The aforementioned shawl!

A quick post, because today was atrociously long and as a result, my attention has been rendered atrociously short. Recall how last post I made mention of a recently finished shawl? Probably not - I sure as hell don't read blogs that attentively. But here it is anyway!




This fine creation is...: Wandering the Moor, by Celeste Glassel. Knitted on a 3.75mm circular needle, out of a single 150g ball of Kauni 8/2 Effektgarn (EM colourway).

What Anna has to say: I really enjoyed working on this. I started it in the final arm-flailing throes of exam revision, when I needed something that I could just knit without thinking, and this pattern fitted the bill rather nicely. I finished the stockinette portion in a wee bit over a week (and gathered several appreciative comments from both friends and strangers who saw me knitting away in the pub while sipping on my Guinness), and knocked the lace portion off over the course of a few days. Admittedly I was a bit tired of it by the time I was working the final few long lace rows, but that's pretty much standard for shawls - for the most part this was a pleasure to knit.

I'm pretty keen on the yarn as well. The colours are just as vivid in real life as in the above picture - this shawl is very, very red. The yarn is quite scratchy, but I have to admit, I kind of like it that way. I do like the ultra soft yarns (*cough* Malabrigo *cough*), but I will admit to having a soft spot for the scratchy wools with a bit more texture, in case my obvious devotion to the Noro yarns hasn't already made this predilection abundantly clear. I really loved using this yarn, and definitely look forward to doing so again - actually, I already have a ball of rainbow coloured Kauni that's earmarked for a gift project next year.

In conclusion, I always thought that shawls were something that other people wore. For all that I do enjoy a spot of lace knitting here and there (Exhibit A: Luna Moth shawl), I was always reluctant to give into the triangle shawl craze because I doubted that I'd ever find ways to wear such an item. It wasn't until the last few months, when I actually started wearing my Luna Moth, that I began to reconsider. I'm glad I did - happy to report that I have already worn this one, and have every intention of doing so again. Repeatedly!

As promised...

Once again, the might of the Internet coerces me into actually doing the stuff I've been meaning to.

Exhibit A:

Finished the Luna Moth shawl (used total of 5.5 balls of Naturally Merino et Soie yarn). I was pretty chuffed with how this one came out, and it was pleasantly straightforward as well - not a single bit of weirdness in the pattern. Nice and easy to knit too, and the only markers I ended up using were to mark the centre stitch. I think that I'm now definitely quite firmly ensconced in the lace-with-thicker-yarn camp - I love the look of it. I've gushed about this a little on the Ravelry page for this project, but the thicker yarn gives this project a more substantial, more organic look that I think works really well. So in summary, still love the yarn, and highly recommend the pattern, especially if you're like me and haven't had very much experience with larger lace projects.

Exhibit B:

Please excuse the armpit weirdness - for all that it did end up fitting, and I'm happy enough with the way I look in it, it was disproportionately difficult to get a flattering photo of myself in this top. I think it might just be one of those garments that looks better in motion..

Anyway, this is the finished Askew tank (used about 2.7 balls of Noro Silk Garden - yes, you heard that quantity correctly). And yeah, it fits, but it was a bloody close run thing. I'm just glad I didn't end up making my usual size for this one - there's no way it would have fitted me. As it was, I eyed the ease recommended for the pattern, eyed the number of cast on stitches, and promptly made it bigger than I would have normally. I'm not sure why the fit issues were there - and Ravelry informs me that I'm not the only one to have them. If my gauge was off, it definitely wasn't that off... Might just come down to body shape, as well as size... Oh well, I'll take it on board for next time.

I ended up making it a halter style top instead of a tank - mainly for practicality reasons, and yes, for a few superficial ones as well. For a start, I think it might have been a struggle to sew the straps to the back and actually have them stay on. For some reason this batch of Silk Garden was breaking more than I'd experienced with any other batch (I really was at my wits end with this - and I don't even want to remember how many ends I had to weave in because of this), and I didn't want to put as much strain on the yarn as it would have taken for those straps to work as a tank. So, I'm didn't sew them at all (Anna = lazy bum). Instead I'm just tying them behind my neck.

Normally this wouldn't work of course, or at least not if you like your clothing to actually stay on, but the tightness of the top actually works in my favour for this. It's so tight that there is no danger whatsoever of this falling down by itself - I need to peel the thing off like a banana skin. So I think halter was definitely the way to go. And on superficial grounds, well... frankly the tightness of this top does my comparatively limited, erm, endowments no favours at all. It's simply not flattering. So the halter's emphasis on the shoulders takes the attention away from the fact that it squashes my chest into Silk Gardened oblivion...

All in all, I was happy enough with the way this one turned out - not ecstatic, but happy enough. I think next time (and there definitely will be a next time because my fit issues aside, this pattern has heaps going for it - insanely quick, easy, and a really interesting shape/design) I'll make a size with a lot more ease.

And, while this isn't part of the WIP purge, I love it anyway, so here's a picture...

That's my new hat! I made it to kill time while I waited for nice men to deliver my new bed. They didn't end up coming, which makes it all the better that I had a hat to console me! The pattern is Foliage (chunky version), which every man and his dog seems to have made, and I used a little over half of a skein of Noro Iro (yes, I'm very much feeling the Noro love lately now that I can afford to do so). This is a great pattern - though I had a bastard of a time knitting it, due mainly to needle woes. I had to start over three times because I just couldn't wrangle eight stitches over five needles. In the end I resorted to numbering the needles (embarrassing...). This was a bit dopey really - as was pointed out to me at SnB last night, I could have just started with fewer needles and then added them in. But you see, I have no common sense, and sensible things like that just don't occur to me (Anna = all kinds of dill).

