Getting back into the swing of things

So we've been back for about a week and a half but I really delayed posting because I felt I didn't have much to say. We got married!!
And here's a shot of the shawl in action! (As always, click to biggify)
And I'm sorry to say that all knitting done while laying on the beach in Jamaica had to be frogged due to a user error (read: I didn't read the chart). I've been knitting up a storm on the Laminaria pattern from knitty in a gorgeous Blue-ish laceweight Jagger. Sorry that's all I've got so far!

FO: Lily of the Valley Wedding Shawl

Michael took these pictures around 10:30 this morning and it's a good thing he did because it started getting cloudy shortly after! I think this shawl turned out wonderfully and I don't think that the coloring will be too dark when it's warn over my near-white dress. :)


PLEASE click to biggify! Blogger just isn't doing these pics justice the way they are.

AAAAAAAAHAHAHA!

It's alive, alive!!!! That's right, I finished the shawl, cast off and blocked it last night. Now, if you've been living anywhere in the US recently you'll know that a new snow storm is moving across the mountains and plains today. If you live in Colorado you also know that yesterday was absolutely gorgeous and one of the best photo shoot days of the new year. I REALLY tried to get some lovely blocking pictures but it was late and in that nasty artificial light and NOTHING I took turned out. I'll try to get some decent pictures of it this weekend but I'm really expecting my wedding photographer to do a much better job. :)

As soon as I pushed the last pin into the carpet I went and got out my Nebula yarn, wound into yummy yarn cakes and cast on for my very own pair of Ringwood socks! Yesterday was indeed a good day.

Oh yeah!

Check it out!------->
I've only got about 1.5 more rows and then the bind off for my shawl! I finally got a little motivation because on Monday I'm going for my first fitting with my dress and I'll be able to see if the two look good together and then decide how I feel about the green matching the rest of the wedding. And, I thought, that the point of a wedding is that the bride and groom stand out for that one day, right? Right!

Ugh!

So, as you may have noticed there has been a lack of postage over the last week... But that directly correlates to the near lack of knitting that occurred during that same time. I told myself that I had to finish my wedding shawl before moving on to anything else. I've been very good about that, except now no knitting is getting done. I've linked the lack of desire to knit on the gorgeous shawl to the very distinct possibility that it is the wrong color. I took a swatch to my parents house last weekend to compare with the maid of honor's dress and the fabric that we're using in the centerpieces and the shawl is much more olive and too dark. I don't even know if I'm going to want to take it to the wedding!

Because I can't show the shawl to anybody (also a rule of mine) I told myself that knitting on the afghan I bought the yarn for way back when was ok. I'm knitting it up with the yarn doubled and have finished up one ball of the doubled yarn. Then I thought back to how much yarn I ordered.... I'm thinking that I don't have enough yarn to make a decent sized afghan... but we'll have to wait and see.

I REALLY want to start some socks! Should I continue being monogamous or should I try to satisfy my need for socks?

Yet another shawl update

I finished the repeats last night and have decided on where to put the beads in the border!

Since I don't have a picture of the border yet and I don't want to get into copyright problems with other people's pics, you'll have to look at the shawl on knitpicks. Just click on more images and it will be on the first page in the top right corner. If you look closely you can see where there is a YO, K, YO repeat. Rather than place the beads on that precarious K between the two YOs, I think I'll place them in the center of the K, K2, K repeat that surrounds each YO group. I'm really excited!!

Also, you might have noticed that I now have the Ravelry progress bars for my projects. I thought this might be nice because I don't always update my blog but I'll slide that progress bar along whenever I'm on Ravelry. It comes in especially handy for long lace projects, at least I can SEE that there is progress going and I'm getting near the end. :)

Wedding Shawl Update

I laid everything out and measured again and I really think that 14 repeats of the pattern should be sufficient. I don't want the thing to be too long and just get in the way of my day! I think if anything, shorter would be better and easier to manage and also draw less attention. :) SO I'm done with the 13th repeat and plan to finish the 14th tonight and then calculate how many stitches I need to be picking up for the border.

Thursday night is game night with some guy friends of Michael's so there won't be much knitting but then I'll have Friday night and some weekend time to get started on the border. I have no clue how long the border will take me or where I should put beads or if I should even put any on the border! Any advice from all you out there in the blogosphere? *puts hands to eyes and looks out at the vast beyond*

How I spent my afternoon

I went to my LYS in search of a good faroese shawl pattern to knit up using the Webs yarn for my Grandma. Even though I didn't find one I did come home with some much needed lotion, eucalan, stitch markers and a lace blocking kit!

I needed to block out a piece of the actual shawl to see how close I would be to its actual measurements when I finish the written pattern (this doesn't include any changes that I will make). Here's a pic for now, dimensions soon to come.
Also, Michael got a new grill for Christmas from my parents and just HAD to use it last night. Yes, we made steaks on December 28 on the VERY cold patio. And, yes, they were phenomenal! We haven't had steaks since the one time (that is a grand total of one time) we did at my parent's house this summer.
Since my shawl will be practicing its blocking technique tonight I think I will get started on the swatch for my Grandma's shawl. I will wash it in the new eucalan and hope I can get all the spinning oils off so that is soft and cozy for cuddling up in.

