Where my focus currently is

And by "focus" I mean what projects currently have my attention.

So to start off, let's check out my finished Fisherman's Rib Scarf thing.

This is so cushy! It isn't symmetrical because I wasn't sure how much grey I had left and ended up just using up all the yarn I had left. Oh and thank goodness for spit splicing! I was 6 stitches short on the grey for the last row, but managed to spit splice in just enough from where I originally added in the grey.

The other nice thing for this super warm scarf, is that I can fold it in half and wrap it around my neck like a short scarf like this:

Or put it's full width around my shoulders like shawl, or use it as a small lap blanket.

Full FO Details can be found on Ravelry. This is made with approximately 1.5 balls of blue, and a .5 ball of grey Lamb's Pride Worsted yarn that I bought in Toronto years ago for my husband's sweater of insanity. This isn't an actual pattern, though I did use Wendy Knits Fisherman Rib scarf from her book as reference. With this I just cast on as many stitches as I wanted for the width and did the rib until I ran out of yarn. The stripes were done on the fly, there really wasn't a rhyme or reason to it except that I messed up and did 4 rows of the grey instead of 3, so I just started dropping it down to 1 row, and it ended up working.

Knitting with Lamb's Pride was nice, it's a soft yarn, but the mohair ended up EVERYWHERE, so I did sneeze a fair amount as it got in my nose. I enjoyed this knit, and may use a pattern similar to use up other left overs because it knit pretty quick. I started this just before the long weekend, and finished it up this past Sunday morning, so just over a week.

A part of me kind of wishes I had made it thinner so the scarf would be longer, but I think this will work well as it is. I kind of want to get a nice big shawl pin to hold it on, especially since I've been making a lot of shawls lately.

And with that let's look at my other two projects, both shawls.

First up is the Spring Thaw Shawl that I'm working on in Socks That Rock yarn that I got in the 2004 sock club. I've found that STR doesn't wear as well as I like it to and I find myself darning them fairly often. Don't get me wrong, it's very comfy as socks, but more like slipper socks than what I like to wear on a daily basis. So the beautiful yarn has slowly been being turned into scarfs, hats, and shawls.

I lost the ball band for this one so I can't tell you the colour, but it is a bunch of shades of blues and greys.

I do very much like this pattern. The over all design is lovely, and the yarn is fabulous to knit with.

I very much look forward to getting this off the needles and blocking it out, however:

I only have this much yarn left, and I'm only the 5th row of the edging. It's not that big of a deal, I just need to put out one full repeat of the pattern. This is actually a good thing because the pattern prefers it if you end on an even number of repeats width wise, and I originally ended on an odd number. So I just need to take the time to weave in some spare yarn to make sure I don't pull out too far, and then rip it out to that point and start the edging again.

So while that waits, I of course started something else (but this is IT, no new starts until I finish one of these shawls and get them blocked).

This is all Ravelry's fault. I was looking in the "Your Nicest FO's" thread and saw a gorgeous completed Holden Shawlette in a Raveler's homespun. I loved what it did to the colours, and how it showed off the long transitions. 

It was perfect for another ball of sock yarn, that I had started to turn into socks but then found out the yarn doesn't wear well, and it also didn't feel like anything I wanted on my feet. It was Noro Kureyon Sock, that I purchased from The Loopy Ewe ages ago. I love the colours of it, in fact, Noro is probably one of my favourite yarns in terms of colours and transitions. However I decided to set the yarn aside until I found a project that would do it justice.

I love the colourway, though the little peach parts aren't my favourite, they seem to be pretty small though, so hopefully they won't be the main thing you see.

Here's all the colours up to where I've paused in my knitting, the pink isn't as bright, and the green isn't as dull as it looks here, hopefully I can get a better picture that shows the colours properly.

So far I am very much enjoying how the simple stockinette stitch is showing off the colours. The only thing I'm worried about is the thick and thin areas of the yarn, it has a very different drape in sections due to this. 

I don't know if you can see at the top of the brown section where it gets thicker. I'm hoping that when I wash and block this once it's done it will bloom and not cause too much of a problem.

So that's what I currently have on the needles. Tomorrow I'll be telling you why I may be in trouble. See you then!

Fisherman's Rib

Good morning!

So, after fighting for about half an hour with my iPod to upload my picture, I think I'm going to have to make sure all my pictures are uploaded the night before I post. Nothing's ever easy.

So I figured today I would show you my current WIP, my lovely Lamb's Pride Worsted Fisherman's Rib scarf/shawl thing.

Can I just say that I have fallen in love with Fisherman's Rib since I've started this. At first I was really unsure about it, and had avoided this stitch pattern because it didn't make sense to me. Stitching into the stitch beneath the one you're working with, wasn't that asking for trouble by leaving a loose stitch?

This time though, I bit the bullet and just started doing it! Rather than second guessing myself, I just followed the directions and kept going. It's so smooshy! I love it! I'm pondering making a sweater with Fisherman's Rib in the future, since I live in Canada and it can get pretty darn cold in here.

I'll leave you with this rather old picture of me and Peari snuggling in my old apartment that was rather cold, which was a rarity.