Frostrosen is Finished!

I finally got my poor Frostrosen Shawl finished. This was not a difficult shawl to knit and with the size of the yarn and needles, it wasn't even a particularly long knit. But if you throw a huge Knitalong and pattern design in the middle of knitting it, you get a 4 month project. I started it in April and finished it over the weekend.

Here are all the stats and useless information. The pattern is Sharon Miller's Green Moss Shawl*, and I worked the smaller version. I used handspun yarn from The Knotty Sheep's Kitchen Sink Batts in Frostrosen instead of using Kid Silk Haze as the pattern calls for. I used US 7/4.5mm needles and I did work it in the garter stitch the pattern calls for. I don't think I made any changes to the pattern - like I said it's an easy knit and really enjoyable. My blocked measurements are 74 inches wide along the top edge and 35 inches long from neck to lower curve (it's a half circle shape - not a triangle shawl).

*Her patterns are not cheap, but if you look at the Special Offers in her site, you can buy 3 patterns and get 1 free or get a free pattern with the book Heirloom Knitting.

Frostrosen is Coming Around the Far Turn. It's Thundering Towards the Finish Line...

Well, as much as lace can thunder towards the finish line that is. See the picture? See the right half of the shawl? It's not on the needles! I've knit the edging across half of the top of the shawl and now I just have to knit it across the other half and Kitchener stitch the two edgings together. I hope to get it finished today, but that will depend on the Mystery Stole group.

You see, today we took the stole offroading - where no stole has gone before. Today's clue started short rows. In lace. Why would I do that? Because I can! Bwah ha ha!

Of course that means there may be a few questions...

Have a great weekend!

The Light at the End of the Frostrosen Tunnel

See the Frostrosen blob this morning? Guess what? I have two more rows before I start knitting the edging across the top of it! Yipppee! I started this poor shawl in April, but it got shoved in a bag and ignored while I knit the Mystery Stole and while I started the red blurry thing. It's been very patient with me and didn't drop any of its stitches while it was waiting for me to come back to it. It's not a hard knit, or even boring, despite the repetition of the design. It has a nice rhythm to the pattern and is great for TV knitting.

For those of you who haven't seen this on my blog before (did I mention it's been shoved in a bag?), here are the details: Knit in handspun yarn from Frostrosen Kitchen Sink Batts. The pattern is The Green Moss Shawl from Heirloom Knitting and I'm working the smaller size (which is still looking like it will be quite large.) I might actually get this finished and blocked soon so I can wear it this summer!

Uncaffeinated Mental Meanderings

I'm still knitting on the Frostrosen Blob. It's creeping along so slowly right now that if it was the monster in a cheesy 50's horror movie, we'd be at the scene where the well dressed and perfectly coiffed but clearly brainless, female type would be running away from it with her hands held in the air in a dainty manner, screaming. Of course, she would be looking back at it and then trip and fall. At that point naturally, she would turn her head and scream even louder as the Shawl of Doom creeps across the floor, but she wouldn't bother standing up. In my opinion, it would totally serve her right to get eaten.

I mean seriously, if you really fear for your life, quit your silly screaming, kick off those heels, put your hands down and RUN! If you do fall, you don't turn and look and scream some more, hoping that the highly chauvinistic male lead will scoop you up and save you - he's going to slap you anyway to snap you out of your hysterical carryings on (and while I don't agree with that kind of thing in principle, cheesy 50's horror movie bimbos, and a couple of highly irritating Bond girls could use a good slap. Goodnight? And she's supposed to be an agent? Please! )

I won't bore you with a picture of Frostrosen looking remarkably like it did the other day, hopefully the mental image of the Shawl of Doom will amuse you enough today.

Attack of the Frostrosen Blob!

It really does look like a 60's Sci Fi Horror Monster doesn't it, kind of blobbing across the floor? It can't spread out on the needles any more so it just looks kind of stringy and sad. This is the Green Moss Shawl from Heirloom Knitting that I'm doing in my handspun yarn Frostrosen, which was originally a set of Kitchen Sink Batts from Kary. I've got about 20 more rows until I start knitting the lace edging along the top edge and then I'm done! I'm going to put some serious time into this over this weekend and see if I can't get it finished up. It got put aside while I got the Mystery Stole knit up and the group going, but I really want to get it finished because the color is perfect for Summer.

I thought I'd answer a couple of questions from previous posts. Several of you were asking about the red sock blockers I had the socks on in Wednesday's post. I got those from The Loopy Ewe. They are a heavy weight plastic (about 3/16 of an inch thick) and while they didn't match the socks I showed on them very well, I thought they looked fun and would make photographing socks for the blog easier. If you haven't checked out The Loopy Ewe yet, go take a look, even if you're not in the market for sock blockers. (They also have some nice classic wooden ones if red isn't your thing.) Their sock yarn stock turns over very quickly, sometimes a new sock yarn sells out the first day it's put on the site!

