knitting blog

This is what I would like to say: that I haven't been blogging because I've been tremendously busy living my glamourous and exciting life.

This is somewhat closer to the truth: I haven't been blogging because I have been a) lazy; b) busy strategizing how to maximize the time spent in air conditioning while simultaneously minimizing the time spent in our warm, muggy house and, failing that; c) busy playing LEGO: Harry Potter on the Wii.

We have just tamed Buckbeak in Prisoner of Azkaban. It's very good.

I have also been knitting. A lot. I'm not sure if I've just been knitting more than usual, or if I've definitely gotten faster (and I'm sure it helps that the two sweater projects were mostly stockinette, and the scarf was garter stitch), but I've been piling up the Finished Objects a lot more quickly these days.

To wit:


The Liesl tunic (Rav link). The yarn is the Louet Euroflax sportweight that I bought about a month ago. (It was bought specifically with this pattern in mind.) The colourway is "Steel Grey," and I have to admit, I was hoping for more grey and less ... purple. At any rate, I still love it. I finished this before the cottage, actually — literally at the last minute. I set it to block the night before, but it still wasn't dry when it was time to leave in the morning, so I threw it into the dryer (I love this yarn) for 20 minutes, put it on and walked out the door.

I knit this with a deliberately tighter gauge than the pattern called for (because the smallest size was a bit too big for me), and it somehow worked out perfectly.


So, with that done, I needed cottage-knitting: Scaruffle (Rav link), a garter-stitch scarf knit on size 13 needles. How much easier can you get? The yarn is a four-ply cotton with long colour changes by Wolle's Yarn Creations, in the Strawberry Hershey colourway (it's an appropriate name). I had to restart this scarf three times in order to get the right length so that I could get the full colour gradations without making it too wide.

Here's a close-up of the colour-change at the edge of the scarf:


I'm not sure if I'm going to keep this. It's very pretty, but I'm not sure if I would ever wear it, so ... I'll revisit it in the fall, and if I decide I'll never wear it, I'll gift it to someone.

I then started on an Aeolian shawl with the 1200 metres of pink Fleece Artist lace that I bought at the Frolic.


I've gotten through the easiest lace bits, so I've put it aside for when I can concentrate on it — it's no longer streetcar/work knitting.

Since then, I've been finishing up a pair of socks for Pd that have been hibernating since March:


"Cauchy" socks from Cookie A.'s book, in Dream in Colour Smooshy. The yarn is a bit lighter than I'm used to, which was deliberate as these were supposed to be spring socks ... I guess they'll be fall socks, now. I've turned the heel since this picture was taken, and should be done within the week.

Which is perfect, because then will be just in time for me to pick the Aeolian back up while we take the plane to this place:


I know. Glamourous and exciting.