So You Think You Can Knit?

So you think you can knit? Oh yes. Yes I can.

My current work in progress. It was supposed to incorporate the Florcitas (expensive yarn from Argentina) I bought recently. I have to tell you though, I'm going to do something else with that Florcitas. I like this wrap just the way it is, without weighing it down unnecessarily with a heavier yarn. But that's how it goes, I guess, when you are experimenting.

I finished the shiny shawl. I didn't end up doing a picot border. In the end, I just made something up as I went along and I couldn't even tell you what I did because it was totally improvised and I don't remember. But it looks like this:

The finished shawl looks like this:

I went to a yarn store to look around, see if I could find some more thin synthetic yarn with sequins, and ended up buying some extravagant yarn at half price. Even at half price it was over $30 a skein (with taxes). To make matters worse, sort of but not really, I had to get some matching yarn for the project I had in mind. So I got some beautiful Cascade Eco Highland Duo (baby alpaca and merino -- heavenly soft with a gorgeous halo, but sheds terribly).

This is the expensive yarn I bought. It hails from Argentina.

This is the Cascade:

So, what happened was, I just took my idea I was going to do with some pink and red yarns I had in my stash, and transferred it to my purchase. So now, instead of stashbusting, I just spent almost $100 for new yarn (well, I had to get some needles too, since I don't have any long circulars in a big enough diameter for that lovely Argentinian yarn). I guess that makes me a typical knitter.

I actually have some knitting goals again.

I want to finish up some projects that were started in 2011, got 3/4 finished, and then got dumped on the "Hibernating" pile.

In fact I am planning to finish up my Shiny Shawl today. (I just have to convince myself that the picot border cast-off I am currently in the midst of is the look I really want. I am not at all sure about it right now.)

I am also going to try and finish up my Stashbuster Shawl (which is actually a cowled capelet that I have now transformed into a triangular poncho with cowl neck). That one is made from lots of different yarns -- hence its title of "stashbuster" -- so there are a lot of ends to sew in. There is also some not-so-fun fun fur to be dealt with. (What can I say? It was in the pattern.) The cowl neck was supposed to double as a hood. It doesn't. And now I am stuck with my fun fur folly. For the time being, anyway, until I figure out how best to deal with it. One of the options is to keep things exactly the way they are and not worry about it. Sometimes that's a good option.

I have two skeins of a chunky Noro called Kogarashi, similar to Iro, that would probably make one of these. The yarn is cotton and silk-based, like Iro, and there are at least two other capelets that people have done in Iro. I just have to check yardage and sizing. So maybe that will be my next new project on the needles. We shall see.

So there they are. Some modest knitting goals.

Ugh, it's been about a year since I last blogged here.

There are parts of me in different places on the internet, depending on my interests at the time. Documenting knitting endeavours hasn't been high on my priority list for a couple of years, I would say. Not that I stopped knitting. No. I just stopped telling people about it online. I found other things to document instead, other e-places to occupy.

So what have I knit in the last year? Hats, scarves, and shawls -- that's a given. Shawls just fall off my needles, comfort knitting for me, as soothing and familiar as a cup of tea.

BUT -- I also knit a pair of legwarmers. And I have worn them a couple of times, up north, outdoors over jeans in the dead of winter when it's -20C outside and I want to go snowshoeing. The guide, a girl in her early twenties, admired them. You can't go wrong with Noro. Everybody likes the stripes.

Oh, and I knit a strip as a contribution to a baby blanket.

I worked on my patchwork jacket and my stashbuster shawl. They've both been on the needles for several years, inching ever closer to a paradoxical finished state they will never reach (just ask Zeno).

I haven't been on Ravelry much, either. My stash is out of date. Not that I've been buying much, really. Recently I've only bought stuff from "The Closet" -- a once a month sale at my local yarn shop, whose purchases are not eligible for the Customer Appreciation program. In fact, when I went to cash in my card for my birthday, the last eligible purchase was a year old! The shop attendant thought (and was amazed) that I hadn't bought any yarn in a year, but it was just that I hadn't bought any yarn at full price in that amount of time. So yeah, I'm a bargain hunter.

Well, I guess that's it, the yearly update. See you again in 12 months!

https://www.buzzfeed.com/alannaokun/important-life-lessons-to-learn-from-knitting

Oh my gosh, it's been over a year since I was posting fairly regularly on this site.

I am a serial monogamist when it comes to hobbies, and I have a cycle of about 5 years per hobby. So... you guessed it. I got a new hobby.

Exercise!

Well, eating and exercising to lose weight.

I am now 60 pounds thinner than I was in May 2012, which was the last month I posted with any regularity here about my knitting projects.

I've been tracking food, eating healthy stuff, and visiting the gym, all with great results.

I've still been knitting, just not very much. I've even been buying yarn occasionally, even though I already have more than I will ever need.

The other day I had the opportunity to reduce my surplus. I packed up some yarn to give away to a woman who makes blankets for the local animal shelter. She is a cat lover, so it was totally win-win. Earlier this summer our cat ran away, and we thought we'd never see her again. But two months later we got a call from the shelter that they had our cat. (They found us by scanning her chip -- chips are expensive, but totally worth it!) So I was more than happy to give up yarn to help out the shelter.

As for my own projects, the only things I have finished were shawls. One I mentioned in an earlier post, which was a shawl I knit for a swap.

My latest finished shawl was one I did in blues and greens. I chose a rust-coloured solid for the ruffle. I don't think the photo quite captures it properly. In the photo the colours are stark and isolated. In real life they are more muted and blend better.

I am currently working on another shawl and so far the colours remind me of Van Gogh's "Sunflower" series of paintings. I'm not sure if it will stay that way when I get into the next ball of Noro, though. As usual with these things, they evolve organically as I work on them.

So what do you think of this letter that appeared on March 15, 1962? That young freshman would be old enough to be a grandpa now. A grandpa to teenagers, even. I mean, if he ever got married. I wonder what kind of things he was knitting in class. Do you think he kept knitting? I would love to know the follow-up to this.

That second picture shows my inexpert attempt to manage all the balls of yarn required for knitting this intarsia pattern. Yes, there are balls of yarn stuffed inside sandwich bags. Don't ask.

I am new to intarsia, and entirely self-taught. It's not obvious, is it?