It's this again

I've now decided to alternate between 2 projects that will take me forever to finish. Not content to work on a beaded project with lace weight yarn, I've picked up the Roses pullover again. I like the colors in this yarn and the patterns are coming out nicely, but once again I'm winging the pattern as I go.
I need some boring straight stitch in my life. Maybe some mittens. Maybe I should dust off that plain white thing I started in the early spring. Anything I can finish before I turn 50.

This is from last night

Here's a shot of the shawl from last night. I didn't post it last night because the keyboard wasn't working. Fat kitties sitting on your power strip tends to unplug things. You can see the beginnings of the center window. I think it will look pretty interesting once it's blocked and the patterns all sit the way they're supposed to.

Thoughts on technique

I don't have a picture to show - yet - lace weight yarn is making things slow, but . . . .
So I'm working on Putnam's shawl. Cruising along, the edges are a modified rose leaf pattern and the bottom is a diamond pattern with beads at the center. So this morning, I decided it that was going to be a heck of a lot of diamonds - both for me to knit and for anyone else to wear. It needed to be broken up, so I'm in the process of putting a window into the center of it. The frame is the rose leaf pattern again, don't know what I'll do in the middle of that. Maybe more diamonds, maybe something else. But it got me thinking about flexibility and technique. Traditional shawls start with a center rectangle or square and once that's done you pick up around the edges and work an edging or series of them until the shawl is the desired size. There's a really interesting post about different techniques here. Now, these techniques have never appealed to me, but why?
I love picking up sleeve and other edgings and knitting down because the joins look so nice and smooth. I'm not afraid of ratios. or even of mitres and corners. I guess I get freaked out by the sheer number of stitches. 500 plus and that's a HUGE investment before I can see if I like it, and I tend to work on the fly. So now, I'm realizing that I've made up my own, simpler way of having this kind of flexibility by seeing how it looks and dumping in more sort of faux Shetland panels into the middle.
Basically, I seem to be a never ending well of ways to cheat.
I'll post a picture of my big fake once I have more done and it photographs well.

Stuff

It's summer, and you just never have as much time for fun stuff as you think you will. Anyway, Putnam's wedding shawl is coming along - it's a metric TON of knitting, but it's so simple I'm quite taken with it.
As I found I was running out of yarn for the Glacier scarf, I ordered another skein. Wah wah wah, different dye lot. High ho. I figure out something for the scarf, but what to do with new random skein? It's lovely, and brighter, than the orginal skeins.
What about a new pair of mittens - I was think go insane and pair it with purple and chart up a gryphon. I like this one.
Whatcha think? Sorry that middle picture is blurry, the camera was running out of batteries.

Adria: or some more ideas

So writing up the pattern is slow going, like always. Once I get it finished, I was planning to charge for it, but I have a special offer - you can have an advanced copy for free if you'll knit it up and help me as a volunteer editor. Think about it . . . .

Okay, more ideas for the peacock - what if you knit it all in Bare and then dyed it to look like the peacock? I was thinking you'd mix up the dye pretty thick and paint it on with smallish brushes. Living here in the south it gets so hot I was thinking do this outside on a summer day between 2 black garbage bags - let Mother Nature be your microwave.

And, I want to reward my model and design something just for her. Right now I'm thinking something in an earth tone (Gloss in Parsley or Cosmos) with 2 larger panels of a twirling vine with leaves with beads in them and 3 smaller openwork panels on the sides and center. The leaf panels would be reverse st. st. and the vines and leaves would be st. st. traveling patterns. Not hard, but I'm wondering if I can design a traveling stitch that moves in a complete circle and have it come out looking like something. Time for swatches.

Projects are like hydras. You dispatch one and 3 more grow from the stump.
But that's why I started this blog, so I could always find my "notebook" of ideas . . . .

It's done, I thought it never would be but . . .

Once again, my lovely coworker was kind enough to give me 3 minutes of her time to make my knitting look good. I'm thinking I need to take pictures of other body types, too, I feel like I'm cheating using someone who just naturally looks like a supermodel. I took this first picture on my horrible, messy desk so you could get an idea of the size of the finished piece - all my other pictures show it all crammed onto needles.
Pattern to follow as soon as I get it finished.

Happy Father's Day

Hope everyone had a good weekend. It's been brutally hot here, so we watched a bunch of movies and hid indoors this weekend.
The Peacock - I'm finishing it tonight (dang it) and for the edge right before binding off, I'm doing a plain round with beads every other stitch. This row has taken nearly an hour.
I think this will actually be a lovely little capelet, but most folks will skip and cut way back on the beads. But hey, this is me and if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing right?
Anyway, pictures on a live model soon, pattern to follow and hopefully some less boring blogging as I'll be freed up to do something (anything) else.

Wow, love that high speed cable internet

Loading my lame pictures at lightning speed!
Okay, still the colors on the Peacock are much brighter and more diverse than what shows here, but I'm taking these so you can see the pattern. Does it look like a peacock tail to anyone else? God it's a lot of knitting if I come to find out it looks dumb.
At the very bottom you can see the beginnings of Putnam's wedding stole - I designed it after talking to a friend of mine about what she's knitting for a friend of her's for a wedding.
Planning to charge $5 for the Peacock pattern once it's done, but I'll probably make the wedding stole free or only a dollar or 2 - I mean, if you are going to slog through knitting something in lace weight, you oughtta get the discount.
:)
Hope everyone had a nice weekend. Our new dishwasher resulted in a chip in our laminate countertop. We're now flirting with replacing the countertops, but as the spouse rightly points out, they'd just rip the wallpaper replacing the countertop so we'd have to do that . . . . It's like a giant kitten has started playing the yarnball of our lives.

It never rains but pours

Okay, my wrist is basically all better, so knitting is now fun not painful, but in the meantime I've been diverted by . . . .

Replanting our koi pond (stinky and mucky)
Getting an estimate to have our roof re-done (hail damage, whoo hoo)
Our dishwashing dying

Amazing, the way life goes.
So while I had planned to show a snap of the tiny little lace with clear sparkly beads I've been working on (which is insanely slow going, I mean there is an intimidation factor to a ball of lace weight yarn that's crazy, you knit and knit and the ball doesn't shrink one bit!), but instead I'll go wash 2 days worth of dishes.
Ah, college memories . . .

Finally we're moving on - Wedding Stole

Sorry, first picture had to be taken close up, so it's fuzzy, but I was trying out 4 different colors of beads. You can basically get the idea. I'm going with the top sparkly ones.
I was thinking of doing the outer frame in this leaf pattern and the inside window in the diamonds with a scalloped edging. Input? Is there too much contrast between the geometric of the diamonds and the natural shape of the leaves?
I'll do another swatch with the patterns arranged more like they would be in the final shawl. Planning on doing a simple rectangle for this one, but again, input?