Mortaine’s Blog

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“I got a little frustrated at the gas pump the other day. And believe it or not, it had nothing to do with the $4 per gallon price tag….”

Haven’t we all had this experience, once in a while? At the gas pump. At the grocery checkout aisle. I suspect there are many reasons for it, but one of them may be simply to make people so frustrated at the simple act of buying a tank of gas that they are focused on the damned buttons, and not on the readout that says “8 gallons: $6,813.52″

I re-knit Swatch #2, this time with K1P1 ribbing (previously I had misread the instructions and did K2P2 ribbing– whoops!):

The back of my stockinette isn’t perfect, but it doesn’t have visible ridges, and I think it’ll even out with blocking:

I also made Swatch 14, the cabled swatch:

I think it’s uneven, but it’ll do for now. I probably should have ended after the 4th cable row. Hm. Anyway, this is my first iteration of this swatch. I’m pretty sure I’ll re-do it.

Blue sweater is almost done. I have 11 rows left before grafting the hood together. After that, it’s graft the underarms and cuffs, block and it’s done!

The big yellow shawl I’ve been knitting (and knitting and knitting) is complete. I had originally thought that it was going to be too big, but I didn’t block it as hard as I could have, and it ended up being just a little oversized.

BTW: If you’re a woman of great stature and want to knit yourself something pretty and lacey but you don’t know how big to make it? Get yourself a 100-gram skein of KnitPicks Bare laceweight, a set of 4’s or 5’s, and knit a repeating-pattern lace triangular shawl until you run out of yarn. Block the shawl, and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the results.

This pattern is the Blue Jeans Lace Leaf shawl, by Spinndiva.

More beautiful pictures after the link/cut!

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I’ve been knitting on some lace this week. This yellow shawl is from the Blue Jeans Shawl pattern, made with KnitPicks bare laceweight merino yarn, which I dyed myself into the “self-striping” pattern you see here:

Notice the size of the thing. I haven’t blocked it yet, but this shawl is going to be enormous.

I’m also in the Goddess Knits Anniversary Shawl Knit-Along, and clue 1 was released last Friday:

Clue 2 was released this morning. I’m knitting this in light grey alpaca yarn and mixing in various aqua and gray beads. It’s actually quite beautiful, but I think it will need to be finished and blocked before its total loveliness is photographable.

No progress on the sweater this week– I’m running into the weight problem– the project is very heavy to hold on my lap (also, I think it’s putting a strain on my needles). I may switch to a different set of needles before I keep going.

John and I started watching Weeds last night, and in the first three episodes, I’ve seen at least three instances of handknitting! Sooo awesome!

Finally, progress on the TKGA project! I re-did swatch #1 completely. I had previously knitted this swatch, but wove the ends in incorrectly, so I frogged for re-knitting. This photo is before I weave in the ends (or block it):

The plan is to block the first 3 swatches once I’m done with them (I still need to re-knit swatch #2).

We brought Alladin home this morning. He’s resting comfortably. Even ate a little food this afternoon.

He is shaved all over– tummy, neck, forepaw, back legs– due to all the IVs, shots, and the ultrasound. But he’s home,and fur grows back.