Summer Knitting

 This week, I have been avoiding the studio.  I still work occasionally on the lovely silk-weft, rayon-linen warp on Jenny, but I have--oh, this is embarassing--FIVE threading errors on the hot pink warp.  Out of 143 threads!  So, I'm ignoring it.  

Instead, I've been knitting like a woman possessed.  To the left is the Ranunculus I wrote about last week.  I'm getting anxious about matching the sleeves, so I'm about to start one of them after I write here, and knit it from the leftovers of the first ball.  I'll have to wait until I get to the same color sequence on ball 2 to knit the other.  But you never know with variegated yarn!

The other project I've been working on is the shawl made from the cashmere I bought during the East Tennessee Yarn Crawl of 2014.  I started this shawl last summer to knit while I was at lunch while I worked at Lowe's.  They give an hour lunch, and that was just too long for me!  I had to knit!  I put the shawl away for a few months, and found it when I wondered what was in a cute knitting bag.  It took me two days just to knit the perimeter lace, but I persevered, and here it is!

It's been steam blocked by now, and is lovely, though it's a bit smaller than I'd like.  It does have a wonderful drape.

When that was finished, well, you know what that means.  One project done, another must take its place, right?  I wanted to start a sweater I'd had in my Ravelry library for over a year, Oban by Baby Cocktails.  It's what she calls a "Grandpa" sweater, big and cozy with pockets.  I found some yarn in my stash from a long time ago, two fat cones of it, and it looks like wool, definitely worsted weight.  But when I started to wind it into cakes, I thought it was ugly, kind of poop color, if you know what I mean.  I wound the first cake of yarn onto the warping board to make a skein so I could dye it, but by the time I did that, I thought it wasn't so ugly.  In fact, I think it would look great knitted into all those cables.  So I wound some more cakes, and wound some more skeins, because there's plenty for two sweaters, one dyed and one plain.  

And I sat myself down to knit.  The pockets are supposed to be knitted first, she says because you can use them as your swatch gauge.  And I'm glad I did, because the recommended needle size, US 7, is too small.  I knit the next one with a US 8, and it was much better.  I knit the second one, and began to read through the pattern.  The set-up row calls for 12 stitch markers!  Holy cow!  That's a lot of stitch markers!  This past Sunday, I needed three stitch markers, and decided to make some, and I was hooked.  Playing with beads is fun!  And I have a lot of odd beads, and some silver wire.  I made a few more than I needed last night, and started the set-up row this morning.  Just those first two rows took more than an hour and a half!  

I've left it there for now.  I've knitted a little too much the last few days, and my hands need a rest.  

I will get back to the studio, maybe Sunday when it's supposed to rain all day.  Whatever I do, I'll let you know next week.