit the Nereid Shawl, I was actually intimidated by her patterns thinking that there was no way I could knit one because they looked beyond my skill level.
Full disclosure, I did have some trouble in the second section but, the errors were on my part and had nothing to do with the pattern. I had to tink back several times to fix mistakes that I just could not live with, like missing a yarn over, or forgetting to do a SSK or K2tog. Thankfully, by the second section, it's very easy to read the knitting, so I was able to find every mistake very quickly and fix them.
Also going to heap some serious praise on Miss Babs Killington yarn, it held up amazingly well to repeated tinking and blocked beautifully. One of my favourite things about this shawl was the bind off! I just adore the I-Cord bind off!

 I've gotten quite a few compliments on my Aperture by random people, which is always nice.

I finished my ScrumptiousPurl Business Casual socks.

Finished them in a reasonable amount of time despite my needle breaking. Like, actually snapping in half. I don't even know how it happened! I'm a monster with monster hands.

*sad face* I love the wooden chiaogoo circs, but they certainly don't like me. I think I've gone through 3 or 4 pairs at this point? I ordered some more Karbonz in 2.25mm after that little incident, but I'm still waiting for them to arrive in the mail.

 I'm much happier with how these socks washed up, no where near as much bleeding as my Baby Beluga socks. The sock base is one of the softest socks I have worn, and yet they wear really well and maintain their shape.
Instead of doing a three needle bind off on the toes, I decided to go with kitchener stitch to close the toes. Just felt like switching it up a little. Kitchener is a pain in the ass to do, I can NEVER remember the steps, but it really is such a neat little bind off, and the toes do look a smidge nicer.

In between the socks and Aperture shawl, I got a bee in my bonnet about fixing my Not Your Boyfriend Sweater. I was sick of the sweater constantly falling off my shoulders so I decided to rip out the neckline and redo it. It sounded simple at first, but I had a hard time undoing the bind off, because the ends were weaved in so well. So well, that I ended up having to cut off the whole bind off, which was a huge pain in the ass, but I managed to get the stitches back on the needles and make the neckline better. I was lucky enough to still have the leftover yarn from the neckline (caked up even!), so I was able to Russian join the yarn, and I didn't even need to cake up the last skein to finish it! One of the things I did to fix the neckline was to decrease the number of stitches. I decreased a total of about 20 stitches, and instead of the neckline only being about half an inch, I knit until it was almost 2.5 inches long. Of course, after fixing the neckline, I had to undo the bind off on the hem of the sweater, because now the sweater was definitely too short...since it no longer slipped off my shoulders, it didn't hang down as low, losing about an inch and a half of sweater. And it was already on the shorter side to begin with.
Undoing the bind off on the hem was much easier than the neckline. I did have to cake up the last skein of Malabrigo, but it was worth it because now the sweater is perfect. It's a great pullover, warm, comfy and relaxed.  I'm really glad I decided to fix it instead of just leaving it in the drawer and being slightly dissatisfied every time I wore it.

Now i'm working on another pair of socks and another shawl. I'm knitting a pair of vanilla socks made with Turtle Purl Turtle Toes yarn in the colourway Bah Hambug.

I was thinking about doing an afterthought heel with these socks.

The shawl I'm working on is the Spindrift shawl by Helen Stewart and while I have vowed many times to NEVER knit a fingering weight shawl again, I am actually knitting this fingering weight shawl with fingering weight yarn, or more accurately, sock yarn. I'm using that skein of Bis-sock that I won several months ago from Biscotte yarns. It didn't come with a name (argh) but it's very spring like; yellows, greens and purples with speckles. It's very pretty and I had actually caked it up into two cakes for socks at some point, cast on and knit a few rows, which I then frogged so I could knit the shawl instead.

 Anywhoo,  I'm about 50% of the way through the shawl and it's been a very pleasant knit. The pattern is very simple, very easy to memorize and is perfect for watching tv (I've started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer; which I never really watched when it first aired, because it sounded so lame) Also? I love that the pattern is written row by row, with a box at the end of the row, that you can check off the ass you knit it, and also tells you the percentage as you go. (it's one of the reasons I adored Noora Laviola's Reyna pattern so much!)

But once I'm finished with this shawl, I'm going to need to chill on the shawl knitting for a while, because I've just been knitting shawl after shawl...how many shawls does one person need? How many shawls can one person wear?*
Socks on the other hand, a person always needs socks. I have a lot of hand knit socks at this point, enough that I can wear a different pair of socks every day for two weeks, but some of the first pairs I knit are starting to show some wear, so new ones are always going to be needed.

And with this post finally done,  I'm going to go get dressed (I'm totally wearing my NYBS today) and get ready to meet mah knitter for some tea and knitting and possibly some yarn purchasing at Maison Tricote!

Bonus cat picture! Libby!

 (You can't tell but she's totally staring at my needles and wanting to swipe them)

*As I write this I'm thinking that I should make a fingering weight Reyna, because I have some gorgeous grey sock yarn, but I already have a pair of grey socks, knitting grey socks is terribly boring, and a lighter weight Reyna would be nice for spring/summer...