Knit faster - that'll work

I've been happily knitting away at a lacy shawl/scarf in the evenings, using a beautiful gradient teal yarn.  (I'd show a better picture, but it's for a gift and I don't want to spill all the beans...)

When I hit the part where I was to start the last chart, for the lacy edging, I stopped for a bit of a think.  It looked to me like I was going to finish that last chart with a lot of yarn left over, which meant a good bit of that gradient was going to go to waste.  A bit of geometry was applied and I figured that I was at the halfway point knitting wise, but I had lots more than half the yarn left.  Hurray!  I could do one more repeat of the lace pattern used for the body of the shawl!

Famous last words, right?
As I inched up that last chart, row by row, I watched my rapidly-diminishing ball of yarn with increasing alarm.
There's a time-honored technique deployed by knitters everywhere when they find themselves in this situation - I knit faster and faster, hoping I'd finish before I ran out of yarn.
(Note to non-knitters:  No, this doesn't work.  It has never worked, but we keep doing it anyway.)
One moment I was lying to reassuring myself that it was going to be fine, just fine, don't worry, fine, and the next moment I'd start to get a little panicky again.
I had a row and a half of chart left -

but only this much yarn.

I needed to work one wrong side row, then the last row of the chart, and then I figured I could cheat and skip the last wrong side row and just head right for the bind off instead.
So, over, back, and over once more.
Yeah, yeah, this'll work.  Yeah...
I marked the halfway point of that little ball of yarn and set off knitting.  I barely made it over once, before hitting that mark.  Even cheating, I was still going to end up a full row short.

Rip...  Rewind.  I went back to before the last chart started, then took out two extra rows from the body of the shawl (never miss them, right?), and started that last chart again.
I'm only a couple of rows from where I was last time, but I've got way more yarn left.

I'm sure it's going to work this time.  Absolutely.  Yep.
It's going to be fine.
Though I might start knitting a little faster...

Just in case there was a pool...

My official cast-on time for Lyra was this morning at 10:42.

The first time.

Then I realized that "Knit all intermediate rounds" meant exactly what I suspected it did. One round too late, of course.

So my second official cast-on time for Lyra was this morning at 10:52.
(Y'all can settle on a winner by yourselves.)

And away we go...


If you're wondering how I missed that key clue - check out the size of the row numbers on this chart. (It's inside the '0' hole of my needle gauge.) Hard to see, even with bifocals. That's my story, anyway.

Of Chicken Guts,Twitchy Fingers, and Imaginary Friends

Since I had today off and Madman is feeling more mobile, we butchered a couple of chickens this morning. They were some of our remaining meat birds that had gotten a reprieve when Madman slagged his knee, due to the fact that neither one of us was capable of carrying a madly-flapping well-over-10lb bird*. These are some big honkin' chickens at this point. Picture a blimp with feathers. Picture a blimp with feathers taking 5 minutes to turn around 180 degrees, with little tiny shuffling steps. Big honkin' chickens.
One is in the freezer and the other is in the oven. Full of stuffing. The house is starting to smell really good...

The twitchy fingers are due to this:


I soooo want to cast on. This very minute. Like in now. If I could type and cast on at the same time, I'd have needles in hand.
(I'm still trying to decide if I want to let my innate stubbornness win and finish the Frosted Ferns that I've started (and tinked and knit and tinked) or if I should let my sensible side reign and just chuck the whole project out the window.)
The Great and Powerful Cookie took pity on me as I beat my head on the chartless Niebling and passed along a Niebling that is less likely to land me in the Loony Bin.
She's one of my very favorite Imaginary Friends... (I was once trying to explain to my mother about friends that I'd made on the internet, whom I've never met in person, and she said "So, basically they're your imaginary friends then." Never argue with your mother. (You won't win, anyway))

*These birds dressed out to over 10lbs. Picture a small turkey. We have no idea what they weighed before we removed all the unnecessary bits...

For I am weary, and my Niebling has no chart.

I don't understand why tinking is slower than knitting...
*sigh*

Still kicking. And knitting.

Life goes on. Goldie eventually stops crying and searching for her lost lamb. We stop tearing up every time we look at the sheep pasture. We're counting on better luck next time. (I think we've earned it...)

In the meantime, Goldie's fleece is being spun, slowly but surely.And there's been knitting.
Maplewing has been temporarily supplanted.


I Niebled. I have committed Niebling. I blame Cookie.


