I made progress on my Something Green at yesterday's Stitch 'n Bitch and ended up leaving when my left pointer finger started to look a bit raw (I tension pretty tightly and consistently over the same area and with this cotton yarn my finger gets pretty unhappy). I'm past my last increases and just need to keep knitting until I'm happy with the length. And I'm almost at my hip already, so hopefully I'll be able to get the body done soon. And then I can tackle those sleeves. And the button band. Oh dear.

Aarrrrggggghhhhhhh! Alternatively: Thank Heavens for Lifelines

So yesterday I finally got off my tush and deided to play with my Options needles. So I transfered my Adamas shawl from the Addis I had been using (and hating) to my options. And everything was going swimmingly. The stitches were moving much more easily over the needle and join, the points were pointer and just lovely. Once I finished the pattern repeat I placed a lifeline (my first of this shawl) and put the shawl down for the day.

This morning I worked on the shawl for a bit and got halfway through a repeat. All was well. After dinner I sat down again and started to knit. And then something weird happened. The stitches became hard to manipulate, the the ones on the row below the one I was working were all bunched up and odd. It took me a couple minutes to figure out what way wrong. I realized it when I saw a whisp of unspun silk. My yarn had ripped. It had caught on something, and that something was the join of the options. Dude. Not good. I ripped back to the lifeline, tightened up the joins (which I had neglected to do) and starting picking up stitches. I just finished.

Now I'm going to have to join the broken edges - to Eunny's blog I go. I really hope this doesn't happen again, cause I really don't want to give up my Options. Although, if it does there's a simple solution. I'll just go buy some fixed circs from KnitPicks.

I finished my Baudelaires last night at Fiber Night (btw - I can't even express how happy it makes me to hang out with other knitters, this is a really great group and I'm going to miss them when I move in the fall) and I love them. They are beautiful and comfortable and fit great. Happiness.



And so, since I have bound-off my last January socks I'm thinking of casting on another pair of February socks. I'm going to use January's Yarn Pirate yarn (it's called Calamata and it is green and brown and purple and gorgeous) and I think I'm going to make Firestarters. In my current financial panic I'm uncertain whether I should continue to be part of Yarn Pirate's sock club - so I've decided that I should actually see how the yarn knits up in order to make my decision. It's certainly very soft and pretty. Now I just have to wind a 480 yard skein into a ball from the amazing skein of my knees. Wish me luck.

I'm fulfilling my second resolution for the year. I am doing colorwork! I'm making Cookie A's Red Herring socks in Cocoa and Woodland Sage. The brown is a little lighter than I prefer, but I think the contrast is working well. I was expecting to have to keep ripping back and redoing, but aside from a bit of a tension issue (that I'm hoping will work itself out in blocking) it's going pretty well.

Project Updates

I have finished my first pair of Sockdown: January socks (Hedera) and they came out beautifully.



I'm about 1/3 done with my second Baudelaire, but it's been abandoned for the time being.

I have reached the first set of ribbing increases on my Something Green, so I feel like I'm actually accomplishing something there.

I really need to replace the Addi that I'm using for Ali's afghan with KP options so I start working on it again.

I'm about to cast on for the Red Herring socks, which I'm doing in brown and teal instead of the originally intended brown and red. But first I must shower, and wind the yarn. Oh, and printing out the pattern might help too.