Summit Conquered!

It's been a long long long trip getting this Summit done. It wasn't tedious or strenuous or even trying on my patience. I tackled this like you tackle a garden. All the work is not done in one day, or even one season. Everything in its time...

Enough Zen. By the time I decided this shawl was long enough (and it wasn't because I was sick of it, or because I was running out of wool; it just felt like it was time), I will admit I was only too happy to cast it off!

Neither the cast on nor the cast off are very pretty in this pattern. the designer insists on the backward loop cast on, and I can't figure out why. It's got to be the messiest one you could pick, and I haven't figured out why she thinks it's the only one that will do. But oh well, I'm not going to fuss about it.

The cast off was also a little different as you had to chain some loops to cross the gap where the yarn overs are. I either made mine too tight or I should have chained three stitches instead of two. She recommends puttingProject Stats
Started: 14 Aug '10
Finished: 26 Feb '11
Pattern: Summit by Mandie Harrington (free)
Materials: Fleece Artist Blue Face Leicester 2/8 in Smoke (free/trade)
the stitch on a crochet hook to chain two and then putting the stitch back on your knitting needle. How much better to do the chains with your knitting needle: Knit one stitch; slip it from the right needle to the left needle; repeat those two steps--BOOM two chain stitches. It's not the fastest chain stitching, but it's less awkward than getting out a crochet hook when the knitting needles are already in your hands.

When I was finally done casting off, I worried about how to block it. I have no sinks right now that would fit it! Then I realized I could use the washing machine as a really big sink, with the added bonus that the spin cycle would get the excess water out and produce the perfect wetness for blocking. Worked like a charm and I'm going to have to remember that quicker for other big projects! The other issue was the space to lay it out, but the judicial relocation of the couch took care of that.

I was dreading the blocking, I'll admit, because there were all those curves on the long edges. When I was bemoaning this to Troy, he did a quick calculation and pronounced that three pins to a curve would only require 108 pins. He thought I could manage that easily.

I decided to cheat a bit and just pass my blocking wires in and out twice at the apex of each curve. It's not perfectly perfect, but it worked. And I'm really not sure that after a little wear you'll be able to see any difference. Yeah, blocking wires!!

But enough of the details!! Let's have some pictures!

Hey, you!

You might call this style "over easy."

I thought maybe belted. (Celtic, Troy thought.)

Broken wings.

A surprise for me was that I could wear the shawl easily as a scarf. Nice double duty: I can wear it to somewhere, but then if I'm cold there I can wrap it around me. No need to carry something extra.

Thanks, Troy, for taking the pictures and for being so "directable." ;-)

Travel Day

Today snuck up on me. I knew I had to travel to O'Hare to pick someone up. After much internal debate, I decided to take the Coach bus up and back. You know what that means, right? No driving and all knitting.

Well, since my holiday projects were finished (on time--yay!), that didn't leave me with any small projects going. I woke up at 5:00 a.m. (much earlier than normal, in case that's not obvious and 1.5 hours earlier than I needed to) and the question in my mind: What am I going to bring to knit today?

Big dilemma.

I debated many smaller projects I could start, but knitting in public is best done on a project that you have a good handle on. So I decided to drag along a big project, the Summit shawl. I know the pattern well enough and since I'm knitting the short rows in reverse, I don't have to flip the project around after each row. Much less disturbing to anyone sitting beside me.

On the flip side, it's quite big already and bulky. I wanted to limit myself to one bag (versus my usual three). I grabbed a big one, but the shawl still took up most of the room:

Does it look like you can put anything else in that bag

once the shawl's in there?

And then, I didn't actually make much progress. On the way up, I discovered someone I knew on the bus and we talked all the way up. It was a little crowded and I didn't want to pull out the knitting.

I arrived just in time to meet the flight, so no knitting while waiting.

But then I "lucked out" and we had to wait about two hours for the bus home. I made some progress there.

On the ride home, Isaac and I had a little more room so I pulled out the knitting...only to take a little nap.

By the time I set to it again, it was getting dark. (And the driver somehow did not divine that I needed lights because the overheads remained off.) I, however, am married to a flashlight fanatic and had a new one in my never-too-full-for-one-more-thing bag:

It's a very clever little light designed around a 9-volt battery. And very bright despite its tiny size.

I put it in my mouth which lit my work perfectly, but that is not a sustainable position. (Sore jaw and drool becomes a problem.) Then I tucked it under my chin, which also lit my work well, and also is not a sustainable position. (Sore neck.)

Then I tucked it into the cuff of my left sleeve which worked surprisingly well, which is noticeably not "perfectly well." But I can make do. And I did.

I almost got 1.5 pattern repeats done. I really pushed it at the end, trying to finish the last one, but when the bus gets to your stop, you have to stop knitting and get off.

It's been a while since I've written about this project but I have been working on it in between other stuff.

Somehow it seems to be simultaneously very long and not long enough. I guess I will keep going until it seems long enough, whenever that is. Because guess what! I answer to no one as far as my knitting is concerned. I can knit on this thing until I think it's long enough. Whether I want to or not.

Wait. Something about that logic isn't right.

I'll have to think about that.

New Cast On

Meet my latest obsession:

Isn't that the most interest texture and pattern? I've known I was going to make this one since I first saw the pattern in knitty. I was just waiting for the right yarn.

I settled on this Blue Face Leicester 2/8 from Fleece Artist in a lovely brown / grey-blue colourway. Remember my last BFL project? It was the cables sweater I finished for Troy earlier this year. The one I couldn't stop going on and on about how much I LOVED the yarn. This BFL is from a different company, but it's just as true. It feels so soft and silky going through my fingers. Just lovely lovely. Mmm. (Here I am going on and on again!)

Once I had the yarn, I was waiting for the time. This summer was out, but realizing I may have a little time to knit during the Belinda class, I got it started last week. (I can knit during class, but I can't spare the concentration to actually start a project and get it set up.)

Once it was started, there was no stopping it. This pattern fits many of the requirements for an obsession. It's pretty. It's interesting. It's done with a colour-changing yarn. It's done in small units. Every unit leads into the next unit. It just goes on and on, and so do I!

It's comprised of columns, but instead of knitting all the way across the row, you knit across columns 1 and 2 for a while, then columns 2 and 3, then 3 and 4 etc. Sort of like a crab walk. (Sort of like Entrelac knitting for those of you that know what that means.) This has worked out well for the colour changes as well. The short rows let the short colour sections "pile up" on themselves and make a blotchy look instead of a spread out stripey look. I like it.

I think the colours are truer in the top picture, but this picture

shows you how the yarn has changed: the first half is pale with

subtler changes while the second half is much darker with more

dramatic colour changes.

I'm hoping this shawl will fill the need I have for a shawl to wear in church. I'm always freezing and need something neutral enough and dressy enough to wear with almost anything. I really like how this has a lacy look without being a floral, leaf, or other traditional lace pattern. Don't get me wrong, there's a place for that type of lace but I wanted to be really sure I wasn't wearing anything "granny-ish."

I think this pattern is architectural in form. I love the negative space between the columns and how you can't help but see circles even though only one half of it is actually round. I can't wait to see how it will block out.