The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Long post ahead, so settle in. (This is what happens when I don't blog for over a week.)

The Good
Lolly's Project Spectrum 4.0 began this month. Project Spectrum is a project-along (does not have to be knitting) in which the primary goal is to celebrate color. The theme of this cycle of Project Spectrum is the cardinal directions. Did you know that many cultures see a relationship between each direction on the compass rose—North, South, East, and West—and color, season, element, and natural material? For March and April, the designated direction for the project-along is North. Green, winter, earth, and stones/gems/rocks are the associated color, season, element, and natural material. Below is the inspiration for my first project.



The photo in the upper left corner is what my backyard looks like in late winter. Branches and leaves that fell last November were buried under the snow for months and now lie wet, waiting to be cleaned up. Among these are small signs of leafy green new life.

The photo in the lower left corner was taken at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore on Lake Superior a few summers ago during my trip to the Upper Peninsula. The blue-green color in the rock is oxidized copper.

The yarns are Pagewood Farm Denali in Maple Leaf (upper right) and Navajo (lower right). I just love this yarn. I'm using it to make Joelle Hoverson's Chevron Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts.



Another good thing is that progress has been made on my selbuvotter mitten.



Yeah, remember that? I went to mitten group on Monday and wunderinstructor Janeen taught me a new way to hold the yarn in my left hand. The trick is to keep my index finger low; I was holding it too high up off the needle, so my left hand and forearm were aching after only a few rounds. Not fun. No fun = no work on the selbu. But now I've gotten up past the first star in the pattern. One star to go, then I meet with Janeen again on Monday to finish the tip and do the thumb.

Progress has also been made on my sock yarn blankie.



This progress is primarily due to a new tradition we have going on at ThreadBear: Beer o'Clock. Well, really it's called the Memory Keeper Throw Group, but I like to call it Beer o'Clock. Those of us working on the blankie (and a few of us who are not) meet at ThreadBear on Friday evenings to swap yarn, knock out a few squares, partake in food and drink, and have some laughs. Good times.

The last good thing? New hair color. Needed a pick-me-up.



The Bad
Stash acquisition. Part of this has to do with several trips to ThreadBear for mitten group and Beer o'Clock. 'Nough said. I'm too embarrassed to say more.

I am still knitting with the yarn that hates me.

I have two projects that have to be finished. Literally, I am within 80% of them being done, but I just can't bring myself to finish them. Seven projects on the needles = too many.

I am losing my family's NCAA Basketball Tournament bracket competition. I fear that my bragging rights may be gone. Y'all need to rally for me.

The Ugly
Second day of spring in Michigan.



Scooter, however, could care less about ugly dead foliage and yard clean-up. For him, spring is about one thing and one thing only:

A Wee Bit o' Progress

It dawned on me today that the New Year isn't so new anymore. It's almost the end of February; the year is nearly one-sixth over. Wow. Where did it go? A lot of it got slept away, due to the neverending cough and accompanying fatigue. I'm still coughing, but very rarely now, and my energy is back. I won't say it's 100%, but it's mostly restored.

Despite the illness, I have made a wee bit o' progress when it comes to two of my three New Year's declarations.

First, regarding the declaration to reduce the stash, I have made moderate progress. Small Child 1's sweater is now off the needles and awaiting buttons (picture coming soon), as is Mom's Thermis.



Combined with the 520 yards worth of stashbusting I did in January, I think I'll be close to 1500 yards by the end of the month.

I've also cast on a new pair of socks for February and have joined The Great Sock Off group on Ravelry. This group and the Stash Knit Down group are keeping me motivated to knit from stash.


Hello. We are Dragonflies in Amber, and we are here to keep your feet warm.

Yarn acquisitions? Well, I did sign up for a three-month membership to Plucky Classics, a yarn club run by Michigan's own Plucky Knitter. I love, love, love her yarn, and I feel good about contributing to the Michigan economy. The January shipment was a skein of superwash merino fingering weight in a perfect pink colorway called Hey Cupcake. I don't have a photo (stash photography is on my list of things to do), but you can see it here. Even with the acquisition of this skein, I'm still down a few!

The only other new yarn to enter the house has been from the Blankie Mania group swaps that I have joined and helped run. My pile of five-gram balls, skeins, and "bow-ties" has grown significantly in the past couple of months. But this doesn't really count as stash, right?



Playing with the colors makes me happy. It's like having a box of crayons in yarn.





I knit a few squares. Just a few. Just to keep the mound down to a respectable level. You know, it sits on my coffee table, and after all, I would like to be able to see the TV from the couch.