In this picture, you can see my cheat. There's no chart, so as I complete each round, I mark it out with highlighter. I'd much prefer a chart, which makes it easier to read the lace, but that's not an option with this particular pattern.
And this is the third iteration of this project - I'm shooting for a shawl rather than a doily, and the first try was on needles that were too small. (I wanted a shawl that was bigger than 24", which is what my best geometric skills told me would be the diameter, extrapolating on the first 20 rounds.)
On the second try, I'd hit 24 rounds when I realized I'd dropped a stitch around row 11. (One of those k2togs that didn't meld properly...)
This is the third try, and I'm sure hoping it's the charm.

I wish I had something interesting to report.

But, I don't.
I'm still washing and carding Goldie's fleece, little by little. I wash three or four batches at a time, defining a 'batch' as about what I can stretch out on a 12x12 wire mesh screen - thick enough to be worthwhile but thin enough to dry in a timely fashion.
I've got enough bumps carded now to fill a good-sized trash bag, and I'm only about halfway through the fleece. Once I start spinning, I know it's going to be agonizing to have to stop and wash and card again, so I'm trying to exercise a little self-discipline and prep the whole fleece. Or at least as much of the fleece as I can bear to put off the spinning for. (It's getting really hard. I had to hide my wheel in another room, to keep from starting the spinning. Hard, I tell ya. Hard.)
I'm picking out heaps and heaps of VM. (All I can say is, Goldie is a very nice sheep, as sheep go, but she's at heart a filthy beast. I don't even want to think about what she spends her time rolling in...) I pull out what I can as I wash it. At first I was telling myself that by doing that, I was saving time later on, but then I realized that pulling out 89 bits of hay was the same amount of effort, whether now or later. 89 bits is 89 bits. Finally, I comforted myself with "Anything I see now is something I don't have to hunt later" and then it all made sense.
Maplewing carries on. A bit larger than the last photo, but one puddle of unblocked lace looks pretty much like another puddle of unblocked lace.
We're eating salad out of the garden, now - the lettuce has started to catch up with the spinach, so there's a little more variety. Radishes and homemade croutons for a little texture, and life is good.
And if I can ever remember to buy new batteries for the camera (just because an item goes on the shopping list is no guarantee that I'll actually find it in the shopping bag when I get home...) I'll try again for some pictures.
At least with an all-text post, you can get in a little extra knitting before you have to nudge the mouse.

My camera and I are having a difference of opinion

I think it should take pictures of things I want to take pictures of. It thinks it doesn't necessarily have to do that.
I think it's in a snit because I forgot to use it at NH S&W.
Or not.
I'm getting a lot of redscreens with "Error saving image" messages.
And it's not helping that my rechargeable batteries are becoming increasingly reluctant to hold a charge.

I went out in the drizzle today, and took many many (many) pictures, and here's all I got...

I wanted a good picture of Goldie, because we think she might actually be with lamb. She's getting that mid-pregnancy "dumpy" look. (I remember it well...)
But I had a hard time getting a shot. If I had a good one lined up, she shifted around before the shutter could go off. Or I got one of those damned redscreens.
I threw some treats on the ground, hoping to distract the younger set - which mostly worked, they being as distractable as you could hope - but Goldie wouldn't turn. (Well, at least not for this one.)
Another time I had a good view, but Merlin popped in at the last minute...

This one was the only other shot that came out - and it sort of shows what I'm talking about.

Yeah, I'd say dumpy.

And as long as I was walking around in the drizzle anyway, I tried for a few shots of the chickens. This is the meat bird's yard - our little RIR hatchlings are back in with them, now that there's so much more room.


These chickens are taking turns having a dust bath. Unfortunately, since it's been raining, it's really a mud bath. They're really not smart enough to know the difference. (The leftmost bird is actively rolling and scratching. The one on the right is pretty muddy. The one in the middle seems to be patiently waiting her turn.)


And, oh yeah, I knit, too. Maplewing is still in progress. At least the rows are going faster now, as the decreases really start to add up.


I'm counting on the magic of blocking...

All Skewed Up

Well, they say third fourth time's the charm. (I didn't even take a picture of the third try at Skew. Ripped.)
Finally, something where you can actually see the magic!

This is Socks that Rock that I won on Cara's blog about a million years ago. I've lost the ball band (go figure) so I don't know the colorway. One of the Rare Gems, I think.
Anyway, I'm happy that I'm getting color runs that are actually long enough to show off the diagonals in this pattern. And that I'm finally far enough along that I have to actually look at the pattern again. (After 3 previous attempts, I pretty well had the beginning memorized. Except for Judy's Magic Cast-on, which I still have to go look at every.single.time...)

