Fishies

In April, I decided to start working on another afghan.  I found a fun pattern for little fish (Rav link) and decided it would make a fun baby blanket with the Loops & Threads Yarn Gang yarn I bought on sale.  I have approximately one billion skeins, in all sorts of colors, so I needed to do something with it.
I ended up picking out a subdued rainbow, and combined that with cream.  Finally, I decided a dark blue would work to crochet each row together plus add a border at the end (Evan helped me pick out the dark blue). Then I made some of the cream and pink fish and. . .put it away. I figured I could pull it out and make a fish or two whenver I was tired of the current project I was on.
Fast forward to last weekend. I finished my diagonal lace socks, I finished my hat, and wasn't sure what I wanted to start next (like I said in my last post).  I picked up the fish blankie, and started churning them out.  I also decided to start stitching the fish together.  I feel like I've accomplished so much - in addition to stitching all of the cream, pink, and orange into rows, I also crocheted those three rows together. There's nothing like working on the whole blanket as you go. It makes it look like there's actually an end in sight. For me, it's really disheartening when I knit knit knit blocks for what seems like months, and THEN I have to weave in ends and stitch together.  This way when I am done knitting fish, the blanket will just need a border! Excellent :) I will plan on taking a few pictures tomorrow - I also need to get one of my hat!
Oh, and GO GREEN!

Finishing Moves

I just finished up my Diagonal Lace socks today, ends woven in and all.  I also wrapped up a hat I started as a quick project, so right now I don't have any official project I'm working on.  I have a few big things that have been lingering as WIP's or hibernating, but nothing I have a deadline (self imposed or otherwise) for, and nothing small that would only take a little while. I'm not quite sure what to do with myself.  I thought I would cast on right away with my new Threadbear yarn for a pair of gloves, but I've gotten a little tired of the sock yarn at the moment.  I picked up my fish blankie and figured I could make a few fish for that while I'm deciding what my next project will be.  Originally I planned to make my grandma a Haruni for Christmas, but between the socks and all of the other lace I'd been working on, I'm not really in the mood right now.  I think that is also due to using the Comfy Fingering from Knit Picks. I like the yarn, but I don't know how well it's going to work with this project. I need to start over on smaller needles and see how I like that.
For now, I'm back to fish blankie.  I can probably get one or two done while watching DH tonight :)

Rainy Day

I wanted to try and take some new pictures today, mostly of some socks and my Citron, but it is nasty out there, so that will have to wait for another day.
I really am a terrible blogger, and don't keep up with anything. I can't remember the last thing I blogged about before I dyed the roving.  That is still sitting in its drawer. I've started spinning the bare, I try to do 15 minutes a day, which translates to 45 minutes every few days instead.  Someday I'll have it all spun up, no rush. I have no idea what I'm planning on doing with it anyway, so no rush!
I finished the Citron a while ago, but finally wove in ends the other day and did some light blocking. I think it will work really well in two weeks for the wedding we're going to - just the right amount of color (Knit Picks Stroll Tonal in Springtime) to go with my grey dress. Since I had two skeins, but barely tapped into the second, I used (some of) the rest to make a pair of socks. I picked the Dead Simple socks from Wendy Johnson's Socks from the Toe Up. My gauge is a little big, and I wasn't in the mood to use tiny dpns (I prefer two circulars or magic loop - harder to pull needles out accidentally) so I had to do a little bit of modification to the pattern to make them work. They are still just a little big.
Once I finished that pair, the next pair jumped on my needles. This time I chose to make the Diagonal Lace Socks from the same book.  I'm using Shibuiknits Sock for this.  It's the first nice (expensive!) yarn I've used, which is sort of fun.  I'm really liking these. Last night I turned the heels on both, so hopefully bumming around on the couch the next two days will result in some finished socks!  Today in Lansing I bought my next pricey skein - ThreadBear's Black Dog Hand Dyed Sock.  No idea what this hefty skein will become, but I'm excited to figure that out!
Time to finish those Diagonal Lace Socks!

Dyeing?

Recently I bought some roving from Knit Picks.  I went with the cheapest, mostly because I wanted to play around with dyeing it and had no idea how it would turn out. So today, with the gladiolus on my mantel as inspiration, I got to work.

I used four packets of lemonade, two and a half orange, and two red.  I lucked out at Marshalls the other day and bought their last ketchup and mustard bottles, which worked quite well, in my opinion.

