Working from home.

At least one of us enjoys it very much! (I am wearing pants. I swear.)

Now THAT is more like it!

Now blocking, the long awaited Haruni!

Ignore the bizarrely off-center loops in the center detail. I have mostly fixed that.... Since I saw in the pictures how bad it looked! And this is still a LITTLE more mulberry than reality, but SO much better. I can't WAIT until it is dry!!!

Ohhh, la-la!

If I do say so myself, that is one pretty shawl in progress!! I am madly in love, despite the fact that this is one of the hardest patterns I have ever tried to keep track of. The yarn is absolutely luscious. I have been trying to come up with some clever way to express how truly fine, even minuscule, this yarn really is.... But dammit, my thunder has been stolen by the fact that they already named it cobweb lace! But may I say, no more accurate name has been come up with for a kind of yarn. It is barely there, it is so fine. And the fabric!! I feel like I could pass the whole thing through the eye of a needle, if not for the beads! And LOOK at the beads- they really DO look like rain drops about to fall.... I can't wait to block it and see that transformation! Knitting love.

Picture of a project in a WAY earlier state of completion....

See! Above is my Haruni, which I finished knitting on Sunday.... I am a little behind on blogging. And this is the WORST representation of the color I have ever managed. I tried everything I could think of to capture the real color, which is a creamy terra-cotta. Cherry Tree Hill called it Ginger Snap, but it is more like the roof tiles in Sienna, Italy to me. Less orange than the name Ginger Snap calls to mind. But WAY, WAY less purple than the above image. Anyway, BEST pattern ever! (Check out the Rav link to The Mom's version!) I am dying to block it and see it in all its glory.... But feeling a little too lazy and butt-kicked this week to put actions to words. Maybe this weekend. That is still time to enter it in the 10 Shawls in 2010 monthly drawing, after all.
Speaking of bad color pictures, here is my Lisa Souza laceweight yarn. Does that look familiar, or is the picture that bad. Let me end the suspense for you: it is EXACTLY, UNCANNILY the same color as the Butter Peeps that I used to make the Swallowtail. Not the ivory, rust and blue that the website made it look. (Though who can blame a website when I take such pathetic pictures of color??) Not to say that it is not lovely, Lisa Souza's yarns always are in my limited experience.... It is just not what I wanted. Now I have to decide what pattern I should make out of yellow yarn. Baby yellow. Which is Julie's favorite color. Not mine. Sigh.

It is no consolation that The Mom is equally disappointed with her color. She was hoping for pale, pale grey. She got pale, pale mint green. I think she has decided what to make with hers, but I can't remember what she told me. It will be a surprise all over again!

In brighter knitting news, I found the perfect project for the Jojoland Harmony that I bought a year ago at Stitches South. This is majorly cobweb laceweight. I have started a couple of shawls with it and given up. I have taken courage from the Blocking: Before and After thread on Ravelry and decided finally that it is just not possible to knit with cobweb laceweight and have it look like anything other than a hairball hocked up by a soft green/blue cat until it is blocked. Now Hanami is on the needles!! (Is there a theme to these shawl names?)

When I manage a picture of this one and the finished Haruni, I will detail the saga of bead knitting for the very first time!

Number moron. That's me.

I am not being hard on myself. It is a simple truth. No one should ever count on my ability to read, remember or interpret numbers. Let's take the Peasy Sweater for example. You may remember my difficulty in keeping in my head that the unit I was working with was centimeters. Not inches. Centimeters. I worked so hard at hammering which side of the measuring tape that I should be using into my head that I skipped an entire direction. I have been motoring along, knitting and knitting and knitting to get to 22cm. Turns out, 22cm was the spot to increase the SECOND time. I skipped an increase at 12cm. Skipped. Entirely omitted.

NOW what do I do?? I was all proud to have gotten to 22cm, my shining goal. I thought I was going to faint when I read the pattern to see what to do next. I have just about decided, since there are ONLY two increases of four stitches per row, that I am going to increase, knit four more rows and increase again. I can't see that it will make that huge of a difference. Or that I care that much if it does after all that stockinette!!

You switch needles for the bind off at 30cm. I am almost there. And the second set of needles is on its way so I can do a seamless sleeve on two circs.... Or set that aside and start a shawl.... We shall see!

Where the *bleep* is Spring??

It is cold and rainy and crappy here. And my mood is reflecting the weather right now! I know that in the north, talk of Spring waits until around May to start, but MAN it should be here in Hell's armpit NOW. NOW NOW NOW!!!! Instead, we are expecting snow. Ick.

Aren't you glad that I posted today??

I would show another picture of Peasy, but it looks much the same as it did last time. I swear I am measuring centimeters this time.... How could this possibly be taking so long? I have discovered that 22cm isn't even 9". And STILL I am not done! Last measure I had gotten to about 16cm. I thought I would have this done this past weekend!

In much more exciting news, the Mom and I have delved deeper into lace knitting obsession! She finished her Haruni (I blocked it) and it is a stunning masterpiece. Ohh, la la! I am DYING to start this one with some Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn in Ginger Snap that I bought just for the purpose.... If only my size fours weren't currently caught in a metric measurement nightmare.....

We also have made a great discovery. Lisa Souza Lace Weight yarn. Her skeins come in a great yardage of 2520! That is MORE than enough to knit a large shawl and probably a small one.... Great bargain for the 32$ price tag. So what we did was this: The Mom ordered this color- And I ordered this one- She will make the Aeolian Shawl from hers with silvery beads, and I will make (probably) Bitterroot with iridescent beads. Then we will switch leftovers. Aren't we clever??