Finished!

I finished my pink scarf on Sunday! As it turns out, being unwilling to walk around really gives me a lot of knitting time. Yesterday I was feeling sick, so I made all my preparations for getting sick (buying gingerale, checking that I have bendy straws, getting some jello, borrowing kids' books from the library) in the evening, and then I was feeling much better this morning! Thank goodness - I was a bit worried that I picked up some weird disease or plague at the hospital on Saturday (I know - I'm paranoid), but it seems that it was just a brief illness. Although it could still get worse (I just realized that I may have cursed myself with that statement). But I don't think it will.

I've started the matching hat for the scarf now. I cast on Monday morning (before school... I was soaking my foot to prevent an infection and had nothing else to do), and it's getting to the point where I can safely say that I *might* have cast on the right number of stitches. Clearly any time before I try the thing on is too soon to say for sure, but I have a good feeling about this! I'm also a bit excited about coming up with some decreasing for the top since I'm not following a pattern. I have some hat patterns to check out and compare, and I'll modify and moosh them together into some sort of hat top. I'm excited; it should be interesting!

Lovely Saturday

My Saturday started out well - I went up to my parents' to do laundry and have my car emissions tested (it passed with flying colours - yay!). In the course of the beginning of my visit I winced when I stepped, and explained to my mom about how my foot was still hurting after stepping on a bit of broken glass a week ago (I dropped a drinking glass, I'm a spaz, I know). She managed to locate the remaining shard of glass that was now located inside my foot (the wound had healed over it - eww!), and I called the lovely Telehealth Ontario line to find out what to do. The nurse said to go to emergency. Crap. Luckily, I had brought my knitting with me! Anyhow, after lunch (clearly not that much of an emergency since I stepped on the glass a week ago), I went over to the hospital. 3 1/2 hours later (pretty good, really, considering how un-emergency-esque my foot was), I left having had my foot anesthetized (ow!), cut into, and the glass removed. The shard was absolutely tiny, incidentally; no wonder I didn't find it when I stepped on the glass. Anyhow, my foot hurts a bit now, and I get to soak it in water 3 times a day until it's healed, but other than that, everything is under control.

In related news, my pink scarf, which was less than a foot long this morning, is now over 32 inches long! I'm sure it'll be done by next week.

Sock-cess!

Great knitterly progress has been made - I took my subway sock with me when I went out for dinner with my friends Justine, Tara and Rob (who received and liked his hat - dark blue, light blue, and brown, and huge), and after dinner Justine taught Tara to knit (with my encouragement and support!) and we watched a movie, so I got lots of progress done on my sock. In fact, I'm now at the point to start making the heel. The problem is that I read the instructions in the pattern, and it says to use 15 stitches to make the heel flap, and set aside 30 for the instep. Only problem? I have 60 stitches. Was I supposed to have knit two together for a bit or something? Is there something wrong with the pattern? Is there something else I was supposed to do with the other 15 stitches? What's going on?

Other than that, Justine started a lovely feather and fan lace knitting scarf a couple of days ago in a beautiful mohair blend yarn. As it turns out, the first skein worth of knitting was a bit wonky, so we decided to frog that part. Justine undid the cast on and started frogging back. It did not go well. I know you can frog regular knitting backwards, but apparently that doesn't work so well with lace knitting. I ended up taking it apart at the join of the first and second skeins and frogging back from there. Thank goodness it worked! Now the scarf will be lovely and not wonky!

My pink scarf is going well - it's almost a foot long now. I think the fun colour is actually helping me to knit faster - I'm sort of hoping to have it done in a week for when Nikki and I go to Romni Wools! I'm so excited!

The little subway sock that could...

So I've been working on a sock for a while now. To be precise, about a month and a half. Progress is slow. Very slow. There are now 2 inches of ribbing, and about 1 inch of stockinette stitch to said sock. I think the problem has many levels to it:
a) I only knit the sock on the subway. When I'm reading a good book, it comes instead of the sock. Since I read many books, this is not good for the sock.
b) I really, really don't like ribbing. This is no longer a problem, but it was really holding me back before.
c) I'm pretty worried about turning the heel. That's where all the hard part comes in.

