I need a snow day. Posted at 26 Jun 2010 10:49:55 AM

Lest ye think that I've fallen off the face of the earth, I haven't.

My hard drive died a few days ago, which slowed me down a bit, and the weekends have been hectic lately. Dan's birthday was last week (we had a lovely time, thank you!), I've had a class every Saturday that I'm not doing something else, and the Superbowl was yesterday ... suffice to say, we're swamped.

Nevertheless, here are some distinctly unflattering pictures of my progress:


Snowflakes... Not done.


Selkie socks ... Distinctly not done. In fact, I ripped them back to the ribbing tonight, because reverse stockinette for an entire pair of socks was not going to happen. I'll do regular stockinette instead; the chart won't care.


Twist Cardigan. This is my third try with the Berroco Lustra, and I think that I like it in this format. Of course, I would like it more if I could do the #)%(@! cables correctly. This had a dozen rows ripped out tonight, too.


This is the only project which is behaving itself. Plain stockinette socks, BMFA StR in the Doctors Without Borders colorway. I'm going back to a heel flap; it's more annoying to knit and doesn't look as smooth as a short row heel, but I think it fits better and slouches less.


The first swatch for the Evenstar Mystery Shawl KAL; I'm using 100% reeled silk from an eBay vendor in India. It took me three days to wind the first skein (around a toilet paper tube) and it lives in its very own ziploc baggie for fear that something will touch it and mess up the concentric wraps. It's rather like knitting with supremely slippery ribbon yarn, oddly enough. After a couple of swatches, I feel like I've got a better grasp of the tension needed; what's pictured above is knitted abysmally and blocked worse. (The second, better-knitted swatch was done with an older erroneous chart, so the first swatch picture is still a better representation of just why it's called the "Evenstar Shawl".)

And that's all for now. We're supposed to get a big snowstorm overnight; I may get that snow day after all.

Tagged as: knitting, reeled silk