But I haven't been neglecting Maplewing. I'm now on the second repeat of section B. Hitting that decrease row where I went from 522 sts to 435 sts made a huuuuuuge difference. Practically flying through the rows, now.


And I'm back to my old wicked ways again. Why be monogamous when you can multi-task?

I needed a portable project for a car trip. Neither Skew nor Maplewing are the kind of thing I can knit without watching closely - and I get car-sick unless I'm looking out the window. So, obviously, I needed to cast on another project...
Simple mind, simple sock.

(Psst... Diane... I really am seaming up the Cabled Coat. Slowly but surely. Srsly.)

(And can anyone figure out what in this post is causing my google ads to all be for Love Spells? Is it the magic cast-on, combined with wicked and monogamous?)

Busted

Am I that transparent?
It was Skew. The actual time elapsed between cast-off and cast-on was about 25 minutes. Five minutes to fill the sink with water and throw the collar in to soak. (I love holding them underwater until the bubbles stop.) (And doesn't that sound sinister?) (I'm wondering what kind of google searches will bring this link up.) (Perhaps it's best not to think about it too much.) Fifteen minutes to wind the ball of sock yarn from my stash. (A prize from Norma, way back in April.) Five minutes to fart around, trying to recall Judy's Magic Cast-on. (Epic fail. I finally went with Turkish cast-on, which was my pre-Judy standard.)
But.
Much as I love this yarn, and I really truly love this yarn (Happy Feet in the best colorway ever), it just wasn't right for Skew.

The magic of Skew is in the strong diagonals, and this beautiful yarn just doesn't show off the pattern. I decided to save it for another project, and cast-on again with some pretty purple.

This yarn came from AnnaMarie, who got so mad at it that she sent it into permanent time-out. At my house. (I didn't ask what the yarn did. Sometimes it's best not to know.)
While this was slightly better for the pattern, it still just isn't cutting it.
Must rethink. It might require a trip to the yarn shop. When I get a car. (Yes, still car-less. Cranky, frustrated, and car-less.)
In the meantime, I'm going to do what I should have done in the first place.



Cast on Maplewing.

Stunned by a shawl

As I was cruising through blogland this morning, while pounding down coffee and trying to get a couple of brain cells to fire, I came upon a sight that literally took my breath away.
Fleegle's blog is the site of the sight. (I've now cited a sight site. Help me...) There's a wonderful story about the shawl, as well. Go, look, read!
Back so soon? I am stunned by the shawl itself, by the hard work and devotion of those who worked on it, and by the generosity of those same people in that they are going to provide the pattern as a freebie.
Wow.
I shot off a quick email to find out what kind of yardage was required, because my first thought, naturally was to spin the yarn for the shawl. (Because the only thing crazier than tackling this masterwork shawl would be to spin the yarn for it, too...)
Her reply? 6000 meters / 6562 yards.
That's roughly 4 miles of yarn.
I'd better start spinning. And I'm going to need a lot of batts...
.

Okay, there's a reason I never do math after 5 o'clock...

So, it was bothering me - that yardage on my merino laceweight seemed low. It was late when I was counting and multiplying and dividing. (My niddy-noddy yields 5 feet per turn. This would be convenient if I was doing all my figuring in feet. Unfortunately, I need yards. Thus enters Math.)
The last batch I counted as I was niddy-noddying, I wrote down as 103 turns. Upon recounting tonight, I found that I actually had 201 turns. (Obviously I can't even count after 5pm, let alone do math...)
So, if that was my only error, I actually have 1010 yards. (I'm not going back and trying to count the big skein. I had 405 turns by my first count. I'm willing to accept that as a final answer.)

Anyway, that's better. Much happier now. I want a shawl. Maybe Aeolian or Laminaria. Or maybe one I haven't even seen yet...
After all, my heart belongs to Maplewing. I spun my orange laceweight for it. As soon as I can summon the oomph to cast on all 78 bazillion stitches...

Still hanging in there

Almost a week, and I'm still getting these huge cravings out of nowhere... One moment I'm fine, and the next it's INEEDNEEDNEEDACIGARETTENOWWWWWWWWWWW, and I would sell my soul for a Camel. Five or ten minutes later, I'm fine again. Until the next time.
At least it isn't that constant craving anymore. It's hard to justify living longer if it involves feeling that bad...

I cast on Maplewing Tuesday. I've started row 3. At this rate, I'm going to be knitting this shawl for months... (A true win in the entertainment per yarn-dollar ratio.) I should pick up speed once I'm a little further along and can read the lace. Right now, there isn't enough to puzzle out where I am, so I'm compulsively counting and recounting each section, and hoping for the best.