For those of you who are wondering about Mystery Stole 3, YES! You can still sign up! The first clue was posted this morning but it's not too late to get in on the fun. When I post Clue 2 next Friday morning, I will be closing the group to new members. This keeps the group on track better as far as where we are in the stole and theoretically does do a bit of crowd control. (We currently have a membership of 3426 so I'm pretty sure any crowd control theories have been thrown out the window at this point.) The text portions of the pattern are being translated from English to German, French, Italian, Dutch, and Spanish so if you know someone who might be interested, but who is concerned that their English isn't good enough to do this, please let them know! The charts are also being translated from chart form into a written out version for those of you who can't knit from charts. Come join the fun if you aren't already signed up for this group. We'll see how many emails your inbox can handle at once! CLICK HERE to get to the group's site and then you can sign up.

I'm Back!

OK, so yesterday morning I called the repair place and they sent an AC repairman. He looked everything over, determined that it was the outside box thingy (my brother has informed me that some people refer to that as a compressor, but I don't know these people), and had figured out what was wrong with it. The capacitor was dead. Apparently capacitors are kind of like batteries so when Caleb suggested that maybe we should just change the battery on the AC, he was pretty much right - except that it doesn't run on AA's. So a quick change on the capacitor, a check on the rest of the outside part of the system and by 10:30 he was gone, cold air was filling up our home again, and I was still going to make it to Field Day with Caleb! The best part? Capacitors aren't too expensive so the whole service call was under $250! Not too bad in the world of HVAC repair. Thanks for all the well wishes and happy thoughts sent the way of our AC! So, back to the real purpose of this blog: to ramble on and on with whatever is hanging off my knitting needles, winding around my bobbin, or laying in little puffs beside the drum carder until your eyes glaze over. Today we will discuss something that falls into the first category: The Green Moss Shawl That Isn't Green At All, But Knit In My Frostrosen Yarn, Which Reminds Me Of Apricots. I've been referring to it as the Green Moss Shawl for short. I have completed 128 rows which means I'm through the shaping part of the shawl. Now I just work straight for 20 rows and then I just knit the edging across the top. Yes, I'm coming around the final turn for this. It hasn't been a difficult pattern to knit and it actually knits up very quickly, I've just been piddling with it and haven't devoted my time to it properly. I'd like to get it done soon because the color just really begs to be worn for summer.

Oh, I forgot to mention yesterday, over the weekend Mindy sent me a picture of her socks so I could put a picture of the orange socks on the blog - scroll down to the bottom of Friday's entry to see them!

The Green Moss is Spreading!

Well, yesterday I got a bunch more done on the Green Moss Shawl - 18 rows more to be exact! I'm now 40 rows from being done with the center. (After I finish the center, I have to knit the edging across the top - scary!) I've moved it over to circular needles now since it was getting pretty big for the straights, so I can spread it out a little bit more than I could yesterday morning. You can really see the semi circular shape on it in this picture. I think it's interesting, because if you asked me to design a semi circle (or circle) shaped shawl, I would base it on EZ's Pi Shawl design. Sharon Miller has put all the shaping between the center part of the shawl and the edging. It has probably meant a lot more charting on her part for this pattern, but the center design isn't interrupted by a round of increases the way the Pi shawls grow.

Ramius and Finn would like to thank you for your comments. I've been meaning to get them back on the blog for a while, but I take most of my blog pictures in the morning right before I actually blog, and that's when Ramius is turning in from a night of doing who knows what, and Finn is wiggling around the kitchen talking (he sounds freakishly like Chewbacca and actually answers to Wookie now) to me about how famished he is and how he needs his breakfast NOW or he'll probably just starve to death right there in the middle of the kitchen. Once he swallows his breakfast (in almost a single gulp), he gives a giant doggy belch (classy dog, huh?), and then wanders over to Caleb to beg for some Cheerios. It's sad, sad thing the way this dog lives.

I hope you all have a great weekend! I'm going to be finishing up the Vine Lace Cardi (yes, I found the perfect button/front bands for it) and trying to get more done on this shawl.

