Doing a Penelope

I swear, I feel like Penelope these days -- knitting, ripping out, re-knitting. I've been working on the same 7 inches for the past 2 days. Good news is that I think I'm finally past it - although decisions still need to be made for the rest of the piece. Sorry about the necessarily indistinct picture.

I just turned in a project for One Planet which I've been told will be released in the fall. So hopefully, I'll have a project to show here very soon. It's made out of the charcoal Lanas Puras fingering weight merino I've blogged about before.

In a first for me, Stephanie of Unwindknitting has graciously agreed to knit the sample for my third Pure Knits project. It's a little weird to not be knitting the sample myself, especially since I often work out design issues as I'm knitting, but Stephanie is a talented knitter (just take a gander at her beautiful work) and I feel really lucky that she's helping me.

Feeling totally lame...

...about having a knitting blog without actually showing any knitting, I'm going to post some info on an old project I finished 2 years ago.


This is the Sampler Stole by Hazel Carter in A Gathering of Lace. I'm not usually a shawl person. Most days you'll find me in my beloved tank top and sweats - anything with collars, waists, etc is anathema to me. In fact, I usually wear my tank tops inside out to avoid direct contact with seams. So you can forget about dresses. But there was something about this stole and its photo in the book against a wrought iron fence that spoke to me. It looked impossibly ephemeral, like fog or mist or a half forgotten memory. And I had to make it.

I used Jaggerspun Zephyr - that delectable combination of whisper thin merino and silk in the sage colorway, but I think it would also be lovely in Kidsilk Haze or Habu silk-wool, or any of the other lovely lace-weight yarns available these days.

Here's a close up:


Yes, that's a mistake in the first row of elongated hexagons where I somehow skipped a stitch, shifting everything. I didn't notice it until the stole was blocked. And I didn't do the border. I like my shawls rectangular and free of frills, but if I had to do it over again, I would probably widen it by one column of motifs to compensate for the fact that it lacks an edging.

It's been stuffed in a drawer for the past 2 years. I think I've used it once. And it sorely needs a good reblocking.

Tagged

Kat tagged me for the 8 random things meme. And given my lack of knitting posts these days, I'm happy to oblige...

Inspired by her post, I'm going to put up an old picture of myself and my brother, Brian. Unlike Kat, however, it doesn't really have anything to do with my random facts, but it's one of my favorite pictures of my brother and me. Isn't he an adorable little dumpling here?


OK, here we go...

1) My favorite ice cream flavor is Baskin Robbin's Mint Chocolate Chip - green, florescent dye and all. I prefer it over all of the other, more gourmet versions of the flavor. I think it's the chocolate "chips". They're thinner, almost gone before they hit your tongue.

2) In my first year of grad school, I was able to say that I had been to 5 schools in 6 years. Three for undergrad (although to be fair, one was only for 2 weeks) and 2 for grad school. Needless to say, I was a wee bit indecisive back then.

3) I cry without fail every time I watch the Fox and the Hound, especially the scene where Widow Tweed leaves Todd in the forest and Todd doesn't quite understand what's happening.

4) I never learned how to swim. In fact, in high school I joined the badminton team in order to get out of the swimming section of gym class. And I didn't apply to MIT because they have a swimming requirement.

5) I knit in the English style. My grandmother first taught me how when I was 6 or 7. Despite some people's best efforts to get me to change to continental, I just can't do it. It feels really weird to me and I can't maintain an even tension. Still, I need to get to it someday, it really seems to be the better way (speed-wise, etc) to knit.

6) As a kid, I loved the House on the Prairie Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder - especially her detailed descriptions of family feasts. Whenever I had a McDonald's Caramel sundae, I would pretend the caramel sauce was maple syrup and the soft serve ice cream was snow. Laura Ingalls Wilder fans will know what I mean...

7) A Wrinkle in Time made me want to be a physicist. I read it when I was 8.

8) I hate celery cooked, but like it okay raw (especially if peanut butter is involved).

Hmmm, so who to tag? If they haven't done it yet and want to, I'll tag Iris, Angela, Stephanie, Veronique, Lisa, Melissa, Gryphon, and Stephanie.