Hemlock Ring Blocked

Yesterday was my birthday. I worked. I spoke on the phone with many family members and friends. I also blocked Hemlock Ring. Twenty six is looking a lot like 25.

In addition to Hemlock Ring, I also put down to knit a small Ishbel for the Knitting Olympics. I've finished the stockinette portion of it and I'm on to the lace part. I didn't get a picture before it got pretty dark out tonight so that will have to wait for another day.

I also haven't mentioned my new favorite podcast on here, yet. It's A History of the World in 100 Objects, put out by BBC Radio 4. Every weekday, the director of The British Museum discusses one object from the museum's collection. He describes the object, significant features of the object and how it fits into the history of the world. It's pretty much my daily fifteen minutes of history geekery. Podcasts and audiobooks certainly contributed to the speed

Nupp Zombie!

I won't share a picture of the Firmaments Lace Shawl as it doesn't look all that different from last time (I've finished two more repeats of the same section). Instead, I'll share something new.

Clearly, when I need a break from lace knitting, the answer is to do more lace knitting, no?



Behold, the Peacock Tail and Leaf Scarf from Knitted Lace of Estonia by Nancy Bush. I can't seem to take a good picture of the nupps but trust me, they're there. Five of them in every repeat and I've finished 30 out of 32 repeats.



They really are quite addictive and I find myself looking forward to them each time. Granted, that might also have something to do with the fact that they are at the midway point of each repeat so they kind of divide up the work a bit.

Also on the needles are another pair of Hourglass, this time for myself.

Actual Knitting Content

I have been knitting, I swear. For whatever reason, I just haven't been able to motivate myself to blog about it until now.

Around the beginning of May, I started knitting a circular lace shawl. In one month, this is how far I've gotten.



Not bad, huh? I've got about four repeats of the last chart left before I start the border. I'm only on the second 50g skein of KnitPicks Shadow. Lace weight is amazing.

An even greater yarn conservation method is to knit with something that's not yarn. When sorting through some old shirts for donation or rags, I decided to cut some up and knit a market bag.



It only took me two nights which is good because it was kind of hell on my hands. Granted, I also stopped as soon as it was anywhere close to a reasonable size.

To make the strips, I cut the hem off the bottom of a shirt completely. I then cut around the whole shirt in a spiral ~1/2 in. wide all the way up to the armholes. At least, that was my intention. There's a reason most of the stripes are pretty short and it wasn't the shirt's fault. Fat girl=plenty of t-shirt material.

I used US13 needles. Instead of fiddling with knitting a handle, I cut three more strips and braided them together and then tied them through a yarn over on each end of the opening. I'm not entirely thrilled with it and might at least go back and knit an i-cord to fasten to it in a similar manner as the braid.

Four Day Weekend That Started Early

My boss let us go at 2 today and we don't have to be back until Monday. Such an exorbitant amount of time to myself. I've been working some on the stole.

It's kind of in the "black hole" zone but I'm still enjoying knitting it, albeit at a slower rate. Still nervous about working the border.

During my lunch breaks (that are an excessive hour long), I've been working on Pomatomus.

I took this last night so I'm actually a little further along than this picture and I'm really loving it. This is in Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Merino that I've had in stash for several months and I couldn't have asked for a more suitable yarn for this project.

I tried to knit these before using Schaefer Farms Lola which is not a sock yarn so the gauge was too tight so it didn't stretch enough to fit a leg. It does fit an arm, though, so they will become arm warmers a la Jess of Ravelry and considering that when my sister saw the leg of the second sock this weekend she thought that it would make a good fingerless mitt, she might get them. Maybe. We'll see how I feel if I actually finish the mitts.

Other than still feeling my way through the new job, I've been Plurking. Lime and Violet sucked me in. I definitely agree that it is better than Twitter because it allows more direct replies and doesn't seem to have the frequent outage issues. Plurk is definitely an interesting new thing and I'm interested to see how it continues.

Actual Knitting Content

Part of the reason I haven't been posting about my knitting lately is that I got so behind on posting about it. Hurray for the snowball effect. I've made the executive decision that the only way I was going to get around to posting about it again was to post as I went along, ignoring everything I've missed. As I seem to also have a huge problem with finishing lately, I'll still get to all of the projects I haven't talked about on here as I get them done.

Now, on with the knitting.

I finished this sock back in April and was a good ways along it's mate (past gusset decreases, I believe) when I just set it aside. It's Fleece Artist Merino 2/6 and I was a little disappointed but not surprised that the lace pattern I was using got a little chaotic with the yarn. Due to the neglect, three of the four needles were completely or partially pulled out of the sock and instead of trying to pick them all up I unraveled and started over.

I don't think that the photo shows it well at all, but these are purl-less Monkeys. This is the third pair of Monkeys I've knit but the first I've left out the purls in the pattern and I have to say that I like these better. Due to my looser gauge when purling, I had ladders like crazy since the purls fall at the beginning and end of each dpn.