Anything But the Vine Lace Cardi (but I did finish the second sleeve, if you're interested)

Last night I was able to work on the Green Moss Shawl again. I got a whopping 12 rows done on it, but if I'm doing the math right, I only have 58 more rows to go! This is working up pretty quickly, but it's also big enough that it just looks like an apricot blob. I think that AI might be the best ever TV show for knitting, you can glance up occasionally, but there are plenty of stretches where you can just knit and listen. And if you watched last night you know the truth, Elvis is alive, baby! Also I had no idea that House had an accent (although technically, I guess it's Hugh Laurie that has the accent). There's just SO much to learn on TV!
OK, now that I've crushed my parents dreams of me being invited to join Mensa, let's get to the fun stuff! Ramius graced us with his presence this morning before going to take a nap and he even let me get a few pictures. Above you can see him showing us the eyes of a vampire cat. I actually used to call him Count Pounceula.
This might be one of my all time favorite picture of him - kitty toes! How cute! How tiny! How chocolatey brown! I'll probably be setting this one as my wallpaper later today.
Since it's fun to take pictures of animal parts, (and Finn was laying in my lap making taking pictures very difficult) I give you Doggy Drumstick! This is the left drumstick. Finn is actually so tickly of tummy, that we can get both drumsticks kicking if we rub his tum in the right places. It's hysterical. Our previous dog, Bear, would only kick one side at a time.
Finally, I leave you with, "Woof!"

The Green Moss is Spreading! And its still not green.

Well, I'm 78 rows into my Green Moss Shawl now. It is definitely a half circle shape as you can see, and also desperately needs a good blocking. I think with the combination of the fuzzy yarn, large needles, and being garter stitch (my first ever garter stitch shawl), there just isn't going to be that much to see pre-blocking other than a larger and larger blob of apricot stuff I'm calling lace. You'll have to take my word for it! Also, as you can see, I am continuing in my avoidance of circular needles when at all possible - I'm going to do my best to fit this entire shawl on straights. Because I'm crazy like that.

My original plan was to make the larger version of this pattern (Heirloom Knitting's Green Moss Shawl - scroll down to the previous apricot blob entry for a link), but then I realized that with this color, it will be a Spring and Summer kind of wrap and if I make the big version, it could hang lower than a skirt and then I would look like Naked Shawl Woman*. (The larger version is 40 something inches wide, the smaller version is 32 inches wide.) So, since I hadn't gotten to the place where the directions are different, it was easy to change gears and switch over to the smaller version. So, at this point, according to the directions (very well written and thank you so much for switching the charts around for the two different sides of the edging so I don't have to A) re chart them myself or B) reverse them in my head, possibly hurting myself in the process and forever questioning whether / is K2tog or SSK, resulting in my giving up lace knitting for all eternity and needing lots of counseling and medication because my brain was fried by a /). Where was I? Oh yeah! OK, so according to the directions, I have 76 more rows to go before I knit the edging along the top edge of the shawl. Since I've done 78 rows, that means I'm more than halfway done! Except that the rows get longer as I go, so I'm really not halfway done, but I've done more than half the rows so that should count for something. Well, its my blog and I say it counts.

*If you Googled your way in here because of that phrase, you can Google your way out again. Or buy a pattern and then Google your way out. Or learn to knit. You probably need a hobby anyway. By hobby, I mean a socially acceptable one you can show your mother, she would be so proud!

New Lace

Of course since I finished up the Flower Basket Shawl yesterday, I HAD to start a new lace project. What is it? Well the yarn is my Frostrosen handspun (originally Kitchen Sink Batts) and the pattern is the Green Moss Shawl from Heirloom Knitting. Obviously, my moss will not be green. This pattern is for a semi circle shaped shawl and it starts at the bottom edge and then works its way up (very cool and different way of starting a shawl). You start with a bit of edging, part of which you can see above and then go from there. At the moment I'm having a bit of trouble with the "going from there" part but I get confused when I have to pick up stitches from Garter Stitch - the trouble is Pink Lemon based, not pattern directions based. The pattern directions seem to be well written. Once I get the caffeine flowing, I'll sit down and see if I can't get those silly stitches picked up.

I also want to give a "head's up" to anyone who has been thinking of doing Sockapalooza 4 - SIGN UPS ARE OPEN! Head on over to The Blue Blog and read through exactly what is involved and if you want to knit some socks for a complete stranger, sign up! Who knows you could knit socks for me, or I could knit socks for you, or we could both knit socks for completely different people we've never even heard of! Oh, the suspense of it all! I'm heading over and signing up as soon as I finish this post.

Because All Good Things Will Come to an End, Eventually, Even When They Seem to Go On Forever.

Yes, that's right. I finally finished the plying on Opalessence! You can see a really bad picture of it here (sorry, just not motivated to get a better picture right now). It's still drying but I ended up with 2100 yards of a bouncy laceweight 2 ply. I think its fluffing up slightly larger than Zephyr and as the angora blooms it should get that wonderful soft focus look that angora is famous for. I'm planning on using it in a pattern written for Kid Silk Haze, but for now I'm going to admire it, pet it a bit, and let it dry. (The Opalessence is from The Woolen Rabbit.)

