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!

The Quest of the Baby Sweater

A coworker of mine gave birth to her baby girl yesterday. Last week was her baby shower, and with a baby shower must come baby knits! A week prior to the shower I decided I was going to make a little cardigan out of some sock yarn I had in my stash.

I dutifully looked online for a lovely little pattern, then realized as I was casting on that the pattern was for DK weight and I was using fingering, so that wouldn't work, and since I had enough of a long tail, I just cast on as many stitches as I needed to make it wide enough for a 0-3 month old. I decided to make it a cardigan that a baby could grow into. Short(ish) sleeves, and no ties or buttons on the front so it can just sit open. Just something to wear during early fall since that was when the baby was going to be born.

I knit like crazy, at work, at home, anywhere I could pull my needles out. On the day of the shower I finished my lunch with half a sleeve left to do, so I did something I'm not really proud of, but for the last half hour of the day I knit at my desk. I still answered all the phones, and did everything my job needed, thankfully we (for once) had a quiet last half hour. At the end of the day I just had to cast off the last sleeve and weave in 4 threads which were completed in 5 minutes, and I ran upstairs to the shower. The biggest comment I got from everyone at the shower was that they couldn't believe that something that small could fit a human. I mentioned back that considering where the baby currently was, you didn't want it any bigger!

Due to the last minuteness of the sweater, the only photo I have of it right now is of me presenting it to the Mom, though she has promised to send me better photos to put on Ravelry.

This was made with some variegated Patons Kroy for the accents, and another sock yarn that I will have to get the name from when I get home for the bulk of the cardigan in a lovely light pink. The pattern was created on the fly, and it's a drop shoulder, 1/2 sleeve cardigan with no buttons or ties. I wish I could have blocked it to get the front bands to lie flat. I just did a few stitches of garter stitch up both edges to try and keep the stocking stitch under control.

I'm glad that sock yarn is as nice as it is now. The mom will be able to toss this into the wash without any worry of it felting thanks to the nylon content.

To finish the week out, here's a bunch of pictures of my cats swarming me the second I sit down when I get home.

Please excuse the state of my living room, we're still getting caught up after camping. Also woohoo! I made it one week! Happy Friday everyone. We'll see you on Monday. I'm hoping to have the Fisherman's Rib shawl/scarf thing done by the end of the weekend, and I have a couple other projects that I'm going to be working on finishing that I can chat to you about.

I'm so excited that a schedule seems to be working, we'll see how long I can keep this up.