Just a little startitis

I have not had much weaving time for the last few days, and I needed some portable projects, so I started some knitting.

First it was Connie Delaney's Wrap Around Shawl pattern.  This is not yet listed on Ravelry under her name as a designer, nor does it come up with a search on the name.  It is apparently available now as a download, however.  The pattern is similar visually to Elizabeth Zimmerman's Pie R Square shawl, I think, but I have not made EZ's pattern so I don't know if they are similar in execution.  I am making the Wrap Around Shawl using a "knit front & back" increase, and I am not doing the lace rows.  This yarn (KFI Albina) is so fuzzy that any lace rows wouldn't show anyway.

This shawl project has stood me in good stead during a long car-buying session.  I really hate the car-buying process; most dealerships make it such an ordeal.  We did, however, recently trade one of our Ford C-Max cars (we had two; love them!  Hybrid car, awesome gas mileage, and incredible headroom.  They can fit both my 6'7" hubby and my 6'5" son, with me driving, along with the grandson in a carseat.) for a Ford Transit Connect van.  They seem to be fairly scarce as passenger vans, although they're fairly ubiquitous as cargo vans.  We waited a long time (close to 6 months) for one with the right options - mainly a split rear door instead of a liftgate.  (My extra-tall guys would not fit under a liftgate.  Now I'll have room for my bicycle for trips and group rides, for spinning wheels and looms, even hay runs or animal transport if needed.

I also decided it was a very good idea to have knitting at hand when I go drop off and pick up the grandson at school.  Most of the time I just surf on my phone, but I think I'd rather be doing something that at least feels more productive.  I had come across an abandoned project in my craft room, and decided to get back to work on that.

I had three skeins of LB Collection Angora Merino (in the color Parchment - it's a little more tan than the picture shows).  It started as a mistake rib scarf on 35 stitches or so.  I pulled it out, and started over with 51 stitches and larger needles.  I wasn't happy with that so I hunted through my pattern collection on Ravelry and decided to try the Besotted Scarf - pretty cables, a fairly easy pattern, and free!  I'm only a couple of pattern repeats into it, and it looks like it's working out well in this yarn.

Either one would work for a "spend the day at hubby's work" pattern as well.  The cabled scarf requires a little more attention than the just-keep-knitting shawl (4 increases every other row at this point) but not by much.

Christmas is done

We made it through Christmas, but barely.  We knew a Christmas snowstorm was on the way, so we delivered gifts before the holiday.  I finished a few things, and some things will be finished later.  Several of hubby's work friends received corn bag heating pads, and some got towels as well.  My dad got a guitar strap woven on my inkle loom.  I gave away all of my Bumbaret towels (love those colors!) as well as the blue Linked Birdseye towels.  I had not finished a hat I was knitting for my mother, so I finished off two of the Rosepath Plaid towels for her.  I used a "cut off the warp and retie" method found online (via Peggy Osterkamp's blog), and it worked well.  I also found that the Rosepath Plaid towels were very long, so I adjusted future iterations of the pattern based on that.  Instead of doing four pattern repeats, followed by a set of red stripes, I'll be doing three pattern repeats and without the last set of red stripes.

I made this fox hat for a friend's toddler, and it came out cute.

I tried to finish this Fading Strands hat for my mother, but didn't finish in time.  I finished it yesterday while knitting at hubby's work, but found it a huge disappointment - too small, and too short.  I'm going to remake it, with needles one size larger, the larger set of numbers, and one extra pattern repeat.

Now I am winding a warp for the Masters towels, in blues, and working on the rest of the Rosepath Plaid warp.

Today I received some heavy texsolv cord I ordered from Halcyon Yarn, and changed out some nylon rope on my front warp rods for texsolv cord.  The rope that was used had huge knots, that left bumps I didn't like when winding on.  This will be much smoother.

I also received a new book today, thanks to a Christmas Amazon gift card from my dad!  I look forward to learning new things in the near future!