Always a WIP, never a FO

I have not done any knitting in a month. :-( I have been too tired to knit, even in the evenings after M goes to sleep. Lately she has been having trouble staying asleep, so we have to go soothe her numerous times in the evening and at night. When we're not doing that, we cook and eat dinner, shower, and try to wind down before going to bed with the hopes of getting at least an hour of sleep before she wakes for her next feeding. My wind down period is about 1/2 hour if I'm lucky and I'm too brain dead to do much during this time.

WIPs that are still WIPs (sigh):

Flower Basket Shawl ... going on 4 months I think
Basketweave scarf ... about 2 months on needles
Second Branching Out scarf ... 1 month since I frogged it and started from scratch

And I have some worsted weight Plymouth Encore yarn on needles from when I was playing around with a pattern about 9 months ago; this will eventually morph into a hat someday.

I will be getting more yarn soon, just waiting for my little white box. A few balls each of Baby Cashmere yarn in Prism Pink, Rose Heather, Dusky Lavender, Cashmere Blue, & Morning Mist. And also 2 balls of some sock yarn cuz I'd love to try knitting socks someday (hopefully before the next Ice Age).

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A dozen repeats

I've made a little progress on my Branching Out scarf, about a dozen repeats of the pattern. I know it isn't a lot to show for a month when there are people who complete this scarf in a day or two. The scarf is a dark blue color (Baby Silk in Sapphire).



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Second hat is finished!

I finally finished my second hat, Sarah Bradberry's Rolled Brim Hat. This hat took me a longer time to finish because it was a larger than the first hat. I think I like doing the crown decrease most because it just gets faster and faster as the stitches become fewer and fewer.

I still have to weave in ends. I'm so lazy when it comes to doing the finishing touches to my knitting. Weaving in ends has to be my most hated knitting task.

This hat has the same "design feature" as the first hat. There is an obvious 20 stitch area where I switched balls of yarn (with my attempt at weaving in ends as I knit), a definite straight line across the knitting that doesn't hide itself well in stockinette stitch. Sigh. I need to figure out how to avoid this in the future.

Yarn: Cleckheaton Country 8 Ply DK superwash wool, Pale Iris color. Less than 2 balls.
Needle: 4.00 mm (US6)

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Flower Basket Shawl 7th repeat

I guess I haven't made much progress on my Flower Basket Shawl in the last 3 months. I just started the 7th repeat of the pattern. I knitted all 10 rows of the previous repeat (viz. the 6th repeat) last night which took me a total of about 2 hours. It will be slow going as I get further since I gain more stitches every other row. I'm enjoying this pattern, especially when I get into the "rhythm" of it... and I find that the pattern rows are much more interesting than the WS purl across rows which is sooooooo tedious.

Yes, those two white yarns you see across the shawl are my "lifelines" ... yes I need TWO of them! I'm a "belt & suspenders" kinda gal, needing a backup to the backup. LOL.

I just joined my 3rd ball of yarn near the end of the row currently on the needles. I used the "spit splice" (mpg) technique which is super cool! Not yet sure how many balls of yarn I will need to complete this shawl, I am guessing somewhere between 4 and 6. Is that sufficiently vague?

Frog it. Frog it.

The width and error in my second Branching Out scarf bugged me so much that I had to frog it. I was surprised how the yarn "stuck" at certain places and I had to pry it apart. (This gave me an idea of how and why it is a pain to frog mohair; I've never knit with mohair before.) Rewinding fingerling weight yarn is tedious, although it goes by faster while watching CSI Las Vegas ("Room Service", it was a ho hum episode).

This time I cast on with size US8 (5mm) needles with the hopes that the edge will be wider & looser, so that I can easily stretch it to width during blocking. I suppose this means I should bind off using the larger needles also.

Nothing to show really since I have only knitted 8 rows so far.