Knitting The Blues

Blue socks. Blue Shawl. Blue hat. It seems that the only knitting happening around here lately is knitting in shades of blue.

SO here's a blue-knitting-in-progress post. You can see that progress, albeit slow progress, is being made on everything blue.



Ene's Scarf is, according to the wondrous shawl progress calculator found here, just past the half-way point. I'm expecting it to start growing quickly now that I know I'm on the downhill side - and with ever diminishing row lengths, no less!



The mystery hat is moving along, doesn't look like much yet, but you just wait.

And the sock, poor sock. It's the only blue thing that's for me, and as such it's been neglected. The hat bumped it from it's soccer-knitting status .. I've stuffed it like a sausage here, so you can see the pretty pattern. Don't worry, sock, I'll be back.

3650 Days

Knitting production has been a bit slow at Chez Knitting Weather lately. We have entered that hellish time of year the holiday season early, as we always do around here. It's the result of extremely poor family planning. Three birthdays, Thanksgiving, Chanukah AND Christmas all in the two month period between Halloween (Oh, did I mention Halloween?) and New Year's.

For some, these occasions just mean an increase in knitting production. Not so much around here. Though I love to make and give away hand knitted gifts, I enjoy it most when a gift is unexpected. Around this time of year I often get the urge to knit for someone with whom I don't regularly exchange gifts, but I don't manically knit for every recipient on my gift-list.

My youngest turned 10 yesterday. (That's good news, 2 out of 3 Scorpios at this house have now celebrated their birthdays.) This is the son who brought me great joy last fall when he finally asked me to teach him to knit. The joy lasted a few weeks. The obligatory first garter stitch scarf is stuffed in a bag taking up closet space somewhere. BUT the interest was genuine and he's retained some basic knitting knowledge. From time to time he'll come look over my shoulder and make a knitterly observation that warms my heart. He understands about knits and purls, and was curious about the lace business.

This same son asked several months back if it would be possible to knit a hat of a very specific design that he had floating around in his imagination. We talked about it from time to time, but I just didn't have the will to try and make it happen. Maybe I needed the onset of winter, or the crush of gift-giving opportunities. Whatever the reason, when he asked again about two weeks ago, overcome by a wave of maternal love and knitting optimism, I thought I could order and receive yarn and realize his vision by his birthday. Alas, a federal holiday and a snowstorm conspired to make mail delivery slow, even for the speedy KnitPicks. The yarn finally arrived on Wednesday.



This is the snow






that slowed the mail.





This hat is not going to be knit that quickly. But after a birthday dinner and birthday presents and birthday cake, the birthday boy went to bed, and I cast on for his new hat.


Maybe it'll be done in time for Chanukah...

Addicted To Lace

My needles were still warm from the Shetland Triangle yet I had to have more. On to Nancy Bush's Ene's Scarf: my newest lace obsession. It was a bit slower to get going, as you begin with the wide end rather than the tip, and it was an effort to get 375 stitches cast on and established. But after one false start (Can anyone fix mistakes in the first row without messing up the cast on edge?), I got it going. Even though it appears to grow more slowly when knitting from the wide end, I'm appreciating the psychological lift I get knowing the stitch count is decreasing with every other row.

I'm not working on it quite as manically as I did the Shetland Triangle, but I am loving it. Now that the pattern is established it's easier to read the stitches and stay on track. I'm using Garnstudio Drops Alpaca in a blue that is close to, but not quite the blue you see here. Mine is a little duskier.

Thanks to everyone who left such kind and flattering comments after my last post. It was good for my knitting soul.