going around in circles

i did not get bit by the spring cleaning bug this past spring. usually i do the annual airing out the house after winter, but not this year. i am making up for it now though. i can not walk into a room in our house without cleaning, weeding out and rearranging things. my family, who does not understand my obsession with a clean house, is nervous. they never know what will greet them when they open a cupboard. oh well.

i also have been reading. granted i am re-reading the hp series, but i am mid-way into book six and cannot put it down. i know what happens. i mean, seriously. but i am gripped none the less and find myself reading a few pages in between chores.

and my sweet friend's fall musical is weeks away from opening. since i am head of makeup, there are workshops to conduct and rehearsals to attend; not to mention the costume sewing.

all of these things i truly enjoy doing. the downside is i have little time for knitting. coupled with the fact i am knitting mostly socks. i love knitting socks but not when it is the only thing i am knitting. so when i came across this rug designed by vyvyan at fishbone designs i went through my sugar 'n cream stash and cast on. but i long for a new shawl but don't want to cast on until i have finished a project, but there are so many other things going on and not enough time to knit and holiday knitting to start. and on and on and on...

if i were a dog trying to lay down, this going around in circles would be fine, but as a knitter it is not fun. sigh. at lease socks are portable!

opinions wanted

i came across a sweater i bought off the sale rack from target many years ago and would like to take it apart for its yarn. it is made of silk and cashmere. i would like to salvage the yarn and knit something non-sweatery out of it, it is way to soft to hold a shape, believe me or else i would not have put the sweater in a to-be-given away pile. plus the fact that i bought it a size or so to big so it just flops about when worn.

so this is where the opinions come in...how do i take apart a sweater in order to salvage the yarn? no clue, don't have time to research it right now, i am already dawdling big time.

so stew about it and let me know. thanks.

a splash of...

i had an "ahh" knitting moment the other day. it wasn't because i had learned a new stitch or corrected a delicate mistake. it was because i realized i can now look at a knitting pattern, see it in a different yarn as well as take note of whatever modifications i would need to do to make it comfortable for me to wear. doesn't necessarily mean i will knit it, but at least i have a better understanding of the overall pattern and how it will fit together instead of being intimidated by it and assuming "i am not ready to knit that yet"!

thankfully i came to this conclusion before i purchased interweave knits summer 08 edition. i have purchased this magazine pretty religiously ever since coming back to knitting. it inspires me and, up until recently, was known to intimidate me. i leafed through the issue oohhing and aahhing. there were so many items i heard calling my name! which was a bit of a surprise because quite a few of these items were full of c-o-l-o-r!

i am not talking about the solid, bright or unusual color. i am talking multicolors in one row color. i am talking about patterns and color. i am talking about how do i keep all those yarns untangled color. this is something that usually makes me break out in hives and whisper the "i am not ready..." mantra.

but not this time. this time was more, "could i tone those colors down? could i substitute colors?" though i have to admit one pattern i love has a steek in it which is enough to make the hair on the back of my neck rise.

but i think i could work past that, literally. doesn't mean i am going to knit it up immediately, it just means i am willing to give it a go and see how it all turns out. will keep you posted.

i had to do it...

my first knitting book was cheryl oberle's, folk shawls. this book offered 25 shawl patterns gathered from around the world. shawls being of various difficulty knit from an array of yarns. the one that caught my eye for a first knitting project was the garter stitch prairie shawl. it was simple, something i would use and ma ingalls would think it practical. the pattern was as the name implies, garter stitch with a yarn over border. at the time, the most challenging stitch for me was the KFB.

but it was the book and the project that started me knitting. i would look through all the beautiful shawls, struggling with deciphering the various stitch patterns, keeping a list of which shawls to knit some day. though i still want to knit half of the book, my ideal was the bird’s nest shawl from the himalayas. this is a 80”x20” shawl with a relatively (now) easy lace pattern. the pattern calls for the shawl to be knit out of pure cashmere…yarn held double while knitted. lust as i may, buying 2,267 yards of pure cashmere is not in my budget.

a few weeks ago i received an email from knit picks announcing a yarn sale. and though i had secretly vowed not to buy any more yarn until the beginning of the year, i thought i would just look. but there it was...as i was perusing the alpaca cloud, one of the suggested patterns for this yarn was the bird's nest shawl. i audibly gasped. for a fraction of the price, yarn for a bird's nest shawl could be mine. and, because of the secret vow, i thought about it for a couple of days before actually purchasing it.

the yarn came a couple of days ago. i chose the moss heather color. and it is really lovely. both my cute husband and sweet friend said, oh, yarn came for you today...as if you need more. but i don't care what they think. i can knit a bird's nest shawl.