The End, Part II

The obligatory pre-blocking pictures:

.. and several shots while blocking:

I blocked it on a queen-sized futon which was not quite big enough, so it’s a bit crooked and one tip didn’t actually get pinned out, just stretched. It came out great, though, and was folded up and delivered to the person who requested it, who will hopefully present it in a day or two to his lovely and charming wife of 13 years.

And, because I *had* to shop for things to send to Julie, I picked up a few things for me, too:

The pattern is from Wendy of Wendy Knits and is for the L-Bee Socks. The black and blue yarn is Claudia Handpaint in Argyle 2; the small black skeins are Panda Cotton (because Cate* raved about it so much I *had* to try it, especially since my sweetie would really really *love* handknit socks but is sensitive to every animal fiber used in yarn); and the Regia is from a recent destash from Ravelry and will likely be socks for me, but not until after the holiday knitting is done.

* And you really should go check out the Wedding Pi shawl that Cate just finished, too! She overdyed the yarn for it and designed it herself and it’s truly spectacular!

The End, Part I

It is finished. I bound off this evening and blocked it and it’s now folded up and stashed away ready for delivery tomorrow.

I’ll post pictures tomorrow; I have to go to bed now so that I can work a 6-8 a.m. volunteer shift at Herberger’s Community Day in the morning! If you’re looking to get a head start on your holiday shopping, check out your local Herbergers/Boston Store/Younkers/Carson Pirie Scott and get a coupon booklet for the sale tomorrow. The money from the sale of the coupon book goes to support local charities and you save money on your holiday shopping!

Making up for lost time..

90%.

We took a drive today that gave me 4 hours in the car each way, so I was able to knock through a dozen rows on the shawl (it would have been more, but it was too dark to knit on the return trip), leaving only 14 remaining. I’m essentially a full day ahead, which is good as I’m not sure what this week will bring for knitting time. However, I’m hopeful to be finished with the shawl by Wednesday evening, leaving me Thursday evening to block it. It’s due to be delivered Saturday, so that should work out just about perfect.

Up next: Finishing the Charade socks and starting the DNA scarf, plus working on a holiday sweater.

Confessions

I haven’t been knitting as much as I pr’bly should have this week. The shawl is 75% finished, but I’d hoped to be closer to 90% finished by today. I’ll knit some on it this afternoon and evening, and it will still be finished in time, so I’m not really that worried about it. I just.. didn’t feel like knitting much during the evenings this week and I drove in more often than usual because Jack was sick for several days (usually we carpool and I can knit in the car).

I have had fun acquiring bits and pieces for my Coffee Swap III pal, Jules, though. I hope she likes what I’ve picked out for her, and I hope that it all arrives in time to get it out to her in the mail on time!

57.0

Just a quick one – 57.0%, Row 188 completed. I’m half a day behind, which is as I expected I would be. I should be able to make it up tomorrow, though. Tomorrow’s goal is row 200; only 50 more rows after that!

I didn’t make it out to see Crazy Aunt Purl at the Mall of America; it was just a little bit too much to try to pack into an already fairly busy day. Given that I had to present the next morning at the conference I was attending, and then drive the 3 or so hours home, I decided I should not over-exert myself too much.

Oh, and I did get the second Charade sock through the leg during the conference. Not sure I’ll be able to work on that one at all until the shawl is done, but there’s not too much left to go!

Oh, *snap*!*

Dude! Crazy Aunt Purl will be at the Barnes & Noble at the Mall of America tomorrow night. I’ll be in the Cities for a conference. I’m thinking I might have to figure out how to make that work… Might mean I don’t make it to the orchard with Mom, though.. we’ll have to see.

(Oh, and I’m still mostly keeping up. I was a little short yesterday, but am still up in total because of the extra I did Sunday. I’ve finished row 160, which is 41.3% of the total stitches, and the second row in Chart 6. It’s unlikely I’ll stay caught up today and tomorrow, though, but then I’ll have the weekend to catch up again, so I should be about 2/3rds of the way done by Monday.)

* Yes, I’m apparently channeling Joy this morning. It’s pr’bly for the best I don’t have any meetings until after lunch..

This…

(Pictures are clickable thumbnails; click them to load a larger version.)

.. is why I haven’t posted pictures of the Peacock Feathers Shawl. Here.. let’s try a different angle..

There you can see all the stitch markers on the needle. The pale green one is the center. There are 12 stitches between each stitch marker on either side of the center and there are six black stitch markers and five white ones on each side. That’s a 16 inch US size 4 circular needle (I had it on a longer Clover needle, but switched to my new Harmony wood needle last week because it’s pointier). there are already something like 278 stitches on the needle and I’m only 1/3rd finished. *sigh*

Even though I also have the second Charade sock started, given the deadline for the shawl, it’s likely that this little guy is going to be lonely for a few more weeks.

