I Love This Shawl!

I didn't take photos last night because when I got home, Roo came to hang out and decided to sleep on the pile of knitwear that I had left on a chair.

But, first thing this morning I took some selfies! You can tell because of my hair.  And lack of very good makeup.  I did put on lipstick! That's something.

I just love the way the yarn feels around my face.  I'm going to be wearing the heck out of this this winter, even if it isn't blocked.

Speaking of not blocked... the edges are curly and the spine isn't straight.  Usually even if I block something, the spine isn't straight, but... still!

Yeah, my project area is pretty cluttered.  I have a lot of little things to do right now, and not a lot of time.  It's funny - the cleanliness of my work area is related to how stressed I am.  The more clutter, the worse I feel.

But I have a method! I'm not allowed to take anything off the table until I've taken care of it.  So, the only way to clean it up is to work on the projects.  Which keeps me from packing things away into oblivion.

My photo-taking came to an end when Dan poked me and told me I had to eat breakfast.  I think the photo turned out kind of cute.

Poor Res Photos of My Dream Shawl!

I finished the shawl yesterday, then washed it to be blocked, and then... I made a horrible discovery. My new apartment doesn't have carpet!

Okay, this discovery isn't really new... I LOVE my hardwood floors... but where am I going to block my shawl? At my last place, I found some out of the way place and blocked it using the carpet and mastic to hold my pins, but here, I don't have that! Even before, I used homosode board from Warren's stop motion set.  I don't have that either.

I guess I'm going to have to invest in blocking mats.  I tried to use the futon cushion but the pins wouldn't go in well, and when they did they were easily pulled out.  I guess I could use the mattress to our bed, but then where would we sleep? Would Dan make that sacrifice? (Probably not.)

Still, I love this shawl.  I took it down from it's farce of a blocking spot and played with it when I got home from work, and tried to take pictures on my phone.  Of course, it's after dark, so that probably doesn't help! But here are some photos.

Tomorrow I will pull out the camera and take some REAL photos that you can actually "Oooh" and "Ahh" at. For now I have these, and some photos of my landlord's cat.  His name is Roo and I steal him sometimes when they aren't home. >_>  (Not really steal, I always send him home when I hear them come in, and I don't feed him anything or keep him overnight.  And if I thought it bothered them I wouldn't do it! I swear! I would just lie on the porch or in the stairwell and cuddle him.)

Until then... V for Victory over a shawl! Mwah.

The surgery was a success!

My Haruni shawl is back on the needles! Armed with a "repeat of chart A's worth" of yarn (can we make that a unit of measurement?) and Kitsune's tip that I can do a bind off with zero yarn left over, I'm confident that I can finish this.

I really benefitted from the fact that I'm working with Qivit, I think.  When I pulled out the needles, the yarn stuck together on it's own but still unravelled when I tugged gently on the end. 

The End is Here!!

I couldn't work on my Haruni shawl for a long, long time.  It sat in my bedroom, in it's awesome case, forlorn and alone.

But then I decided to just go for it. 

And here we are.

I knew I wouldn't be able to make it, and I was right, I didn't...

Only hope now is to frog back and make the overall shawl shorter.  I'm going to go back one repeat of the chart, and if I mess up I'm just going to wind the whole thing up into a cake and cry.

It's a dark, dismal day and I've been feeling really down. I still have a lot of stuff I need to do though, for work, sadly... It will be really fun to do but I'm setting everything up. Lately at work I have just felt like Henny Penny. People want me to do things, (things that shouldn't even be my problem, really, since they're not even remotely connected to EHS) but no one wants to lend a hand and help me do them, and when I feel overwhelmed, of course the only thing to do is work alone at home on a Saturday night.  But the feeling of getting it done will be really good, just like the feeling of finishing this scarf. 

So I'm going to do it ;) (Both the work and the knitting.)

PURPLE Caps

Despite not being able to knit too much, I've made some caps for the NH Children's Fund CLICK for Babies Campaign.  It's a campaign to prevent child abuse by educating people about the period of PURPLE crying, which is a normal stage in a baby's life where they cry a lot, a frustratingly lot.

I only made 4 caps, and one is terribly small - almost too small to donate.  But hey, maybe some super tiny baby will get it.  Who knows.  

I improvised two of the hats, but for the other two I used the Berry Baby Hat pattern.  They remind me of little eggplants! 

I failed the goal of this, which was to make a ton of hats... but 4 hats is better than nothing, and hopefully 4 little NH babies will look adorable in them.  Next year I'll get started earlier, and make the whole month of September baby hat month!

In Orbit

For the past week I've been at a conference for work, and it's been fun! Yesterday, at the closing, the person talking said "We're all in orbit now, but soon it'll be time to come back down to earth and get all this good work done back home!"

I've kind of felt in orbit.  My hands don't hurt so much (probably because I'm not using my laptop all day!)  So I've been knitting a little more.  My carousel socks are looking good!

 

I plan on doing the toe, heel, and cuff in white.  My only regret right now is not using white yarn to join the spiral.  Wouldn't it just pop like that? From what I have of yarn, though, I might be able to make another pair with the yarn that I have left over after this.  So then I'll have two rainbow socks, and maybe by then I'll be done with rainbows!

Striped Scarf

Ages, ages, and AGES ago I bought this Crystal Palace Mini Mochi yarn because I saw a beautiful project on Ravelry and wanted one too. Well, while I was sick I cast on for it.  The yarn has been in my stash for a long, long time and it finally gets it's moment! 

It knit up really quick, and the colors really look good together. I used 113 (Tropical Ginger) and 109, which I think has been discontinued. All I did was cast on 50 stitches on size 4 needles and work in a K1P1 pattern until I was out of yarn. One skein of each color like this made a scarf that was about 4.5 feet, which is a little short but I didn't really want to work in K1P1 rib anymore.

I ended up with 1 extra skein of each, and I gave them to my friend Tricia - maybe she'll make a scarf like mine! I would love to have matching scarves. It's kind of like a knit along. But not. Because they might sit in her stash forever and ever, like this yarn did.

Anyway, I love this scarf! So much that I took a selfie in it.Cherish this moment. Also, I'm not wearing any makeup because I camped all weekend.

P.S. - My new apartment has so many places to take photos of projects, haha.  Once all the pictures are up and everything is set up I will have to post photos.  I'm trying to get everything all set up but... it's been kind of slow because I tend to half-do a project and then go and watch TV with Dan.