You'll notice that I've only committed to making one sock (so far). I figure *if* I finish it and *if* it fits (me or anyone else who likes it), then the time will come to think about making the other one.

In other news, I'm 9 pattern repeats into the branching out scarf. It's still lovely, and I've discovered that I knit it while I "watch" tv, as long as the tv I'm watching is the special features from the Lord of the Rings, because I don't really watch those so much as I listen, and look up when it's important. But, there are still about 28 more pattern repeats to go... so far so good.

I've also started a new scarf for myself, since the one I usually wear will be too bulky for spring. I'm making it out of the same boucle yarn as my existing scarf, but it's not blue... it's pink! Sort of a dusty pink, but for a girl who owns almost exclusively blue yarn, this is a big deal. I bought enough to make a hat and mitts too, but I feel that by the time I finish the scarf, I won't be needing hats and mitts any more (plus, the needles I'd need currently have branching out on them... and it won't be done for a while!). Also bad for the little subway sock - I brought the scarf on the subway with me today...

I think I'm in love...

with a mohair/silk blend. It's so soft, and also fuzzy. I bought it on Saturday, and I think I got a few weird looks on the way home, cause I kept taking it out of the bag to pet it. It's Rowan's Kid Silk Haze, and we're not going to discuss how much it cost, except to mention that I may start looking for a second job to support my yarn haibt :) Anyhow, I'm trying out lace knitting for the first time with Branching Out from Knitty. I didn't notice until I got the yarn home that the pattern says to use the mohair blend yarn if you are a "more experienced lace knitter". Pshaw! say I. I can do it (if I'm really really careful). So far I have about 2 pattern repeats done - lots more to go - see!

And it really does feel and look a bit like knitting with (really fuzzy) dental floss... but I'm sure it will be glorious when it's all done and blocked and everything

I also have some pictures of the finished green monster. I'm wearing a white t-shirt underneath to try and make the seams show up better, but first, the front.

And the side (check out those seams!).

The Green Monster

So, I did finish “the green beast” (as I’ve renamed my garter stitch monster) on Sunday at the end of the Olympics, and I’m pretty sure I did it before the Olympic flame went out. Which I think is pretty good – good enough, in fact, to win the medal! Sadly, I haven’t figured out yet how to post the medal in the sidebar, but… here it is in the body of the text.

Now for the pictures. Here is the back of the green beast, quickly knit up that first weekend of the Olympics.

Here is the front, eventually knit up (slowly and painfully) over the course of the next week and a half.

No finished photo yet, but I’ll be sure to borrow a digital camera and post one soon! The seams are… well, the seams are bad. In fact, I haven’t worn the sweater in public yet because of the seams. They truly are hideous. I think I might re-do them. But I need to know how to seam very loose garter stitch properly before I do that – any ideas to help? I also noticed that when I steam blocked the sweater, the seams looked better. Any thoughts on whether or not full immersion blocking would help even more? I do love the cowl neck though (not shown), so I don't want to get rid of the sweater altogether (plus, it's my first ever sweater!).

Also, here is the lovely red scarf (for a mystery recipient – who I’m totally sure isn’t reading this blog, but I won’t post their name anyways) that distracted me from my Olympic knitting, and is now almost finished as well. It's ribbing, and was originally meant to be Wavy, from knitty, but the waves didn't show up, so I just stuck to plain ribbing.

So now, my current WIPs are:
- the red scarf
- the hat for Rob who has an absolutely ginormous head (no, really, he does)
- the summer hat (for me, not started yet)

Hopefully, soon to be on that list, will be either (or possibly both depending on my ability to resist the call of the yarn) the Branching Out scarf from knitty, or a hooded sweater. Currently the lace scarf is appealing more, since it makes me think of spring, which I am hoping will soon be here!