Late post.

Sorry for the late post, I sat down with my cup of tea at 2:30 to write but got distracted when the doorbell rang and this showed up:
and this:
Michael's chanukah gift to me. Needless to say I had to play with it a little:
That's Oriri Draco's yarn that she sent me a while ago. I kept telling myself that Christmas knitting was coming soon and that I should wait to get started on these until I had a ball winder and some time. WELL.... the yarn for the Christmas knitting still hasn't shown up and I got the ball winder... The cake is currently sitting on the coffee table awaiting a weak moment in my knitting emotions to pounce on a pair of needles for some toe up pomatomi.

Well that winding went so well and the end result was so yummy I decided to keep playing; two hours later and one pair of the devil's socks less I had this:
That one big one on the bottom left is what the whole thing started with. Everything else is some handspun that I tried to knit up into socks. The going was well until I realized that I'm not very good at colorwork, especially in the round when the end result should be stretchy. I'm not sure how I ended up with all those little balls of grey because I have a GORGEOUS picture of the finished yarn skeined up into one big one...

Anyway, I found some great Kelly green glass beads at... you'd never had guessed.. Hobby Lobby! I wracked my brain and Google trying to find nearby yarn stores that had good bead selections, then it was nearby bead stores. Those 'nearby' bead stores were at least 45 minutes out of my way and in places I don't normally go. Then... ( I finally came back to reality) I called my LYS for suggestions and they recommended a bead store in town. I went there, as well as another place down the street with no luck. They had nice bead selections but were geared more towards jewelry with higher prices and fewer beads. While I was out doing some Christmas shopping yesterday I saw Hobby Lobby and thought I'd give them a shot because I seemed to remember a better stock of beads than at Joanns. I'm SOO glad I did! I got what I believe will be MORE than enough beads for 8 bucks! They were having a 50% off sale on all Czech glass beads and had just the right color and size for my project.
I came home, ripped back to the appropriate row and got to beading right away:
(I think the picture is a little better if you biggify) I'm VERY happy with the result and finally feel like I can commit to the pattern enough so that it can be finished in time for the wedding. Then I'll decide if I should wear it :)

And, since I mentioned it yesterday, here is a picture of the scarf. I'm at a little over a foot.
And one last picture of unblocked lace.

Beaded Lily of the Valley!

Today I FINALLY found some beads! And you'll never guess where! I've been working a lot on the Lotus Blossom shawl and that darned brown scarf so there really hasn't been much in the way of blog fodder. However, I plan to work on the Lily shawl with my new beads tonight and give you a full update (with pictures) tomorrow while it's storming it up outside. :)

Beaded Lily of the Valley?

I haven't been knitting on my shawl at all lately because I have this nagging thought at the back of my head that I should replace the nupps with beads. I've looked all over google, ravelry, and flickr but haven't found anyone else who has recorded this change in their pattern so I've been nervous to make the switch. Until today. I decided that I can't knit the shawl up and wear it for the wedding if I'm going to keep having these nagging thoughts. I went to Joann's today with high hopes of finding some suitable beads. I'm not sure where these thoughts came from because when I got there they had a very limited selection and almost nothing that would match the shawl. I am still beadless and trying to plan a trip to a bead store some time soon (read: this weekend) so that I can put this nagging feeling to rest.

I'm hesitant to buy the beads online because I know absolutely nothing about bead sizing and what it means in relation to yarn. I plan on crocheting the beads onto the garment and this doubles the size of the yarn coming through the hole. Does anybody have any suggestions? I'm working with Bambu-7 yarn on size 7 needles.

I was having a lot of trouble with the saxon braid that runs through the middle of the green afghan I'm working on. I was trying to interpret all the written descriptions of the stitches into a chart but that just wasn't happening. Then, I found that Eunny had used this exact braid in a cable tutorial! The afghan is moving along smoothly now, I've got a full repeat done:


This year my sister and I decided to try something new for christmas gifts. She picked out some yarn that she liked and a hat pattern, then bought enough yarn for the hat and a scarf and gave it to me. The plan is to have a finished set of a hat and a scarf to give to her for Christmas... so far the yarn has not gotten to her house... I'm really starting to feel the crunch. I was planning on using those two projects as 'commute and at work' knitting because of their apparent portability. The other day I was thinking that I really could use a scarf because I have yet to knit one for myself. I dug through my stash and found two mismatched balls of brown yarn and thought that they were close enough to create some subtle striping in a scarf.

I've reserved this project for only while I'm away from home and just got started on it on Sunday night, this is what I have to show for it:
Probably around 6 or 7 inches.... just something to keep my hands busy at work while waiting for a procedure to finish.

