The Bog of Lost Scholars

The bookmark is done! And the counted-work momentum lasted long enough for me to work on the blue jay as well; I finished the chest and part of the acorn caps. The rest of the acorns and three leaves are all that’s left.

I’ve also started the alpaca shawl; I’m using the Shetland Tea Shawl pattern from A Gathering of Lace. The initial rows are done, and I’m about to start the first lace pattern. So far, the main difference between working with laceweight yarn and my usual worsted projects is that I can’t knit with this in the dark — I can’t feel the stitches like I can with heavier yarns, because the yarn’s so fine. Fortunately I’ve still got the Celtic Scarf for dim-light knitting…. (To keep the scarf from completely bogging down, I’m making myself knit two rows on it before each session of shawl knitting. That seems to work so far.)

The Starlight sweater is done! I’m generally pleased with it; I may go back and either sew down the neck or add another inch to it so it rolls better, but overall it feels good, and I’m happy with how it looks. Now all we need is a day with a 40F high….

Meanwhile, now that high-sweater mode has passed, I’ve knit a couple more rows on the Celtic scarf. We’ll see how long it takes; I’m now in the main body of the scarf, at the beginning of the section that has to be repeated two and a half times on each side. The scarf is a pretty good car/bus project, so I’m likely to work on it often, but there’s quite a lot of rows to go….

Plus, it’s got competition. Since the sweater’s done, I can legitimately start the lace shawl, and will probably do so today or tomorrow. I wound the first skein into a ball yesterday; sheesh, that took forever! If I did this regularly, I’d want to invest in a swift and a ballwinder. (Amusing note: the lace yarn is almost exactly the same color as the Celtic set yarn. Main difference is that the Plymouth Encore has a red in the heathering that the Alpaca Cloud doesn’t, but at a distance they’re pretty close.)

But this morning on the bus, rather than knitting, I made myself work on the cross-stitch bookmark. The coworker’s last day is next Wednesday, so I need to get off my butt and finish that thing! And I probably will be done in time; I’m almost through with the central book, and after that there’s just the rest of the leaves, the flower centers, the outlining, and the text.

No other craft progress. I have a good excuse to do another bobbin lace project, though: a big cookie pillow that my son’s other grandmother (that sounds so much nicer than ex-mother-in-law, especially for someone I still consider family) gave me for my birthday. (A real lace pillow. I can smell the straw.) There’s a neat doily pattern in Idrija Lace that I’ll probably christen it with, and then I want to do the related collar pattern (which I will finally have ROOM to do! yay!). In other craft areas, I’ll probably cut out that turquoise knit fabric soon, now that I’ve dug up the shirt pattern again; I need to start my 2005 ornament sometime too. And of course, sometime I have to work on the crochet overblouse, the pentacle, Ruby, the Flanders map, the crane, the sunflowers, the harbor, the bluejay, and the cat quilt.

The one thing I can reliably do while watching my son is knit. Cross-stitch takes too much looking; the sewing machine is in the wrong room; reading is fine but I’m too likely to get caught up in it, look up, and discover that he’s halfway down the street. But knitting I can do.

I’m now on the first pattern of the Starlight yoke, a snowflake pattern. I think the next pattern will be a Turkish hook pattern I really like, and for the final pattern I’ll just do something simple.

I’ve also finished the Jig socks, and I’m happy enough with the yarn that I went ahead and ordered all the other colors of Dancing while it was still on sale. In that order, I also got two skeins of Knitpicks’ basic wool worsted, Wool of the Andes, in the color Bluebonnet.

That is one loud blue.

I used it for my first felting experiment. I knit the felted bag pattern from Myers’s The Joy of Knitting Companion, though I decided to knit on the straps rather than sewing them on later, and I added a flap. Then I took the finished product, put it in the washer with a load of laundry, and took out the results after the wash cycle was done.

I’m very happy with how it turned out. I’m also much less likely to inadvertently put a wool sweater in the wash now, should I ever have a wool sweater.

The Celtic scarf has a few more rows on it; I’ve got it on hold since I’m progressing on the sweater.

Other than a few more stitches on the cross-stitch bookmark, I haven’t progressed on any other crafts, but I’ve gotten so much knitting done that I don’t mind.