After soaking the roving in a hot tub for a little while,I drained the water, put down some garbage bags, and went to town with the dye (I forgot to take a picture of this part).  I then rolled up the whole concoction, put it in a big ziplock bag, and microwaved it for three minutes. Once it was cool enough to touch, I unrolled it in the tub (with another garbage bag for protection).

After a quick rinse in lukewarm water, I hung it up to dry:

Here is the final braid (well, three braids, I split it up to make it easier for me to spin later on):

I definitely could have used less red and more yellow - it was hard to get the yellow to really show up. I think if I did it again, I would make the sections of red smaller, and a lot more yellow.  Orange probably wasn't even necessary.  I also should have used saran wrap to roll it up. That might prevent the red from taking over as much as it did.  My plans are to spin a bare single, then use a different method to dye it green (probably stovetop). Then I'll ply the two singles together and see what happens. Originally I wanted to do green on this roving, but realized it probably wouldn't mix well with the orange or red. We'll just see how this all turns out :)

Finished!

Tada! All done! It is such an awkward size, I had a hard time getting a picture of the whole thing in all of its glory.

It is approximately 60" long, 30" in diameter. Just a little bit bigger than that, I think.  I followed the Vernal Equinox pattern, with one small adjustment. I was tired of Clue 4, so instead of doing 4 repeats, I did 2.5.  Other than that, I followed the pattern.  I used 1.64 skeins of KnitPicks Shadow Kettle Dyed in Begonia (discontinued) and used a size 4 needle.

It actually worked up pretty quickly, despite having it on the needles from April 4 until June 23. I'm sure I could have finished it in a month if I'd spent more time on it and less time on everything else I was also making (baby set, socks, blanket, etc.).  I made it with a wedding in mind and wanted to have it done well before it was needed. Since the wedding isn't until August 7, I'd say I did it! I'm so happy to have it done, I love it. I definitely have grown a lot when it comes to knitting lace. I didn't use a single lifeline, and as far as I know, there aren't any mistakes in it. Knitting my Swallowtail and Haruni first has taught me a lot about reading my stitches and making sure my rows match up.  It was really easy for me to see if I was off a stitch or two, which happened a few times, so I was able to just tink back a little instead of having to rip multiple rows.  As soon as I was done with this, I went online and bought some more yarn - this time to make another Haruni or two. 
All in all, I'm super happy with how it turned out. I can't wait for the chance to wear it!

Vernal Equinox on the Summer Solstice

Last night I wrapped up chart 6a of the Vernal Equinox Shawl.  I've been working on it in spurts.  The plan is to wear it to a wedding August 7th, so it must be done and blocked by then.  I was working on a baby sweater, also, but I've decided it is too small and needs to be made on bigger needles. I'm already using my 4's on the shawl, and broke the other set of Harmony tips, so it looks like I have to finish the shawl before moving on! Yes, I could take the tips off and use the end caps, but then I'll never finish. I'm hoping to be done by the end of the week, and blocked early next week.  Then I won't have to worry about it being done in time for the wedding. Also, then I can work on all sorts of projects without knowing I have this lingering. I have enjoyed making it, but I am getting tired of it.  These last few rows start at 485 stitches and go up to over 600, so even though there are only 6 or so patterned rows, I think it's going to take awhile.
This time around I decided to not use lifelines.  So far, it has worked out for me. I've been pretty surprised with how few mistakes I've made. While making the Swallowtail, it seemed like every other row I had to rip back to the lifeline and start over.  The Haruni and this Vernal Equinox have been going much smoother. I think the most important thing is I learned how to "read" my knitting.  While I'm knitting along, I can see how the pattern is coming together now, which is super important for catching mistakes early on. If I know how the "k2tog, yo, k2tog" is supposed to line up with the row under it, I can see if I'm off a stitch or two. This has saved me a ton of trouble.
Enough talking, more knitting! Pictures next time with the completed shawl, hopefully!

Haruni!

I finished my second shawl the other day - the Haruni.

Let me just say that I. Love. It. It was a very easy pattern for me to get the hang of, and I found myself not having to look at the charts very often once I got in the swing of it. I was hoping to have it ready for Easter, but ran out of yarn on the second to last line of the chart. KnitPicks was out of Stroll in Grass, but luckily a fellow Raveler had it in their FSOT stash, and I was able to purchase it that way. Even more luckily, it matched perfectly! Excellent! So, the afternoon I got it in the mail, I sat right down and finished.
The following day, I blocked it, and now it is DONE! I have a blocking picture, but not a "Finished and On My Shoulders" picture yet, so I'll save the final Ta-Da for next time :)