Socktoberfest takes off!

A bit belatedly, I'm joining in the Socktoberfest brou-ha-ha. Here's the progress on a gift for a very special person in my life. She's related to me even if she is a Christian. So voila: day one of a Christmas stocking! This shows the name section and the beginnings of the first motif (hearts). I suspect this project is NOT metro-able- I am confident about knitting with both hands now, which makes fair isle a breeze, but one ball of yarn flying through a metro car is surely enough. Two is a bit rude. Oh, and as a side note... the red is far more muted in person, it's old-time Christmas not bright-and-childish Christmas. Someday I'll take photos before midnight!

Lace and more lace oh my!

The Adamas, she is complete. And purty, too! This is one ginormous shawl, after blocking. Mid-blocking. You get the idea. She's drying in the living room currently.

She looked like this first:


And now looks more like this:


Here's a lace detail:


AND as if one Finished Object wasn't enough, check out this sneak peek at another gift. So don't tell anyone.

It's a bird... it's a plane...


It's a Clapotis!


Happy knitting, folks. Time for bed! I'd like to note that the Adamas took from the end of Rosh Hashana (or so) until mid October. So just under a month, for a full-size shawl. That sounds pretty good for me! The more astonishing part is that it only took me two weeks to knit the Clapotis (maybe 3?) and yet it sat there with the ends unwoven for a few months. Ah well, it's ready for shipping now!

A complaint

So I love the Adamas shawl. There's only one little problem. I knit on the metro. Obsessively, one might say. But it's difficult to knit on the metro when you cannot complete an entire row in an ENTIRE 55 or so minute trip. Cry! So I only have two repeats to go... but at 40 minutes to an hour a row... this might take quite a while.

I also discovered the reason for why I ran out of yarn for the pillow... my row gauge is way off, and my stitch gauge isn't all that much better. How did this happen? All this lace knitting must be throwing me off my stride. The 14 inch pillow is now more like 16inch. Oh well... simply a new challenge. I'm going to try and do the i-cord bindoff this weekend, at which point I will determine if it is close enough to find a 16 inch pillow form, or if I need to make a strange-sized pillow to fit it specially. But I'm not worrying about that yet.

In other news, it seems I need a Halloween costume. I'm thinking... RenFesty pirate. This requires a new skirt. Time to hit up JoAnn's! I checked out G Street and left in sticker shock when I could find no fabric at all that would cost me less than 70 dollars for the skirt, including the grommets and thread. My mission is to locate 5 yards (or 10 yards, if I decide to do an overskirt) of cotton twill that does not cost me more than 30-40 dollars. What a mission! I'll probably have to settle for a plain old cotton blend, but anything has to be better than G Street prices. I am simply not wealthy enough, or sophistocated enough of a seamstress, to be throwing that kind of money around. Even if it is the cutest skirt imaginable. I wonder if I could get away with a RenFest full circle skirt at work? Maybe with cute boots and a sweater set?

In a final note, it is Socktoberfest and I have not cast on for one single sock, nor completed the one I already had on the needles! Time to cast on for my sister's Christmas gift, methinks. Ooh la la... it's not really good for metro knitting, but I do have a knitting group tomorrow and I'd love to share fair isle sock knitting with everyone. And by sock I mean monster sock. Just wait and see!

More holiday knitting and a birthday

So I've been plugging away at some gifts. The yarn came in for the pillow, so I should be able to complete that this week while I'm on vacation. Unless I continue to be distracted by this little lovely, which has been taking up all my free knitting time for a week now:



And I also took a little break to celebrate my birthday, Renaissance style. My parents snuck in a "cake" for me!