Holden Shawlette (Northern Lights!)

The result of the startitis I mentioned not long ago in  this post and here!

I did more repeats than the pattern calls for, as I wanted it bigger. I noticed a lot of people seemed to have the yarn for a larger shawl, so I took my chances. I skimped out on the last two garter stitch rows before the picot bind-off to manage it, finishing off with a tiny ball of purple. Made it!

This thing is a lot smaller than it looks. Pretty scary, considering I was only halfway through the yarn-gobbling picot edging when I took this. Talk about cutting it close though –  I made it with about 5 metres to spare. I’d pat myself on the back for my excellent yarn estimating, but I feel like it was really more luck :p

I was going to half-ass it and not bother pinning up EVERY SINGLE LITTLE PICOT on my edging because I wanted to go to bed so bad after washing it, but it turned out I couldn’t do it. I don’t regret it, but I sure don’t look forward to doing this again.

Please excuse the little clumps of angora making everything look like it’s covered in fuzz! I should have defuzzed everything before taking the pictures, but I was lazy and now I’m kind of embarrassed.

But eeeheeehee knitting with handspun is stupidly rewarding. Next project up is a hoodie I think. Who knows when that will be done though. I’ve got 150g of singles spun so far. Hoping to have the yarn ready by next week.

(Oh, and the arbitrary exclaiming of “Northern Lights!” in the title was a reference to what I called the colours of my fibre. I guess I could have explained that, as it’s a bit nonsensical standing on it’s own like it is).

“My margins are both set to auto! What more do you want from meee?!”

(Slightly disjointed post here. I typed it all as I was thinking, without really paying attention to the flow or general sense it might or might not’ve been making)

I am having a frustrating night, filled with petty inconveniences! I’ve got something mysterious wrong with my stitch count on my shawl, and eventually felt I needed a break. And while I am not afraid to tear apart and rebuild entire chunks of lace, I just can’t sort out what’s out of place. So! Back to working on my webpage I go. Except, I have an element that is insisting on floating over to the side for no reasons I can ascertain.

No reasons at all. I’m baffled, but since it’s such a basic thing I’m doing, I’m too embarrassed to ask anyone. I think this is definitely some sort of personal failing.

I’ve got some other stuff I could be doing, though. I have a guitar pedal to build, I have a ton of fibre I want to spin, and I’ve got a shower curtain waiting for me to clean it. That last one doesn’t really sound like fun, but this is going to be satisfyinggg.

The dust is a feature. I find it charming.
…

I’ve also got this warm and happy little guy and plenty of tea.

And if all else fails and I can’t get anything done, I’ve still got this:

A proper picture, not the silly fake HDR that I couldn’t resist for the lantern.

 

I’m hoping to take a ton of pictures of shawls sometime in the upcoming days/week(s). From time to time, I see people wonder if it’s really just a knitter sort of thing, or mention that they are afraid they will look “old” in a shawl.

At first, I was unsure if I’d be able to carry them off, but now I wear them all the time, and I REALLY WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT. So I think I’ll get on that before I have to pose outside in the snow.

Not that I mind the snow, but there is obviously a little more freedom with the fashion choices when you don’t have to work around a winter coat.

Shawls shawls shawls I am so addicted to them right now.  I’m keeping it reined in, but it’s always there, brewing.

So. I’ll get back to fighting with the css that is causing the picture on my page to float to the side, and then I’ll attack the mistake in the shawl. The guitar pedal and shower curtain can wait.

 

Astrid

 

This is Astrid. Her cage is really only a suggestion.

The fur on her face is so shiny that the light is giving her a funny expression, and her hair is slicked back from playing on the couch, so you don’t get a good view of her usual hairstyle, but this is about how she looks now about a month after my last harvest .

At some point, I’ll spin the fibre I’ve harvested off of her and knit myself a nice, soft, lace scarf. I’ll manage it sometime in between running around trying to get her to stop bothering the cat so much and stop eating the couch and oh my god, please stop trying to go behind the tv. I know I could set up a pen for her, but this is more fun. We’ve got hose around all the cables, and she is never out without supervision, but I could have a whole hobby surrounding watching her come up with solutions to problems and finding ways to be subversive.

She is definitely the weirdest person in the house. I’m going to have to expand on that sometime.

 

Anyway, I just wanted to introduce Astrid.

 

My startitis has focused itself! I was hoping it would settle on the gloves, since I do actually need a pair of gloves and not exactly a new shawl AT THE MOMENT, but I’m glad I stopped starting things.

So, the handspun it is. Yay! Watching it slowly change colour is so exciting. I NEEDED THIS.

Oh yeah, the startitis I mentioned

Agh! This is one of the projects I put on hold so I could manage all the other random stuff I’m aiming to get done. A shawl out of this grey corriedale I dyed and spun. I looooooove it so much. Definitely need to be walking around in this before winter hits. It makes me think of the northern lights.

My startitis, let me show you it

My startitis is out of control at the moment. I have a list as long as my arm of crafts and knitting projects I really want finished by the end of October. It’s actually almost winding down now, as I just finished a test-knit (one commitment down!) and decided to put something else on hold. 

And almost immediately, in between band practices and constantly supervising my rabbit, I am starting http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/eisblume with this yarn I dyed. 

This yarn … I had meant to dye it sort of an icy blue-grey, to go with the silver beads I ordered. It turned out lavender-grey with a dark sheen at different angles. Not what I had intended, but it’s an improvement so I don’t care too much. It always does unnerve me to miss the mark with colours, but in this case I’m somewhat grateful. 

 

I really need a pair of gloves anyway.

Rabbit bite hole speaker cone repair!

My angora baby bit this speaker, so I made a video of the repair process.

Felted Cat Cave pre-Part 1

So there are these felted cat caves.

I must make one! I attempted this once already and failed, and eventually I will talk about that and show off my incredible fail, but I just got my fibre for my second attempt!

I have some other stuff too, but 500g of it is grey. Which I figured would be perfect for a rock, but oh no! I don’t want to wet felt that, I want to spin it!

 

So. Not sure if I’m going to go ahead with the wet-felting just yet, or if I’m going to order more and spin this. I have this nagging feeling that it wants to be a cardigan, despite how noble of an existance being a cat cave would be.

Dragon’s Rest Shawl

This shawl pattern – Dragon’s Rest Shawl, by Abigail Phelps

is lovely and magical and huge and gorgeous IRL! My pictures do not adequately capture the colours, as I did it in my living room and it was poorly lit, but here it is!

I just have to show it off, I’m absolutely enamoured of it.

 

I’ve got a bit better pics of what the colours look like in real life – it’s really something, the whole thing. I’m going to try and make an appropriate shawl pin for it.

Araucania Aysen colourway 831. Probably going to have that picture above with the yarn as a wallpaper, once I get around to sizing it perfectly.

The colours, they just got away on me

Believe it or not, this yarn was a fail!

A really, really pretty fail! It was supposed to look basically like this, but pastel. In my currently sleep deprived state, this is what it became. I loooooooove it.

It’s going to be a sundress when it grows up.