Traveling Project

Since my Icarus is now too big to carry with me on my daily commute I have started a sock. A year or so I received some Sockatta sock yarn as part of a the Knitter's Tea Swap. I brought this yarn with me backpacking last year, but the yarn and the pattern I chose didn't work together so the sock was frogged. Recently, I saw Cookie A's Mingus sock pattern and decided that was the pair of socks my Sockatta needed to become. Now, my yarn has started it's journey to becoming a sock.Obviously, I still have a long way to go before this tube is a sock.

I haven't felt like tearing out the zipper on Celtic Icon, so I have ignored my messy zipper for now. I decided that I would baste in the other side of the zipper and see if the zipper flops open. Wish me luck, I really don't feel like starting zipper installation from scratch.

Does it Still Count as Stash...

If you buy one more skein of yarn to finish a project started from stash? I started Icarus with a skein and half of yarn, I suspected that I might not have enough yarn to finish the shawl, so I ordered an extra skein, just in case. Turns out that was a good idea. I am into the new skein, and I still have one chart and the edging to go.

I started putting the zipper in on Celtic Icon, but I think I am going to pull all of the stitching out because as you can see from this photo, I was extremely sloppy when I started sewing it in, I thought I could live with the mess, but now, I am thinking that I really truly can't.

Book Review

Today I have nothing interesting to share knitting-wise. Icarus is just a bigger blob of black. Therefore, I am going to give a long over due book review of Debbie Macomber's Back on Blossom Street. K & I were asked awhile ago to do a review of this book, but with our various schedules we just weren't able to get the review together.

Back on Blossom Street is the third installment of Macomber's series about the lives of the owner and customers of a Seattle yarn store. This book was very similar to the first 2, so if you enjoyed them, chances are good that you will enjoy Back on Blossom Street. The book tells the stories of the problems that several returning characters are dealing with and introduces new characters as well. Of course, everyone has a happy ending.

Back on Blossom Street was an easy, quick read. Unfortunately, I found the story to be a bit predictable, and more than that it seemed a little naive with it's characterizations of young women living in the city of Seattle. I honestly don't know if things are different in Seattle than they are here, but no one I know is anything like the women in the book.

More Scraps

I have made more progress with scrap yarn. My Pirate hat is finished, I was able to use the lavender left over from my herringbone mitts for the hat liner (I forgot to take a photo of the lining, sorry).

On Friday I found myself taking a train from Boston to Philly. I knew that I would be returning to Boston on Saturday night. I needed a small project to keep me busy. My Pirate Hat wasn't done at that time, but I knew that it wouldn't be enough to keep me busy during my time away. My Evangeline weren't done (and still aren't) but again that wouldn't be enough. I could have brought both with me, but that would take up space that I didn't want to use, so I reached into my left over lace weight yarn and pulled out a 1/2 skein of black Misti Alpaca that I had left over from my Ethereal Fichu shawl and the pattern for Icarus and brought those with me on the train. I finished the half skein on the train ride home and on Sunday I joined the remaining skein that I owned. I don't think that 1 1/2 skeins will be enough to finish this shawl, but I figure that buying just one skein of black Misti Alpaca won't break the bank and that black should be easy to match. Much to my surprise I am enjoying the simplicity of this pattern, I have liked the FO very much since I first saw it, but I had been hesitant to make it, thinking that I would easily get bored with the body of the shawl. It is nice to see that I was mistaken.

Black yarn is not the best color choice for me. Sorry about the white cat hairs, Isis likes to seek immortality in yarn.

Using up scraps

With Celtic Icon pretty much done I have been going through my yarn supply looking for things to keep me busy knitting until the zipper comes in (you would like I would pick up Venezia and work on that, but you would be wrong). What I have been doing is making hats. 4 of them at last count.

I made the bucket hat that I showed in my last post. I also made a Cabled Newsboy Hat from Stitch 'n Bitch Nation from some Lamb's Pride Superwash Worsted, which was gifted to me by C before she moved to San Francisco.

Then I made a second Better Bucket Hat. This time using worsted weight yarn, more of the yarn from C.

Then I started a We Call Them Pirates hat using the yarn left over from my Season's sweater.

I also started anther pair of wristwarmers, Evangaline from Magknits. These are being knit using the left over yarn from Celtic Icon.

Breaking the Silence

Hello all! It has been just over a week since I last posted. I wish that I could say that I was away on vacation, but the truth is that I was home sick most of last week, and I didn't have my computer with me. I wasn't terribly sick, but the people that I work with didn't want me to come anywhere near them.

You would think that not working would have left me with a ton of knitting time, but somehow, knitting didn't really happen while I was home. When I was starting to feel better I was able to pick up the needles again and finish the knitting and seaming parts of Celtic Icon. I have ordered a zipper, so once that comes in I will be able to truly finish this sweater. Somehow when taking the photos of my nearly finished object I forgot to photograph the back. I will do that when the zipper is in place.

I also started on a bit of a hat thing. I bought one skein of Manos Silk Blend (LOVE the yarn) and made A Better Bucket hat (sorry about the lack of link, it can be found through Ravelry though). My hat did not turn out very bucket like, but I am still happy with it.

I have also been using up some of my left over yarns, but I will wait until latter this week to share those projects.