These will be going to my sister who was a gracious participant the afternoon I dragged her along to the Yarnery. Especially considering it was that same day that she tried on a sock I had just finished and decided that she liked it and that it fit pretty well (little long as my feet are a size and a half larger than her). And she has commented since that she thought the yarn I bought was really pretty. How could I not give these to her.

My other current project is all mine.

It's "A knitted veil in Pyrenees wool" from Victorian Lace Today in Jade Sapphire Lacey Lamb which is not merino like I was mistaken when asked without a ball band nearby but rather, as should have been quite apparent from the name, 100% lambswool. It is so soft and lovely and the fact that this pattern is garter stitch means that I'm not purling back every other row as is frequently the case with lace that's not knit in the round.

With the new job and the commute that's almost 20 times as long in distance alone I'll probably have a lot less time for knitting now but when I do knit something I'm going to try and actually blog about it. Tonight, though, it's totally going to be knitting and the Tonys.

Weekend Knitting

To really show what I knit this weekend I should be waiting until I'm at home to take pictures but I'm updating now, instead.

On Friday, my Knit Picks order came in. Other than the cables I got for my Options set to qualify for free shipping, I got Selbuvotter by Terri Shea and three skeins of Shadow in Lost Lake Heather for the Secret of the Stole KAL. I really liked browsing through Selbuvotter, and want to make more stranded mittens.

I knit my swatch up for SotS on US4 Options. I think I'm going to stick with this size. I don't know if I'll start it when the KAL begins because I still have MS3 along with some other projects to work on plus I'd like to see a little bit of the pattern before committing to it. Takes a little bit of the mystery out of it, but I'd rather do that than start it and feel obligated to finish something I'm not too crazy about.

I actually did a lot of a whole new project this weekend. Due to the drizzly weather and not many other plans, I finished almost an entire leg of the German Stockings. I purchased some Louet Gems in burgundy at Borealis last Wednesday and couldn't resist starting. I'm really enjoying this. It was kind of fun keeping track of the charts along with remembering to decrease for the calf shaping as I went. I'm all done with the calf shaping and just have about another inch and a half to go before starting the heel flap. No pictures just yet but I should be able to add some soon. Maybe even tonight.

What? This is a knitting blog?

I've finally finished clue 3 of MS3.


I now have to decide if I want to shorten or lengthen it or just knit it at pattern length. I'm tempted to just knit it to the pattern since I just don't know what kind of length I want it to be. My decisiveness is blowing your mind, I know. Clue 4 may just have to wait a bit. I've got more than another week so hopefully I don't get too caught up on it.

I also pulled a sock out that I had started awhile ago but ended up ripping out because the 0's I was knitting it on were giving me a fabric that was too tight. Now I'm using the 2.50mm needles from my lovely new KnitPicks sock needle set. I use the Yarn Harlot's current sock needle of choice. I feel suddenly cooler.



I started it on Friday after work and knit on it while standing in line for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at Borders. I went to the baseball game with a coworker and knit on it there. She also brought her crochet but we didn't sit in the Stitch and Pitch section because we used her family's season tickets. I've gotten the heel turned and decreased the gusset. Other than that long ago frog this is one of the fastest moving socks I've knit.

Moving Forward?

Not much knitting news in this one. I've caught up with MS3 and that's all I've really knit on in the past week.

In other, more progressive if maybe less exciting for others, news, I have registered to take the GRE. I have a college GPA of slightly under 3.00 because I slacked a little too much sophomore and junior years so I have to take it for pretty much any grad school program I would like to apply to. I really do want to start taking classes in something and so this is the first step towards that. I'm not quite sure what I want to do yet but my two main thoughts right now are either secondary science education (mainly chemistry) or a Master's in library and information science.

While I think the need for good science teachers is huge (my sister's physics teacher was horrible at interacting with students), I'm still trying to decide if it's something I could really commit to. In a way, I think I'm being selfish about it. I think I could do it. I've worked with middle and high schoolers a lot in the past few years and have enjoyed it. On the other hand, it wouldn't pay that much. I'm probably making about teacher's wages right now. I would only need the GRE for this if I decided to enter an initial licensure graduate program where you go to school and then student teach for about a year and then you're licensed. In order to complete your education Master's you only have to come back for three months (generally over the summer) to finish it off.

If i pursued the MLIS I would probably use it to research for companies that produce chemicals, most likely pharmaceuticals or to work in a science library at a university. I would still find this fulfilling, albeit in a very different way than teaching, and the financial benefits have the potential to be much greater. I love research so much and getting to explore different scientific advances for other people seems really interesting to me.

I do know that whichever program I would pursue I would continue to work while going to school, at least at first. Between that and the fact that I could defer my student loans while I was in school, I'm pretty confident that I could be OK financially while I went to school. The problem would just be the massive amount of debt I could be under once I left school. That's why, as much as I'd like it not to be, the financial aspect does have to be a factor in my decision.