I don’t feel like writing a whole lot tonight, but I just wanted to show off my shawl progress:
purple shawl with green stripe
I’ve been knitting like crazy this week and finally was able to start the second color. Now, I’m questioning the wisdom of my color choices. The green, when not in this light, looks a little boogery. And I’m not sure it goes all that well with the purple. I’ll keep going a while longer, and re-evaluate. The third color is a deep blue. The three yarn hanks looked nice next to each other, so I’m hoping there’s hope for the shawl. Time will tell, I suppose.
After finding faded yarn in my yarn bins a couple of weeks ago, I knew I would have to do something about it:
pink and purple yarn bins
I found some pink and purple bins at Target, choosing the color because even though the pink is nauseatingly girly, there’d be no mistaking whose they are or what’s in them.
I’d enjoyed my semi-transparent boxes, so that I could easily inspect their contents and admire my pretties. But, alas, protecting them is more important. And now, each time I open a long-closed box, I’ll be surprised all over again. And that can be fun, too.
And, I’ve been knitting. My shawl now has two colors in it. Barely, but they’re there. Yay.
Greetings, yarny people! I have been knitting a lot lately. Finishing Carolyn’s Shawl was good for my knitting mojo, and I have been busy since. I have started and restarted it, but I think I am on a roll now:
Color Affection Shawl
Mine will be dark purple, dark lime green and dark blue. For some reason I always have trouble getting started with this pattern even though it is simple garter stitch and basic increases, but I think I am on a roll now. I had hoped to be on the second color this weekend but I am a little behind. I’m hoping that will happen before the end of the week.
I’ve also been working on some colorful dishcloths:
colorful dishcloths in progress
I have some dishcloth cotton in lots of bright, solid colors, and my intention was to make a pile of solid-colored cloths to represent the rainbow. But, when I pulled out my pink one, it was faded from the sun, so I only had enough yarn in that color to make part of a dishcoth. I used some rainbow colored yarn with it. So, now, my plan is to make each cloth with a random bit of rainbow yarn mixed in somewhere. I think it will work!
I have made a pact with myself to knit every day. It felt SO good to actually finish a project that I really would like to do it more often! So I need to make sure I get at least some knitting done each day, so that I keep moving forward.
So, this will be, for me at least, the summer of knitting. A lot.
I was able to salvage some of the faded bright pink yarn, and I mixed it with some rainbow yarn to come up with this little cloth. I can’t believe I finished it in one day. More to come!
Today I got it in my head that I wanted some idea of the size of my Color Affection shawl. I don’t know if I’m gutsy, or stupid, or what. but it’s been looking so wonky to me and I have been wanting to know what it would look like stretched out. And, I have it on three pairs of circular needles, so it’s pretty secure. That’s the good news.
First, my before and after shots.
This is what the shawl looks like with no stretching at all:
Color affection, unstretched
You can tell that it is very narrow from top to bottom, and really long from side to side. Luckily the yarn has a lot of stretch in it, so I hope to gain some depth in the blocking. Sp my friend Rachel and I pinned it out, sort of, just to see what it might do at blocking time:
Color Affection, stretched
I’ve done some more studying of the shape of the thing since this afternoon so we can improve on our shaping technique when it comes to actual blocking. Plus I’m betting the fabric will cooperate a lot better when it’s not actually still on the needles, and wet. But after worrying about the size of the thing for some time now it appears that I don’t need to be too concerned, that is, if it blocks to something approximating the size shown here. In the second photo, it’s about 20 inches from top to bottom so far, and I’m not done with the border yet.
But, like I said, that’s the good news. In stretching it out we found a dropped stitch, early in the grey and brown section. That is, many rows down and quite near the beginning. It apparently happened some time ago, such that there was only a visible hole for a few rows, and then it sort of closed up on itself. I took the chicken’s way out and laddered it up a few rows and then pushed the errant stitch to the back and tacked it down with some yarn and wove it in. l learned tonight that I need to practice fixing garter stitch. I can handle 3 or 4 rows dropped by re-knitting, but a long ladder and changing direction back and forth with the crochet hook is tedious. I don’t have a smooth motion down for doing this and probably need to learn, probably before I start the shawl that is going to be for me.
Maybe I should have made my own shawl first, so that I could get the mistakes out of the way, but I was so anxious to knit for a friend that I didn’t think about it. Oh, well…. I learned some things today.
I just freed one of the colors from my Color Affection shawl.
Grey Stripes Completed
I am now working on my Very Last Brown Stripe. I can’t tell you how happy this makes me. Then it’s on to the bottom border, and then, my friends, it will be done. Except for the blocking. I’m not looking forward to that. Wanna come help?
