I noticed something while reviewing my “active” projects the other day. Everything I’m working on is lace. Stoles, shawls, more shawls…all of it. Not a single sock, sweater part, hat, glove in the pile. Just something lacy followed by more lacy. This could constitute a rut.
First there’s my main project, the handspun Comfort Shawl sampler. I am so close to finishing this that I foresee a marathon knitting session sans break to finish those last few rows. I’m on the second to last color/fiber on the last ball of yarn. The last two new fiber sections took up around eight rows before merging into the next segment, so there is really about a dozen rows until the end. A dozen. I must finish this.
My even more mindless than a feather and fan project is a Wisp that I started in March with the intent of using the entire ball of yarn. I’m so bored with this project that I may just measure and decide it’s long enough. This project gained a few inches while we sat in the theater Thursday night waiting for a midnight showing of The Dark Knight. You know how much I hated (spoiler warning) the latest Indiana Jones? I loved this new Batman installation with the same intensity of feeling times a million billion. Seriously, it’s that good and I’m not just saying that because Bats is my favorite super hero and he can kick your super hero’s ass.
Finally, I’ve pulled Mellifera out of hibernation. She’s still a little baby shawl. This is another handspun project using singles made of merino and tencel. I’m hoping to make at least a bit of progress on this before I get distracted by another project.
I could almost kill for something cabled and not lace, but if I stop what I’m working on, I’m afraid I won’t pick them back up.
For the first time in a dozen years, I remembered to dye some eggs for Easter. This probably only happened because I had several scavenged packages of dye that I purchased on the cheap last year, intending to dye fiber. I still haven’t dyed any fiber with the egg dye. I even boiled half a dozen eggs to dye. These are not those eggs. I realized I wanted to dye more, so these are the dozen raw eggs that were in the fridge. No reason they can’t be pretty for cooking. The pink stamp on the end of whatever egg it is I purchase is completely water soluble.
With the pretty eggs putting me in the mood for permanent warmer weather, I pulled out some knits that also reminded me of spring. I have a Wisp going made of Filatura di Crosa Superior, a cashmere and silk blend, in a perfect shade for spring.
Then I pulled Herring out of my knitting bag and worked on that for a bit. In two sittings, I’ve gotten this far (crappy cell phone pics ahead. The actual color is more like this).
And I have this far to go before mindless stockinette. It is completely mindless, too, since it has an afterthought heel.
Can you tell that I forgot which color was designated the main color on the second sock in the colorwork portions? I’d planned to make one sock “grey” and the other “green”, but make the legs exactly the same on both socks. In the first sock, the grey was the dominant color. Instead of using logic (as in the first sock is grey so the main color must have been grey) I made green the dominant color. See how much more it “pops” against the grey in the second sock than in the first?
Nona and others have written some very informative posts if you’re interested in the whys of color dominance and why you should remember which color is which through your entire project. Now I just need a picture of Fish Fish waiting for his fins and eyes to be sewn on to have a trifecta of green goodness. I don’t have one, of course.