I also got the Frostrosen plied this weekend. Its hanging on the other end of the same hanger as Opalessence as it dries. I ended up with 1125 yards of Frostrosen. Its a slightly heavier weight than the Opalessence, but it doesn't have angora so it won't fluff up and bloom the way the Opalessence will. I think I'll also be able to use Frostrosen as a replacement for Kid Silk Haze. Those dots on the picture aren't dust, that's the sparkle from the Angelina Kary almost always adds to her batts. Its very subtle - you think you might have seen a sparkle, but before you can be sure, the yarn shifts, and you don't see the sparkle anymore. (The Frostrosen was a Kitchen Sink Batt from The Knotty Sheep.)

Both of these skeins are in the 6 ounce ballpark (there is slightly more than 6 ounces of the Frostrosen). The differences in length come primarily from the fiber content. If you remember, I spun both sets of singles to the same size, but Opalessence had more twist, where the Frostrosen was very softly spun. The Opalessence was plied with quite a bit of twist to balance the highly twisted singles and ended up a bouncy, twisty yarn. The Frostrosen plied much more quickly because it needed less twist to balance the singles. There is less twist visible in the yarn and it was able to fluff up a bit which is why it now looks like a larger yarn. The Opalessence, while being slightly less fiber by weight than the Frostrosen, is made of Merino, Angora, and silk - all very fine, lightweight fibers. The Frostrosen is made of corser wools (I don't have the list of breeds sitting here right now), so I didn't get quite as much yardage from it. Make sense?

I got a lot of spinning done this weekend!

I'm a little in shock at how much I got done. As you can see on the left, I finished spinning the Frostrosen singles, so now those are waiting for plying (in line behind Opalessence), and I also spun up half of the 5.25 ounces of pink GCNI/Mohair that I painted a few weeks ago. Obviously, I've got to figure out how to wind a bobbin on the Symphony - by weight, there is more fiber on the Frostrosen bobbin than the pink bobbin, but while the Frostrosen is wound nice and firm, the pink bobbin is kind of, well, fluffy. I think it has something to do with the stationary flyer hooks of the Symphony versus the sliding butterfly loop on the Rose. I've already started spinning on the second bobbin of pink and I'm about 1/3 of the way through (I told you I got a lot of spinning done!) and I think I'm doing a better job of loading this bobbin - I'm moving the singles along the hooks faster. Hopefully, doing that will load the bobbin more evenly. I've got the Rose all set up to ply but I know that plying the Opalessence will probably take a while, so I don't know if I'll get to it today.

A couple of people had asked in the comments Friday about cabled yarn. In a "normal" yarn, you spin the singles one direction, then ply them together the other direction. For Western style knitting (I'm not going to get into a big explanation of Western vs. Eastern styles of knitting - Knitting in the Old Way has a really good explanation of this if you're interested) you want the final twist direction of your yarn to be counterclockwise, or S twist. Still with me? OK, to make a cabled yarn, you spin your singles one direction, ply them together the opposite direction - but OVERPLY them. You don't want a balanced yarn at this point. Then you take your overplied yarn (either two ends of a center pull ball or two bobbins) and ply it again, in the first spinning direction, balancing out the twist. If you know you're going to make a cabled yarn from the first, you'd spin your singles S twist (this is opposite of what you'd do if you were just making a "normal" plied yarn), overply Z twist, then reply in S twist again. The advantages of a cabled yarn are that it will really make your spinning look even - doing all that plying gives you a very consistent yarn, it makes a strong yarn, and since its twisted back on itself so many times, it can really cut down on pilling if you've used fibers that tend to pill. The disadvantages are that you have to spin 4 times the length of singles as your finished yarn, there is an extra plying step, and if you don't spin the singles very fine, you will have a huge finished yarn.

Where we see things you've seen before, only they're different

I know I've shown you Frostrosen Singles before, but these are different. These are on the second bobbin! They seem to be spinning up very quickly and I think I can probably get them all spun by this weekend. Then its off to ply the Opalessence (I'll ply on the Majacraft Rose since I have a plying bobbin for that wheel). I've also pulled out some of the GCNI/Mohair that I dyed a couple of weeks ago. I'll be starting to spin that soon which will make for a nice change since I won't spin it laceweight.

I'm beginning to think I should have saved some orchid pictures just to give you something new to look at. Oh well. As for the blue violet orchid, I'm less concerned with what kind of orchid it is, than with the color. I had never seen an orchid that color of violet but I can't believe its only available on that one species - surely someone has come up with that color in other species.