This last Saturday Michael and I had plans with another couple to go up the mountain and bring home our first Christmas tree... We were all ready to go at 8 am and piled in the car with our blankets and layers and knitting... Driving down the road, we maxed at 20mph because the world decided to become one solid sheet of ice overnight. Within two blocks of our starting point we had seen 2 accidents involving at least 5 cars and they weren't just little fender benders. We are talking full on body repair work because the drivers didn't understand the severity of the ice. Needless to say, we did not continue our trek up the mountain and succumbed to buying our tree from a roadside lot.. Not that exciting but it sure is nice to have a fresh tree this year

*Please remember that you can always click on the image to see a bigger, clearer version!

Now in Color!

So I tried my socks on yesterday afternoon, as promised. This picture:
Shows how far I've come and how little more there is to go... In fact, when I had this ONE sock on yesterday I couldn't believe how soft and warm and cozy it was or that I had strayed from his pair for one second! As soon I finished the little photo shoot I sat right down and knit on these the rest of the night so add about 2 inches to the length of the sock for a more accurate idea of what they look like now. I'm almost finished, I'm not sure if I should keep knitting on them and make them as long as possible because my lower legs get cold as heck these days. There really isn't much yarn left but I think I could get another inch or two out of it, placing the CO edge well up my calf muscle which might cause problems with stretch because I'm not ribbing the tops. We will just have to wait and see.

This next picture shows how far I've come on my Lily shawl and how much better it looks than the first one. I forgot to take pictures of the swatches that led me back to the Lily but they are mostly for the Lotus Blossom and not entirely applicable here.
Yesterday Colorado got another dusting of snow and I took a few pictures from the window outside my 7th story lab! This one shows downtown Denver smack dab in the middle of one of the bigger clouds. That dark bluish black cloud that looks like it's in the background is actually hanging right around those buildings, it was REALLY neat, but I guess you just had to be there.
This is a gorgeous picture of classic Colorado winters, snow dusted pines!

I'm BAAAACK!

So lately I've been thinking about jumping back into blogging again. Things have calmed down at work and I have time to formulate a blog post every once in a while. I don't really want to blog when I'm at home because I'd much rather be knitting but I feel bad when I knit at work. I don't feel any remorse if I look busy aka blogging, so this might work! I take pictures when I'm at home, post them to flickr where I can use them for both the blog and ravelry, which I've become quite smitten with lately. :)

Recently I finished a pair of Log Cabin Socks (from Holiday Knits) for Michael because his feet get quite cold in the evenings. I made them toe-up, which seems to be my preferred method of late, and so the heel flap doesn't have the cable pattern on it. These took me about a week and a half! I'll try to get a picture of them on the recipient some time!
A side note, I imagine that many of my pictures will have to be taken with no natural light because I take them when I get home from work and after my workout, by then it's pretty dark!

Here is a picture of the socks I'm currently working on for myself. They are just a general toe up sock pattern made with Trekking XXL in 147 Burgundy. I've worked a bit more on them since this picture was taken on Friday and have passed the heel turn. I find that when I'm knitting both socks at the same time I am actually able to finish them, and in a decent amount of time too! I started these last weekend I think... I also really enjoy being able to try them on as I go, ensuring that most, if not all, of my work will come to fruition!

I decided that I would probably get cold shoulders at my wedding reception and, thus, should knit myself a shawl! I also thought that I would like to wear the thing after the reception and for some reason white did not seem the best choice. I went to Shuttles about 2 weeks ago and purchased a cone of Bambu in this green:

I had the idea of knitting something with a springtime theme, since the wedding is in April, and decided on Nancy Bush's 'Lily of the Valley' found in Lace Style. The stitch gauge works out fine, but the row gauge is almost HALF what it should be! I chose this pattern because I thought that it was fairly calm and wouldn't draw too much attention from my GORGEOUS dress. If I double the repeats to account for the decreased length I feel that the pattern would be too busy for the simple style I wanted. I started looking for another pattern..... And decided that the Lotus Blossom shawl might be a suitable substitute. That pattern has been ordered and is on its way, but I don't expect it before Thanksgiving.

After I finished Michael's socks, before Lace Style arrived and before I started on the Trekking socks, I learned just how dangerous it is to be without anything on the needles... That's why I bought that sock yarn, knowing full well that I have PLENTY more at home. That's also why I bought this sock yarn in cabernet... I was caught off-guard at work and put in the order so fast I sent it to the wrong address! It hasn't come in yet, but you can bet I'll take a picture as soon as it does. This new colorway in prosperity is also REALLY calling my name! Don't you snatch it up until I figure out what to do with myself!

At work, this is my baby:
For those who know a little bit about science, this is a Western Blot set up. For those of you who don't know much about science, it moves DNA from a gel to a piece of paper that can be manipulated a little easier.

I'll be going to Kansas from Wednesday through Sunday to visit some family and won't be able to blog then, so don't think I've abandoned you again!

And, in closing. The obligatory picture of Fez!