Print o'the Day

After some marathon knitting, I reknit and finished off the first part of the center section by the Tuesday following the fateful Saturday frogging. I'd actually started the second section by our Zombie Prom Date Knitters meetup at the coffee shop.

Since then, I've been slacking on the knitting. Mostly due to spindle making...sandpaper hands and lace don't exactly mix well. But here we are so far.

I'm seriously considering frogging this half too. But not until I've finished knitting it. And only if I don't like the way the colors flow. The far end of this section now begins with the yarn from the center end of the first section. Eyeballing my yarn cake--

break for spinning details (which should have been in the post linked above): About 2/3 the 20' foot or so length of the top was predominantly aqua, with the last 1/3 having more bluey purples. I wanted to bring down the aqua, brighten the purples and distribute the darker parts...hopefully avoiding sharply defined striping for an overall softer tone. I spun the first single from one continuous strip, aqua end first. For the second single, I split about an equal strip down it’s entire length and spun purple end first. Then I joined the next strip going in the same direction (purple first).

Kind of like this...

1 <-------------------------------------------------------------------

2 <-------------------------------------------------------------------

--I'm pretty sure the center end of this section is going predominantly teal/aqua, as the far end of the first section. If I think it looks better with the teal/aqua at each end of the finished shawl and the more bluey purple stuff centered in each section...I'll frog and reknit from the opposite end.

Yeah, I'm obsessing. I'm a wee bit stressed. Leave me alone. It's all good.

Print o'the frog

I was surfing Ravelry while finishing up the second repeat of the day (I've been averaging two repeats per day) on Saturday night. Half thinking I'd throw in a third and get ahead. And then I read Jax' post (to the shawl thread in our ZPDK's Rav group) that she lost part of her cast on and put the project into time out (What's this time out thing? Is that like when I just throw things at the wall?). Uh...the cast on. Yes, cast on invisibly. I knew that. It's right there in the pattern. I KNEW that.

But, somehow, in the midst of why can't I just cast on the first section provisionally, pick up the live stitches and knit the the other direction instead of grafting the two ends together (because it's knit from the outsides in, that's why) and then reknitting (and therefor, re-casting on) that first repeat a gazillion times because I kept losing a stitch (damn shifting YO)...I lost the cast on invisibly part. Long tail it was.

Ten repeats in. Out of thirty four (seventeen in each section, if you're grafting). Surely the cast on won't matter so much? I'll just bind off the other end (the hell with grafting two parts so the pattern flows the same direction from either end, plenty of people knit it all one direction/piece) and pick up stitches for the edging. They'll match, right? No way in hell was I starting over.

Yeah. I frogged.

Print o'progress

St Paddy's Day kick off to KnitWithSnot along

Holly was supposed to kick all us Zombie Prom Date Knitters into hand knit stockings for next year mode right after Christmas. Remember how that went? Some of us signed on for Elizabeth's Save the Prom Date, Save the World Zombie Slaying Mitten Swap. Some of us even received...or at least finished and sent...mittens. Some of us still need to get moving so as not to stiff our partners (TracyB, I suck. I'm your guilty partner. Tell me your favorite color and I'll make them...I swear!).

Anyway, some of us are better than others with the follow through and completion thing. We shall see how the Print o'the Wave (or whichever 27 page pattern you chose because you just had to show the rest of us up) shawl-a-long goes.

I can't wait to knit this whole lot o'yumminess!

handspun

Merino/tencel fiber from Yarn Hollow

FYI: CD-ROM drive + Wensleydale locks = pissed off momma with tweezers and a flashlight

Happy St. Patrick's Day!