Category: wips

It has been very hot. New York City set a heat record yesterday: 105 degrees Farenheit. (Or, if you speak Celsius, 40 degrees.) Since I am not a summer person, it is, bluntly, hell.

So. I cope by hiding in the air conditioning, and I knit socks, because they are nice and small. I finished one today:

I am making a pair of Jaywalkers out of Lorna’s Laces sock yarn, because Glenna’s collection of Lorna’s Jaywalkers is inspiring, and like her I aspire to own a pair of them for every day of the week. (Two down, one in progress.)

These colors are so amazing that even though it’s too hot to even want to touch wool I cannot stop knitting. The colorway is called Gold Hill, and it’s just enchanting. Seriously. Look at this colorway.

It’s like the Lorna’s people took all of my favorite colors and shook them up and put them on yarn. (Well, almost. It’s missing blue. If it had a nice dutch blue in there I wouldn’t need another color of yarn ever again.) I want more of this colorway. I am actively considering tracking down every skein of this colorway in existence and hoarding them, just so I will never run out. (Don’t laugh, I did that when Knitpicks discontinued their Dancing sock yarn.) I’m not sure I will be able to wear these socks when they’re finished, because I’m going to be too busy admiring the colors to actually stop and put my feet into shoes.

That, and it’s just too hot to wear socks right now, but you get the idea.

I eagerly await the return of sock weather. Tomorrow would be great.

Stop laughing. Dreaming of sock weather is the only thing that gets me through heat waves. Sock weather. Mmm.

So I was doing good. I had wrapped up a bunch of projects, some Sekrit Gift Knitting has been finished up, I was cleaning out all sorts of things on the needles.

And then Startitis hit.

It started with socks. This is Revival, by my buddy Glenna, who has a way of making twisted stitches bend to her every whim. She released this pattern about a month ago for a design contest and I gleefully snatched it up. I cast on Sunday evening, and by the time I got on the train home on Monday night, I had the above. Before I knew it I’d knit a whole leg.

Yum. I love a good twisted stitch pattern.

But that wasn’t enough. I was still restless, and last night, almost without realizing I’d done it, I cast on lace.

That is Miriam Felton’s Flutter Scarf, for which I’m using the leftovers from some of that gift knitting I mentioned above. It’s going to be lovely.

I think the Startitis is better now. I’m going to see if I can get through to the end of the week without casting on anything else, because trying to decide which of these two beauties to knit is difficult enough already!

I am participating in the Ravelympics.

This, when it grows up, is going to be a Featherweight Cardigan. Right now, on Day 3, I am almost done with the raglan increases. And I best be getting back to it. These figure skaters are making me feel like I need graceful things in my life, and what could be more graceful than a fine-gauge cardigan, I ask you?

I haven’t really written much about knitting resolutions. They’ll get their own post one of these days, but briefly, they involve socks, practicing my drop spindle more regularly, and making more of an effort to share WIPs instead of just waiting until they’re finished.

So to that end, I thought I’d show you what’s on the needles right now.

I am working on socks. Big surprise, I know.

I started these at about 11:40 pm New Year’s Eve, so that I could be knitting fresh socks as the clock ticked over into a New Year. This is the Opel Harry Potter yarn, in the Ron colorway that I was so excited to score at this past year’s Vermont Sheep & Wool. Basic stockinette on account of the stripes, and may I just say how much I love the colors? These are meeting my requirements for autumnal oranges quite nicely – to be expected, considering the character the colorway is named after.

In the other corner, please meet my Aestlight. I’m doing the large size with the wonderful skein of Wollmeise that Melissa gave me for my birthday last year, in the True Love colorway. I’m almost done with the bird’s eye lace border, and am gearing up to tackle the edging.

I’m contemplating naming this project “Sailors Take Warning” but I’m not sure how many people will follow my mental leaps there.

And speaking of Wollmeise…

I got a little package in the mail today, far sooner than I expected it to arrive. (Mad props to the Loopy Ewe for that!)

Backstory: I’d just been telling Melissa over New Year’s about my long, patient attempt to acquire this particular colorway of Wollmeise. I’d been coveting this color for months, stalking the destash group on Ravelry and being beaten to the punch for the few skeins available. But on Tuesday, word started filtering out that the Loopy Ewe had just put an update live. And there it was, the Rhabarber I’d been coveting.

So I got it.

And some Lavendel for good measure, because when a Wollmeise update lands in your lap you take advantage. It arrived with the mail this morning and I sat there for a while just enjoying the fact that it’s mine, and just a pretty in person as I’d hoped. Now I just need to figure out what to do with it. Ideas?