Post-Christmas Knitting

The week after Christmas has been filled with Alias and knitting.

Brooks Farm Scarf

Like the Neverending Scarf over at The Knitty Gritty, my scarf from Brooks Farm Duet went on and on and on. I finally decided I was tired of it and it was long enough, so I bound off and blocked it. I worked it in the Ostrich Plume pattern from Barbara Walker's Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns (pg. 278 in the new edition). A closeup of the stitch can be seen here. It doesn't show up as beautifully in this two-tone yarn as it would in a solid color, but I still love it. Finished, blocked length: 51". I probably have about half of the hank left. I haven't decided what to do with it yet.

Red-and-Black Sweater

I finally swatched for the Red-and-Black sweater. (Bigger picture available if you click the photo.) Maybe it needs a name. I'm incorporating a pattern from Kim Salazar's book, The New Carolingian Modelbook: Counted Embroidery Patterns from Before 1600. I fell in love with the Star and Leaf shirt yoke and its matching band and it looks great in this yarn (a Webs purchase this summer). Right now I'm at a mind-numbing 9 stitches per inch, and the pattern repeat dictates that I can get a 40" or 48" sweater. 48" would be way too big and 40" might be a touch small (or I'll have to wear a lightweight shirt!), so I'm going to try swatching again on slightly bigger needles to see if I can get something in between.

I put the whole chart into Excel a while ago and started to play with it again now that I had a gauge. My mom and I sat down with the computer and Sheila McGregor's Traditional Scandinavian Knitting and sketched out the whole chart, front and back. (I don't have a current way to take a screen shot of the chart, so you'll just have to wait and see it.) Challenges I forsee in this project:

• School starts January 10 and will be even busier than last semester, with less knitting time.
  
• Once I start this, I'm not going to want to put it down.
  
• Knitting time that's meant to be a relaxing break from school is not conducive to fair isle.
  
• Doing the yoke will require some sort of intarsia in the round technique, which I have no idea how to do.
  
• I'm going to have to cut steeks. I don't know how to do this, but I have a capable teacher, so that will be ok when I get there.

This may turn into a mother-daughter project and we'll each have one.

It's going to be a fabulous sweater, and the yarn is great, once it's washed. We saw this yarn in the warehouse at Webs and passed it by because it was really scratchy, but then found a swatch and had to go back (we each got a few cones, I think). It's very stiff before washing, but after two washes, my swatch is getting quite soft.

When can I cast on?

Goddess Shawl

I now have the necessary needles for my shawl from the Goddess Knitting class I took at Circles this spring. This will be a möbius shawl with a circumference of about 54". Since I need to knit both edges of the strip at the same time, that means about 108" of knitting per round. I have one 40" needle on each "edge" and just work around and around. I cast on (provisional crochet, 168 sts) and knit a few rounds, then took it out because I thought I had gotten it twisted around the beginning of the round. So I took it all out and started over and got it right this time. I even figured out how to tell which needle to pick up next at the beginning of each half-round, because I have a choice of two, and choosing incorrectly would lead to that extra twist.

I'm only knitting (no purling) on this project. This leads to two interesting things. First, this will be really easy to knit during school -- no thinking. Unfortunately, this project will become bulky pretty quickly, so it may not be the easiest thing to drag around with me. Second, since there's a half twist in the knitting, when you look at the shawl, one half is in stockinette and the other in reverse stockinette. I can't photograph it very well yet, but maybe after a few more rounds it will be easy to see and I'll try again. I think this will give a really interesting look to the shawl. We'll see how it turns out.

Socks!

And finally, I whipped out these cute socks in about a week around Christmas. They were the May 2004 Sock of the Month from theknitter.com. They're knit in Mountain Colors Bearfoot, which is soft and cuddly (60% superwash wool, 25% mohair, 15% nylon). I loved the three easy patterns and the sock and the lucious yarn. I'd wear them every day, but I don't want to wear them out!

More socks are on the way when school starts. I should have a couple pairs of heavy-weight socks that are close to finished that I'll try to finish up during group meeting. It's kind of disappointing to make plain, stockinette socks, but it really does make those meetings more enjoyable, and I'm sure my toes will appreciate my work when the socks are done.