Uh... My fingers are pink...

So I decided to do some more dyeing... I have a lot of work to do in this month and I've been slowly chipping away at it... I think by the end of next week I should have a good handle on the roving and be able to move on to the stitch markers and jewelery...

I had a dyeing accident yesterday that required me to do a two part dye, soon to be a three part dye and the end result turned my hands pink.  I will post pictures of that later, once it's done (it's in time out), but today I have a picture of the other skein I did.

4oz Crossbreed Sliver (SO SOFT!) in the colorway 'Fraggles'.  That was Boy's colorway name suggestion because I said it reminded me of something and he said it reminded him of Fraggles.  Please don't sue me Jim Henson!

Please don't mind the flash.  This is pretty color accurate actually.  I'm almost tempted to not put it in the window display and keep it for myself.  Will try to recreate and then revisit whether it gets kept or not ;)

New Bump

Here's the final version of the 4oz of Corriedale in 'Late Summer Hydrangea'  The light is somewhat blue, but this has lots of beautiful shocks of purple and hot pinks and violets in with the more subdued colors of the green and light heathered blues.

A vacation and some work

Well... I call it work, because it's difficult-ish, but it's not 'work-work'.  First the vacay!  Kitty went to stay in the Cat Hotel (www.urbantails.ca - awesome!) and Boy and I went to visit my Dad in Fraser Lake.  We took our fishing rods, packed some food and hopped in the truck on Saturday at 6.  We drove till midnight and then stayed in a fleabag hotel (they're getting a letter!) and drove the rest of the way on Sunday morning.  We had an amazing time... went creek walking, fishing, had a campfire with smores and hot dogs, lazed around, suntanned, went to town and played with the dog... what more could you ask for!
Here are some pictures... don't be jealous ;)... actually... go ahead ;)

So after we got back, I set about getting ready for the window display that I'm taking part in... and I dyed up this wool... I wish I could find some smoother Merino top or something, cause this corriedale is pretty fuzzy and I'd rather have nice smooth roving...
4oz of Corridale in Moss Garden

4 oz of Corriedale in Fish Pond

3.5oz of 50/50 Merino Tencel in 'Late Summer Hydrangea'

3oz of Corridale in Be 'sTeal my heart - sorry about the flash pic.. it's two toned blue and teal.

And finally, altho it's still wet, there's 5oz of Corriedale in 'Late Summer Hydrangea'

I have a LOT of work ahead of me, as I also am doing stitch markers and jewelery for the display (the jewelery might not get done).  Hopefully this is all well recieved.

Progress...

A lot forward, a little backward and then forward again

The state of affairs.. as it relates to the disaster

Well, after a cry and a full on flogging for not putting in a lifeline (which just fyi, I'm still not going to do), I made a plan. Fortunately for my Haruni (now also known as Disasteruni), I went the sane route of un knitting five or so rows of my project. While Hilary's advise of ripping it out would have been my choice route about two pattern repeats ago, I couldn't imagine giving up all that hard work (not hard, just time consuming)... and the idea of dropping all those stitches and then trying to figure out how to bring them back up with all the decreases and increases seemed like a VERY daunting task. So I took my friend PJ's advice and took each stitch out one. at. a. time. I've got one pattern row left to take out before I'm to a spot that I'm SURE is right, and then I will start knitting back up.

The lesson I learned from this is not what you would think. You would think that I was going to put lifelines in at the end of each repeat so that I could just pull the needles out and rip back. But I'm not. I strongly detest lifelines and I only put them in on huge projects that would be impossible to tink back (like my Girasole that has 640 stitches on it. I did tink 320 stitches on that one and even that wasn't too bad... ). I don't like knitting into the next row after the lifeline. The stitches get so tight, the line usually twists itself around the needles and it's ugly.
The lesson also wasn't to use stitch markers. I don't like them. They get in the way, they're a bit annoying and I find I'm more of a robotic knitter when I have them between every repeat. Yes, I make mistakes, but I like the fact that without them, you are forced to pay attention to your pattern and actually engage with your knitting. I remarked to my friend on Monday that I was going to change the name of my shawl to FFS, because I was constantly pulling out a couple stitches to get the repeat right... but it was only because I wasn't following the pattern properly... I like being able to notice that and I like learning the skill of going back and seeing where your mistakes are and then fixing them. Now, not to the point of spending numerous hours unknitting numerous rows, but that brings me to the lesson I actually learned from all this. Ready?
DO NOT KNIT LACE WHEN YOU ARE TOO TIRED TO PAY ATTENTION. Yup... that's the lesson. I knew I was too tired to be knitting... probably right around the beginning of those five rows. I even said how tired I was... I even said that I should put it down... but did I? No. Lesson learned!

Trouble in paradise!

kay... two pictures. In the first picture, you can see the center line outlined in red. very even and straight (shocking for me, I know!).
And you can see the yarnover holes on the stem numbered one through four. Correct. Also mirrored correctly on the other side (but not numbered).
The problem (one of a few) is wtf is going on in the black circle? There's a smooshy bit right above the stem yarnovers that look like stitches twisted over the back of yarnovers and then the yarnovers start back up again! In the blue circle, the decreases have switched direction from / to \, which means that the leaf, if I continued, would look like \ / rather than the tip of a proper leaf / \.
On the second picture you can see that there are way TOO FEW stitches on the right side... right along side the center stitch a new leaf stem is supposed to grow... it's a yo,k,yo stem... you can see the beginning of it in the red circle on the left side... it is clearly not on the right side... There are supposed to be 9 stitches between the purple arrow and the center stitch (marked on the right by the yello arrow).
I don't know what to do! :(

Your Mark... Get set... GO!

So since my two friends and I started this group to knit shawls, I figured I better get on board and start mine... I'm very terrible with deadlines and expectations when it comes to knitting because I prefer to do it for the simple pleasure of doing it... partly why I only knit for myself... because I have no expectations.  But since this group isn't pushy (since we run it) about when things get done, I'm happy enough to knit along...
Here are some pictures of my beginning (which I started twice).

Here are the details if you'd like to join us in this KAL, or knit it on your own.
The group is a Ravelry Group called 3 Country Shawl KAL
The pattern is on Ravelry for free download and it's called Haruni by Emily Ross
The yarn I'm using is Knitpicks Stroll Tonal in Canopy and can be purchased here

Hope to see you in our group.  It's a very easy and dramatic pattern!

My new obsession with Alpaca!

This particular shawl (with a pattern soon to follow) has cemented my love of Alpaca.  It's SO SOFT!  Well, it's baby Alpaca, so that's partially why it's way softer than other Alpaca.  There are very few guard hairs, so it's just simple luxury!  The skein was a Misti Alpaca Worsted Handpaint of 218yards.  I bought it as one of the first skeins of yarn I ever bought and was trying to make some sort of chevron stockinette scarf with it.  I wasn't happy with the pattern, one of the edge stitches or the look of the varigation, so I ripped it out and put the yarn in storage.  This yarn was MADE for garter stitch!
The pattern is a simple garter stitch triangle with a three stitch center spine, which I think adds to the feeling of thick and cuddly.  I put a simple column lace section about 4/5 from the bottom and then finished the skein off in garter stitch.  I think it looks lovely and I wish I had another skein of this to make another!
Please ignore the fact that the column lace in the closeup is off by exactly one stitch from the first row to the last... I saw this and decided not to fix it...
Also, I knit this in four days!  Score!

Doesn't this look CUDDLY??