I have also been working on my declaration to get healthier, particularly when it comes to eating local. Lots and lots of news on that front, but I'll have to come back and let you know about my discoveries soon. I'm out of energy for tonight! And aren't the Oscars on or something?

Remember Me?

Hello, blog readers. Do you need an introduction to remember me? I am the Lady of the Cough, She Who Cannot Get Rid of the Disease Within.

Really, I'm going on week four of this illness, have finished a round of antibiotics, and although I have more energy than I did a week ago, the cough won't go away.

A little mosaic of what I have been doing in my absence:


Top Left and Right—Chopping this up into five-gram bits for a swap; Bottom Left—Fixing this so Small Child 1 can get some use out of it before summer; Bottom Right—Working on fulfilling obligations on gift certificates I gave out at Christmastime.

Irons in the Fire

I've done it again. Too many irons in the fire. A rundown of my current WIPs and where they stand...

I went to my mitten class today and learned stranded knitting. Not so bad with bulky weight yarn. Holding the second color in my left hand is still a little fiddly, but I'm quite proud of myself. I'm sure it'll be more difficult when I use a finer yarn for my Selbu class in a couple of weeks, but overall I'm pretty happy with how easy it was. I was really worried that I'd have a lot of trouble using my left hand.

Today in class I finished the cuff and the thumb gusset of the first mitten.



Janeen is a great teacher. She even brought us a "happy bag," a present to open when we got frustrated and needed a break. I didn't even need to open mine, so I opened it at the end. A pair of scissors, which is great because mine always disappear. I swear Scooter takes them and hides them.

Anyway, thanks to all of you who voted in my poll! As you can see, I stuck with the original colors.

A pair of fingerless mitts is well underway for a certain someone. I'm sure she can figure out who she is if she reads my blog. The button kinda sorta gives it away.


These two neckwarmers need to be finished... weaving in of ends, sewing on of buttons, washing and blocking. That sort of thing.


I started this little Yoda toy almost a week ago and haven't touched it since. (The picture below is from the pattern. I have about 2/3 of the head done and that's it.)


My Pundit Babies have also lay dormant since I started them. Hopefully I'll have my little boy and girl donkeys done by the election. I wanted to have them done sooner, to ride them around on my dashboard these past few weeks.


I participated in a swap to get some more sock yarns for my blanket.


And I'm organizing a similar one for worsted weight yarns.

I've been summoned by the staff at my school (actually, I volunteered) to knit a toddler-sized beanie in our school's colors. Our principal is adopting a little guy from Russia, and he needs some Panther gear. I need to swatch for that tonight!

Finally... I abandoned the idea of knitting the pair of Spey Valley socks for Socktoberfest. They were supposed to have been for my brother's birthday, which was Friday. Sorry, Joel. Maybe next year. On another note, it's freezing in my house and I would like to knit a pair of socks for myself. It's going to have to wait until I knock a few of the above projects off, though.

Newly acquired stash is tempting me, calling my name, saying "Cast me on! Make something out of me!"





All right. Enough blogging. I'd better get knitting.

Socktober Blues

I've got the blues. The Socktober blues. The KnitMeter remains abysmally, well, empty this month. And it's because I can't seem to finish this pair of socks.

Remember how I screwed up the first of Jeeves's garter ribs?



Well, upon further examination it was discovered that I screwed them up worse than I had thought. About an inch back from the above mistake, I discovered two ribbed rows together—the exact opposite of the above mistake.



Sheesh. Maybe it's time for me to pour a beer into one of my Ravelry pint glasses and drink deeply.

In other Socktober news, I gave up on the Through the Loops Mystery Sock KAL. Although gorgeous, the yarn I was using was thinner than I would have liked and it just wasn't knitting up well in that pattern. I'll have to find another use for it. Besides, gift knitting is more pressing right now. I have begun swatching for a pair of Spey Valleys that are not going to make it to their recipient on time, unless somthing bizarre happens this week. I desperately need for something bizarre to happen this week. Like a freak October blizzard. Or catch a highly contagious but not scary, not incapacitating disease. That way, I would be able to stay home and knit. Do you think my principal would have a problem with me knitting while I administer the MEAP?

Hopefully I'll still be able to finish the Spey Valleys and cast on the Blackberry Socks by the end of the month.

About the one thing I did do properly is knit a mitered square for my sock yarn blanket.



The above squares came from the same skein of yarn... Austermann Step in Brombeer. It's really cool how you can get such different looking squares depending on where you are in the repeat.



I decided that knitting the blanket entirely from my own sock yarn is just stupid, so I joined a swap. The last of Little Ford's Box o' Sox sock yarns were wound into 5-gram balls and shipped off. I should be receiving a package with twelve or thirteen 5-gram balls in return by the end of the month.