A finished Holden

The name of this shawl has made me smile since I started it, because I have a nephew named Holden, and he's what I've been thinking about while I've knit this.

So yesterday I got home and had exactly 30 minutes before having to head out to the symphony (side note, my husband knows the assistant conductor, but didn't realize that until he was introduced, pretty wicked cool!). So with that I decided to block out my Holden Shawlette (which I would almost call a shawl because it's big) and my Grandpa's socks.

The socks gave me a bit of a heart attack because when I pulled them out of the water it felt like they'd grown 10 times, but they seem to be fine this morning.

These are just regular toe up socks with a heel flap, the pattern can be found on wendyknits.net under her free patterns. I was expecting the water to have a lot more blue than it had, but at least I know they're mostly rinsed out. I can honestly say I probably won't use Sockittome again. It's lovely and soft, but it's a single ply loose spun yarn, and it split all over the place while I was knitting. The worst part was during the bind off of the second sock when I all of a sudden had the yarn completely separate. Luckily I was able to spit splice it back together, but still, it was a big moment of panic. 

This is very unfortunate because I love the colours in this yarn. I really don't think these would wear well on feet that walked around a lot, which is why they're perfect for Grandpa.

Anyway, on to the real reason you're here. Holden.

Here he is having a nice rest on the futon after he'd had his bath.

(I had to stand on a chest/coffee table we have in order to take this picture.)

And here he is on his first trip out of the house.

This was made out of Noro Kureyon Sock, which is another yarn that I love to hate. I love the colours, so long as there aren't any knots in it.

This would have been done quicker if I hadn't made so many rookie mistakes on the feather and fan area. I really enjoyed making this, and the long area of stocking stitch was perfect to show off the rainbow colours of the yarn, and the lace area was just enough to give a bit of interest without being muddled by the variegation.

It's nice and warm, and after a dip in the wool wash, it's softened up nicely and I think it will be a wonderful scarf/shawl for winter.

Almost done

Good morning, I hope you had a lovely weekend. I'm currently fighting a headache from bending over the Holden Shawl for 2 hours yesterday finishing the picot bind off.

All told I had a lovely weekend. Worked like crazy on Holden, in the company of my kitty and a book on the computer as seen here.

It's much more difficult to knit with a cat on your lap when they are very interested in what you're doing and want to see what the yarn tastes like, and help you with unraveling the ball, and generally getting in the way. Yet letter her sit on my lap was the lesser of two evils when considering what she was doing when she wasn't settled.

Yesterday we went to the local hobby shop and I was able to get all of the edging done, but it did take me over 2 hours from start to finish, after which I had the start of a killer headache. Getting down to the wire I was somewhat worried about the amount of yarn I had left. I though I had the yardage for it, but it was becoming a rather small ball as I was getting to the end. In fact, this is all I had left at the end of it all.

I think my sweat and fears were justified, especially since I was adding two stitches to every two that came off the needles.

Now I just have to block this baby and she'll be done. I'm working on my Grandpa's socks right now because they're simple and don't need much concentration.

Not much to show

So I've got past the stocking stitch part of the Holden Shawl, I'm now starting the lace section and I'm very excited. However, miles of stocking stitch doesn't really catch the attention. The colours are pretty though.

This is a full repeat of the Noro colourway. So far so good, usually when I use regular Noro I have problems with the colourway, in that I'll buy it because it has the most beautiful blue, only for it to only actually have 2 rows worth of that blue in it, and then a knot in the middle of the ball that keeps you in the ugly brown filler colour. Yes I'm still bitter about that scarf!

I'm really really looking forward to doing the lace portion of this, but it's the kind of lace that needs the pattern in front of you, at least while you're starting it, so that's coffee shop, podcast listening knitting.

I will be going back to the Spring Thaw shawl after this, I'd like to have both of these shawls done before the snow flies.

I've also been going through my Ravelry notebook and trying to update all my projects, and put pictures up for everything, so I was lucky enough to grab this shot of the project that made me stop knitting for 2 years.

These are the itty bitty socks, and I kind of wish I'd grabbed a picture of them when I had all 110 done. They were handed out to all the guests at my wedding. They had a few hard candies in them, and were clothes pinned with some tiny scrapbooking clothes pins to little fanned out napkins. We also gave little white boxes with heart chocolates for those who didn't care for knitting. 

At least everyone now has something I knit them and can't say I'm always leaving them out.

Each sock took 45 minutes, and I completed all 110 in 2 months, by myself. Oh the joys of a bus ride that takes 2 hours each way for work.

After that marathon I only picked up the needles for a few pairs of socks for my Grandfather.

Now that I've started picking up the needles again, I'm working very hard to knit from my stash. I have some nice stuff in there, but after three years of ignoring it, I think I can fall in love with my stuff enough to knit with it now.

I may have to do an "airing of the stash" post next week, if I have time to dump it all out and figure what I have on the weekend.