Happy Thanksgiving!

Between Lord of the Rings Online releasing a new expansion (hit thewownoob.blogspot.com if you're curious to see what I thought) and my continuing illness, there hasn't been much knitting. I've started the second of the lacy armwarmers, and I've also been working on a Chilly Morning Cozycoat from Unofficial Downton Abbey Knits. It's a garter stitch vest, in a pretty red. I'm still on the back, but am close to finishing it (the back).

Red Morning Cozycoat

I also fell down and swiped my credit card at the Knitpicks sale way too many times. A bit over 20 bucks for a sweater's worth of yarn? AWESOME! I also got a lace shawl kit (mmm, Estonian lace, how I love you so), and some back issues of Knitscene (because I really needed to add more books to this project). I've blown my yarn budget for the next year, at least, but I figure I'd pay as much for a store-brought sweater, without the pleasure of making it.

I also won some yarn in the knitterain KAL on ravelry, as well as one of her patterns. I picked Amillë, and am stunned at the clever construction, plus it's pretty. I also want to knit a few more of hers, like Arlington, Biltmore, and Romanesque, she has some lovely patterns. Her ravelry designer's page is here, I encourage you to go and drool. The yarn I won will be coming from Two Tigers Yarn and I've contacted them already. I don't get to buy handdyed yarn all that much (stupid monetary constraints), so I'm really looking forward to it. They have some gorgeous colors (I'm in love with Dutch Oven, but I've already knit a shawl with a very similar color, see below).

Lehe Square Shawl from Knitted Lace of Estonia

That's a sock yarn, and the hot pink is a crochet cast-on so that I could knit on the border. It's a FO, but I don't have any pictures of it finished. I should remedy that. Obviously I need to add that to my knit to do list, along with photographing all my stash, putting it all in ravelry, queueing up all the projects from my books for the Library Project, and learning to take better pictures. Eeep, long list. Guess I should get started!

Happy Thanksgiving all!

Friday cuteness

Slow but steady progression on knitting projects does not make for scintillating blogging or photography. So, in celebration of Friday, have cuteness instead....this is Athena, my eternal puppy. She's a great (and sweet and adorable) dog.

Finished Friday Pretty

So I got no sleep last night, for various reasons. Mostly pain. But I did manage to finish a project, so check out the finished Myrtle Leaf Scarf. 

This is it right off the needles. I debated blocking it because it does have a lovely texture unblocked. Even the wrong side looks cool. The next two pictures are the right and wrong side once I uncurled it.

And here we have shots of it blocking. The glistening is water from my spraying it. I generally block lace by stretching it out and pinning it, then spraying the crap out of it with a mixture of water and a little bit of fancy lavender shampoo (for the nice smell). The lace scallops naturally, which is neat, and the pattern itself is quite easy once you get the hang of it. In fact, the only real challenge is that there are no rest rows. The spines of the leaves are formed by the directional decreases slanting away from each other, which I quite like.

Progress (of sorts)

I'm still in the process of organizing books and magazines. I'm trying to make a master list, which is taking some time, especially since I want to be sure that I can put my hands on all the materials in the list. Stash organization has yet to even start, and that's this week's project (including sticking it all in Raverly, since I've been very bad about that).

I do have some knitting to show, as well as some news. I have ended up turning the socks into bracers/long fingerless gloves. Since the only thing I'm now using from the pattern is the number of stitches to cast on, the purl edge, and a stitch pattern, I've decided that isn't enough for the socks to count as my project from Lace Style. But they are pretty and I'm happy with how they're turning out.

I also started a scarf from the 5th issue of Knitting Traditions. Myrtle Leaf Scarf is a lovely pattern, and I appear to be the first person knitting it (according to Ravelry anyway).  It's much bigger than this now, and really is a nice lace. There is a mistake with the stitch pattern, the 11th row should be k4, * k2tog, k1, yo, k5, yo, k1, k2tog tbl*. They left off the tbl bit. And if you really want to be picky, you could also use the proper leaning decreases on the purl rows too, but I decided not to bother and it still works quite well. It's charted below, if you prefer charts.

This will likely end up as a cowl, because my stitch gauge is nowhere near loose enough for this to be a scarf. Guess that's the problem with knitting a scarf from one long edge to the other. But I figure a extra repeat or two of the lace should make a lovely cowl.

I also figured out what my sweater project for Knit a Sweater in November's going to be, but I haven't started it yet. Since it's knitted in laceweight on size 3s (I may end up larger, but I haven't done gauge swatches yet to see), it'd be incredibly unlikely that I'd finish by the end of November anyway, and my dog destroyed my size 4s, so I need to wait for KP to send me a new set.