Smiles all around

First off, thank you for the wonderful comments on my last post. I sometimes find myself getting caught up in the product side of knitting instead of appreciating the process side that I really love. Your comments really helped remind me of that.

Secondly, something wonderful happened.

I finished the Swan Lake Stole (a.k.a Mystery Stole 3).

I love how the feathers photographed in this blocking picture. It's so amazing that the different directions of the stitches cause the yarn to look darker on one half of the feather than on the other.

Cast off last Monday. Blocked last Tuesday. Admired last Wednesday and photographed...well, photographed many days later. The shorter daylight hours and my longer work hours have combined to make it nearly impossible to get a good picture in natural light.

Pink Lemon Twist's Mystery Stole 3: Swan Lake
Yarn: JaggerSpun Zephyr Wool-Silk in Pewter
Amount: 1.2 skeins
Left over: about 504 yards
Size: Long version
Started: July 2007
Finished: October 23, 2007

As predicted, I'm loving the extra repeats of Clue 4 in the long version of the stole. The extra length has made the stole more versatile and has moved the transition point between the stole and the wing to my arm which seems more natural to me.

Finally one out of five goals accomplished for this month. If I'm lucky I might even squeeze out one more tonight or tomorrow.

Colour

Twelve days from the END of October and still there is nary a FO to be seen. Mystery Stole has eaten up more time than I ever dreamt possible and it is still 50 rows short of the blocking board. To add insult to injury, it looks almost the same as it did a week ago and is thus not blog worthy.

Autumn Rose on the other hand is holding its own with one entire pattern repeat done on the first sleeve. I am in love with the transitions between colours. This picture does not do it justice (can you believe that there are 11 colours in this?!). In person, everything seems to effortlessly fade from one colour to the next.


In other colour news, I took my first ever trip to the dye pot a few weeks back and came out with this.

200 grams of a Merino Tussah blend. Dyed in bright raspberry, twiggy brown-green, and leafy green.

Mmmm...silky. I can't wait to spin this up! It is so soft and shiny and I am very happy with the colours.

I also dyed up 200 grams of this tone-on-tone turquoise merino. It was dyed using three different intensities of turquoise.

I really enjoyed spending an afternoon over the dye pots. After I see how both of these rovings spin up, I will definitely going back to see what else I can come up with.

Hope you all have a great and yarn filled weekend!

Clue 5 of 7

After knitting for almost a solid week on MS3, I am finally pleased to report that I am very nearly halfway through Clue 5.

Although unblocked lace is pretty nondescript, I am attaching photos.

As mentioned in the last post, I decided to knit the long version of the stole. This will hopefully turn out to be a smart idea in the end but it was a painful two hundred some rows of cat's paw lace.

The goal for this week is to finish Clue 6. This goal is overly ambitious but I feel like it is the only way that I am going to have a hope of making it through my UFOctober list over the next 19 days. Mystery Stole is the priority since I need the needles for my November NaKniSweMo project, Eunny's Tangled Yoke Cardigan from the Fall '07 Interweave magazine (and for those who are keeping count, that will be my third project from this issue).

At least there is a method to my madness.

Thoughts

It has been awhile now hasn't it? I've been constantly torn between knitting and blogging lately. I hate not blogging but have little to say without the knitting. Needless to say I've had to be selective with use of my limited free time. Although there's some "bad blogger" guilt, there's also been lots of knitting and that makes up for everything, right?

First up there's MS3:

I've managed to get through the first half of Clue 4. I love the stole. The design is beautiful, challenging, and interesting. As I pour endless hours of precious knitting time into this project I become less able to sit back and enjoy it as I once did. While considering the rationale behind this sentiment, I realized that boredom and distraction weren't at issue but that I missed engaging with the creative process instrumental to my knitting.

How is MS3 different from following any other pattern? Well, the mystery factor meant that I put all of my faith in Melanie and followed her suggestions. I used the suggested yarn, in one of the two suggested shades, and have refused to even consider any changes to the pattern since they would be decisions based on what I view as inadequate information. That is not to say I'll never finish, but that it is firmly seated on the back burner for the next little while.

I don't regret deciding to sign up since it's taught me that what I love most about knitting is making decisions and seeing how those decisions affect the finished product and make it into something of my very own. I am firmly of the belief that Melanie is a genius disguised as a wonderful, and generous person for both having developed and administered this massive undertaking in such an effective and gracious manner.

To counteract the blasé I am knitting this, completely resizing it and changing parts of the silhouette. It excites me to no end (pictures to come).

If you are looking for some more reading I found this post to be very interesting. It is an excellent reflection on some common perceptions of knitters. The whole issue of when it is socially acceptable to knit in public is something that I've often grappled with. I agree with Linz when she says that often times people look at knitters who are knitting while engaging with their external environment as either rude or inconsiderate. I don't have an answer but really enjoyed tossing it around in my head for a day or two. Hopefully you might as well.

More knitting updates soon!

Chain reaction

Here we have...a finished Icarus blocking on the bed (better photos to come this weekend). I bought some blocking wires for the occasion. Although they were a little awkward at first (sticky wet silk and all), they ended up doing a fantastic job of the shawl.

See what I mean. Look at this edging! I'm obsessed. Icarus has definitely exceeded my expectations. I love when that happens. The colour in this picture is more accurate than in the previous one.

And here's what's been keeping me from progressing on MS3 (still only about 2 rows into the third clue). Meet my very first toe-up sock. It's Ann Budd's on-you-toes sock from the summer Interweave. I have no idea what possessed me to start this little guy. I just reached into the stash Friday morning on my way to work, found some Jitterbug and threw the mag into my bag for the commute.

That tricky European cast-on took me more than a few tries, but it was worth in the end. I made a few changes to it, namely I alternated right and left leaning M1s to keep things symmetrical and got rid of the first knit round on the toe since I felt it looked too pointy. Here's where things were Friday evening.

And Saturday afternoon.

Sunday evening.

And lastly, a sad, neglected MS3 just before I finished off the second clue. I've just picked it up again, so hopefully I'll make it through Clue 3 sometime next week. I love the mystery thing but I'm still not sure how I feel about the summer-long project monogamy that comes with it.

I also made my way back to the wheel this weekend, hopefully by the end of next week I'll finally finish the seaside singles I've been working on so I can start plying. Fine spinning is fun but slow...

The Promise of a Weekend

Things have been unbelievably busy these last few weeks. I've been completing my professional responsibility course. This being the last hoop we have to jump through before the law society trusts us in the real world.

I'm away for the weekend again and on Monday, I start working and officially give up my student status for the first time in my life. A little scary, no?

On the knitting front, I've been slowly plugging away at the thousands of projects (or maybe more like 4) currently on the needles with no real progress to show. Icarus still has another 10 rows to go until she's finished. It WILL get done this weekend while at the cottage (don't laugh).

Way back in the day, I got sucked into the Mystery Stole 3 vortex after reading this on Nicole's blog. Since the start date was looming I went out to buy some suitable yarn last week. Don't look at me like that, there was nothing that would work in the stash. I swear.

Zephyr wool/silk in a colour called Pewter. I love that it's neither grey nor white.

Here's what I've managed to finish so far. Hopefully I'll also get caught up over the weekend since I'm only halfway through Clue 1 and Clue 2 was posted this morning.

So far I sort of like not knowing what the finished product will look like exactly. I also love the pressure of having to keep up with the clues. This should force me to get my act together.

Does anyone else have a series of unrealistic goals to be met this weekend? I can't help but feel that weekends are a type of magical time-warp where I will finally get caught up with everything (you can laugh at this one...I'm laughing too.)