PSA: Yarnware closing sale

From an email from Yarnware.com owner Meredith:

I have decided to close the business to make more space in my life for my family and other creative pursuits. We have been blessed with wonderful customers. I have gotten to know many of you through your blogs, emails and in the store. I have also been blessed with a fantastic staff. It has been my privilege to do business with you and work with you. As a way of thanking you for your business and friendship, we are initiating a store closing sale. We are LIQUIDATING EVERY SINGLE ITEM of merchandise in our store.

All Patterns: 20% off
All Needles: 20% off
Addi Turbo Needles: 20% off
Lantern Moon Needles: 20% off

Every yarn in stock is marked down 20-75% off:
Eros Yarn: 30% off
Artful Yarns Cinema Yarn: 30% off
Lang Opal Yarn: 30% off
Trendsetter Sunshine Yarn: 50% off
Adriafil Stars Yarn: 50% off
Plymouth Parrot Yarn: 50% off
GGH Apart yarn 75% off

• Our prices will be dropping about 10% a week until the end of the sale, or until we are sold out. Shop early and often!
• Quantities of these items are limited. Orders will be processed in the order they are received. We will notify you by email before shipping your order if we have mixed dyelots, so you will have a chance to change your order before we ship.
• All orders are Final Sale.
• We will take orders online until Saturday Nov. 10th. Our store will be open until November 16th.
• If you have backorders with us, we will fill them if the yarn comes in by November 16th.
• If you know anyone who might be interested in sale yarns, patterns or needles, please feel free to forward this email to them.

Thank you for a great 8 years!

Meredith Bright
Yarnware

Honestly, I don’t remember ever shopping from them (I must have at some point to get on their mailing list?), but it’s still a little melancholy to see an online yarn supplier go out of business. :/ Also, just a bit of a warning – their servers must be getting hit pretty hard today as they’re taking awhile to bring the pages up.

Oh, and I’m up to 27.2% complete on the shawl (row 130 of 249).. made my goal for yesterday and am mostly there for today. We have theatre tickets to celebrate our 5th anniversary this afternoon, though, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to “work ahead” this evening, as much as I’m worried about being able to maintain this pace during the week. I tend not to try to knit complex lace like this in the car – it’s too hard to just put it down anywhere in a row and with legal-sized charts it can be too cumbersome to keep my place – but I might have to try it if I want to keep up. Wednesday and Thursday will be especially difficult as I have a conference to go to and will be spending a fair amount of time driving to the conference site (actually driving, instead of riding while Jack drives as I do during our normal commute) and hanging out with my mom and/or networking in the evenings. But Jack will be out of town Friday through Saturday sometime, so if I fall behind, hopefully I can catch up then.

19.3%

Right then. That’s how much of the Peacock Feathers Shawl that I have completed so far. I have 20 days left to finish it, which means I need to complete just under 4% of it each day, and that will only leave one night to block it, which is a little unrealistic, so let’s aim for 5% per day. As the shawl progresses, this will work out to fewer actual rows per day (I’m on row 109 and there are 249 rows in the shawl, each pair two stitches longer than the last pair), but still means I’m looking at needing to clock in about..

3100 stitches per day.

This is one of those times when being a statistician and a knitter is not particularly helpful. *sigh*

Not dead (yet?)

It’s been.. well.. if life is what happens when you’re not paying attention, I’m not sure what it’s been lately. Busy. (Hrm.. I thought I posted this last night.. guess not..)
I have been knitting – the first Charade sock is finished, I’m almost through half of the third chart of the Peacock Feather shawl, I’m a skein and a bit into a holiday gift sweater – but not as much as I should (the shawl is due in mid-November, has 7 charts plus, and each pair of rows is two stitches longer than the last two). I have the yarn for the DNA scarf that I’m knitting, along with four sets of the new KnitPicks Harmony wood needles – two sets of DPNs (size 0 and size 2 – the set I’m missing 2 needles from and the set I use the most) and two sets of 16″ circs (size 2 and size4 – both needed for the DNA scarf, though because the points are sharper than my Clover bamboos, I’m currently using the size 4 on the Peacock Feather shawl). So far, I’m *loving* the Harmony needles.. can’t wait to try out the DPNs (and I wonder if I swap out for the bamboo ones I’m using in the second Charade sock if it will mess up my gauge enough to tell..?).

I would go back through and link all that, but.. well, those that are interested also pr’bly have Ravelry by now and you can find the details on my projects in process there.

I did join a swap – CoffeeSwap III – and I am looking forward to it. If nothing else, it might be a good enough excuse to replace our coffee maker, which died a not-so-glorious death about a week ago. But I’ve already heard from my swap partner and I’m already stewing on stuff to send her!

Work is.. nuts. Non-work “work” is also nuts. It’s time for me to start disentangling myself from things, but the earliest I can disentangle from anything is the end of the calendar year, so .. yeah. Might be kinda quiet-like over this way for a bit.