I deliberately knitted the brim very loose. As you can see in the above picture, I have a lot of somewhat exuberant hair, and when I wear tight hats it, well... becomes very clear why I had the nickname of "lampshade" in the first few years of high school (kids can be so hilariously cruel). I was concerned that this would come out too tight, but thankfully there were no issues on that front. I love how this turned out. The pattern is a little lost in the thick yarn and colour changes, but who cares - look at those colours! I've been wearing it every chance I get.

I also frogged a bunch of stuff as part of aforementioned WIP purge. Among the casualties were a bamboo tank I'd abandoned a while ago, and the Honeymoon cardigan - both self designed things. I was a little bummed about the cardigan - it was actually finished bar sewing the zip in, but gauge issues and weight loss conspired against me, and the thing just ended up too big, and not in a good way. Also, I had to tackle the ridiculous irony of the fact that even though the Honeymoon cardigan didn't last, it lasted longer than the marriage that the honeymoon in question was following did...

Yep. The reason for the sudden total change in FO photo locations becomes clear. In a nutshell - stuff kind of went to hell in a handbasket: I wasn't being treated well at all, and as a result of this I stopped being able to handle even basic things like work and uni, and generally crashed and burned a lot. Attempts to rectify these things were not met constructively. So, I left. The last few months have NOT been fun to say the least - there were some very, very bad patches. But I believe I made the right choice (as do my friends, family, and the counsellor I've been seeing to try and get my head on straight again), and even though it's still incredibly difficult and ugly at times, I don't regret leaving.

Oh - this possibly helps to explain why I've suddenly turned into a one-woman knitwear factory (escapism anyone?). Anyway, that's all there'll be on that particular topic on this blog - I have other places to rant. But yeah, I'm just trying to get it all clear in all areas of my life, and since I had made reference to my marriage/husband here, I thought it was worth a mention. And here's the part where I am inappropriately flippant to dispel the melancholy of the last paragraph or so: Now I can knit more - he never liked the knitting, got annoyed when I tried to talk to him about it, and usually complained whenever I knitted when he was around. So, there shall be no more of that...

Anyway, I've blathered on for long enough. In conclusion, my Yarn and Fibre Company package came, so now I have more Noro than you can poke a stick at. This pleases me greatly. But I have to finish my bag before I can start knitting with it. Those are the rules...

The Great Purge!

Disclaimer: there is no Stalin in this post, and it's only WIPs being purged, not members of the Soviet Communist party. To the best of my knowledge anyway...

Still beavering away busily on the Luna Moth shawl (over halfway there now, yarn wise anyway, and it doesn't matter how many repeats the pattern says if I don't have the yarn to do them, so yarn wise works for me!), though I'm still feeling a bit 'meh' about all the other things I start. My short-at-the-best-of-times attention span is really playing up lately.

Anyway, I'm hoping the problem will be alleviated soon when my tasty yarn arrives. I ordered some shiny lovelies from The Yarn and Fibre Company (because of the exchange rate at the moment, it actually works out cheaper to buy a lot of brands online from US vendors, even taking shipping into consideration), and they should be here soonish... *salivates in anticipation*

So, I figured that since there's shortly going to be an influx of shiny new yarn, I should try and purge the WIPs a little to try and clear some mental space for the new projects I have in mind. There are too many things on my Ravelry projects that are 95% finished (i.e. just needs seams, zips, etc), too many things hibernating that deep down I know I'm never going to resume, and too many things that aren't even recorded on there that are lurking in my room, waiting for my whims to turn in their favour. Too many things, period. So a decision was reached - I'm going to try and either finish or banish/frog as many of them as possible before my nice new yarn gets here. This is possible an unwise resolution to make, given that I'm working buckets over the next while, and have an assignment to write for Monday week, but oh well. Sometimes it feels like I get more knitting done when my plate is full of other things anyway. So we'll see how we go...

And boo, I'm sick again. Stupid cough. I had to miss the newly running Coburg area Stitch & Bitch on Thursday, and was thoroughly unimpressed by this, since it was heaps of fun last time. Oh well, next time I guess...

Anyway, off to purge, and possible make a completely counter-productive yarn shop raid. Hey, leave me alone - it's my last day off for two weeks, so I can do what I want dammit!

There is no title, for I am lazy

It's weird - I wanted to knit more stuff, but because I'm so happy with the last couple of things that I knitted, I was worried that the new stuff might just be a let-down. This was irrational on several levels, so I started new stuff anyway...


Work in progress No 1 (yes, I am so incapable of project monogamy that I don't even bother trying any more) is a Luna Moth shawl in my Naturally Merino et Soie - the same yarn I used for my Branching Out scarf (I like the way that it looks in lace). My photographic evidence of this valiant endeavour:



I like how this is coming along - it's quite thick and chunky by lace standards, but I was kind of going for this. There's a time and a place for delicate lace (I do want to get in on some of that 2ply action at some stage), but right now I feel like something a little more substantial. I do need to concentrate on it pretty hard at this early stage, but that's not a bad thing...


Work in progress No 2 is a Shalom Cardigan in Patons Shadow Tweed. I don't have any photos of this one because I don't know how long it's going to last - I keep having mood swings about it. I'll pick it up and not like how it's coming because of the lack of stitch definition, but then I'll have a change of heart and decide to persevere (even if it's only because I have no other ideas for what to do with the yarn). So I guess we'll see...


Anyway, aside from that I've been cooking a lot and attempting to do my law reading... I made the Most Awesome Ice-Cream Ever too - might blog about it later if I can be bothered.

Closing thought - I need to knit a venus fly trap. Just because.