Several Projects at Once

My techno-geek gloves, still very much in progress. These were sort of a prototype for gloves that I wanted to knit Josh. His gloves are pictured below. As you can see I am also not very far along on that pair.




Steph's scarf, also very much in progress. I'm almost done with the second ball of yarn (Stephanie bought three). So not too much more to go.




And some sock yarn I just bought for myself (I had cupons). It is a rather pretty self striping colorway, in a yarn that the Harlot speaks very highly of.





I've been reading the Yarn Harlot's site, and some Elizabeth Zimmerman books this past week. They've got me all worked up and ready to knit (I hadn't been working on Josh's gloves at all before yesterday). Worl wears me down, I arrive home in a semi-comatose state and get very little knitting done.


I've been spinning too, but it looks pretty much the same as the last photos. Today my clunky wheel repair kit arrived! I'm excited to fix my wheel, and a little nervous. I have to drill into the hub of the wheel to install the new axel. Taking drill to wheel is giving me pause. I'll work up the nerve soon.

Drop Stitch Stephanie

I'm using this beautiful yarn that Stephanie bought to make her a scarf. She found a really lovely dropped stitch pattern that she liked. It's my train knitting because it shouldn't get to big or too intricate to haul around.




I had almost three feet of scarf knit. On my lunch break the other day I lay it out to take a blog photo, when I noticed a giant mistake. And the giant mistake was only about a foot from the beginning. Argh. I had to rip back, it was a little demoralizing. Now that I've knit back to where I was, I can talk about it again.


The scarf pre rip. You can see where my circular needle is, way back by the beginning. That's where I had to rip to.




And the offending row. You can see how the scarf is all wavy lines and offset openwork. But mid frame there is a big honking straight line, where I did not offset the openwork. There was no way I could leave it.



This is actually very addicting to knit.

Sorry for the poor photo quality, all taken with my iPhone.

Goodies

Stephanie's yarn, I'm knitting her a cool dropped stitch scarf.  

My beautiful yarn!  So pretty I don't know what to knit with it.  I'm sure I'll figure something out.  

And my beautiful roving.  I'm waiting to spin it up until I've plied the brown and pink roving I've been spinning.  I need to see if my spinning style needs adjustment before I play with this so pretty.   

Brownish Noro Cash Island a cashmere blend from Japan.  

Greenish Noro Cash Island.  

Purple-ish Noro Cash Island.  

Deliberate Drops

Saturday Morning with Chris Blysma.

She walked us through several ways to drop stitches (intentionally).  My favorite swatch is the aran sampler.  In my own knitting so far I seem to favor the controlled yarn over variety.  I think the big runs of dropped stitches scare me a bit.  

A big run of dropped stitches in plain stockinette.





Another big run of dropped stitches in my aran sampler.

The controlled yarn over variety of dropped stitches in ribbing.

Dropped edge stitch fringe. And quite possibly the ugliest baby hat I've seen in a long time. Too bad. Some people in class liked it a lot. Different strokes for different folks I guess.