I started to write a post with these pictures over a week ago. But then my camera to computer interface was giving me fits and I ran out of time the day I was doing it and never got back to it. So here I am! Ta Da!

I’ve been knitting and crocheting in between going to the theater for rehearsals. We opened Dearly Beloved last Friday to a great audience. I have more to say on all that but it will have to wait for another post.

The above blanket is made using this pattern. It’s fast and easy and I love the way the colors work together. It came about because Sarah and I decided one afternoon to tear the gas fireplace out of the living room. We put this big square fireplace in shortly after we moved in here but before we remodeled the kitchen/family room. At the time the living room was just a sitting room with some toys in the back corner. It made it look more formal and added a focal point. But after the remodel we moved the tv in there and then the room had two big focal points and not enough room for the proper seating arrangement for optimum tv viewing pleasure. It had been bugging Sarah and I for months but we couldn’t convince Steve is was time for it to go. So one week he was out of town for six days and we took the opportunity to get rid of it. Problem is that now we have a hole in our wall behind the couch and an electrical outlet about 5 feet up on the middle of the wall. (I’m looking for a handyman to come in and fix that soon.)

So how does ripping a gas fireplace off a wall lead to a new blanket? Surprisingly it isn’t because the room is now cold because we almost never used the actual gas logs in there because it would get TOO hot. You see the thermostat is also in the living room, behind the big tv, so it already is unreliable and leads to the rest of the house being too cold while the living room is about 10 degrees warmer. No it was because once the fireplace was gone and the brown leather couch moved from the den to the living room and the rest of the furniture rearranged, I wanted an afghan that matched the decor on the back of the couch. I love my old fashioned, colorful Granny Square afghan that Emma and I made this winter but the colors are a bit garish. My friend Jodee was finishing up her Ripple Blanket one Friday at knitting and it inspired me to make my own to match my “new” living room. I also broke out the sewing machine and stitched together some quick pillows in the green and brown Olives and Damask fabric in Lila Tueller’s Santorini line.

Before I started the crochet afghan I had cast on and started knitting on this shawl. It is the Gail/Nightsong pattern available free on Ravelry. I’m finally using the Briar Rose lace yarn I’ve been calling my “Invisibility Cloak” yarn since buying it at a fiber festival the day after attending the final Harry Potter midnight book release party. Like most laceweight projects the final beauty of this shawl won’t be evident until it is finished and blocked. I’m going to have a lot of yarn left over even if I make it much bigger than the pattern. In hindsight I should have knit it with the yarn doubled. As it is it will be as light as a feather. I’m still debating on if I’m going to added tiny beads around the edges. I think they’d add a nice bit of sparkle and the added weight may help it hang better. We’ll see. Right now it is resting in my knitting bag. It is too fiddly and takes too much concentration to knit at knitting group or backstage in the dark.

Emma went with me to knitting last Friday and that resulted in me buying yarn, pattern and casting on yet another project. She saw a finished sample of the Prairie Boots at Wool & Co. and wanted a pair. I have the left boot done and got all of the right foot done last night. If I go knit after finishing this post she’ll have a finished pair of boots by the time she gets home from school today. (They’ll still need buttons and leather soles but the knitting will be done.)

What new projects are you all doing now? Does the change of seasons inspire you to make big changes in your surroundings?

I’m on a shawl knitting kick right now. I found quite a few free patterns for small, one-skein shawls on Ravelry and I couldn’t choose just one so I’m knitting them all!

This one is “Traveling Woman” designed by Liz Abinante of Feministy.com.

It is knitting up either really quickly or I am just obsessed and working on it way too much. I cast it on over the weekend with some frogged Dream in Color “Smooshy”. But I used the end of the yarn that was freshly frogged and it was still really crinkly which gave the finished knitting a weird look. I figured it would all come out with blocking so I continued on. But about half way through the stockinette part I realized I’d missed a few edge increases somewhere along the way and decided to frog it and start over. I also dampened it and rewound it to take out the kinks and started from the other end of the yarn. I’m much happier with the result now and think in the long run it will look more even after blocking.

I didn’t really like this yarn for socks. I cast on and knit almost one entire sock out of it TWICE! But frogged both attempts because I just wasn’t happy with them. The first attempt was one from Cat Bordhi’s book in the Riverbed architecture. I don’t remember exactly what my problem with it was but I think I just kept messing up the pattern and gave up. The second attempt I don’t even know what pattern it was which was the main reason I frogged it. I couldn’t knit the second sock if I didn’t know what pattern I used now could I? Plus it was too tight and it felt stiff and scratchy. This yarn is perfect for this project though. The looser gauge gives it room to breath and it is much softer and drapier than I ever imagined it would be after my earlier unsuccessful sock attempts with it.

I’ve also added two repeats of the main lace pattern and still have a good amount of yarn left over so I’m hoping I’ll end up just right. Leave it to me to just wing in and hope for the best instead of putting in a life-line after one of the repeats in case I run out and have to rip back. I like living on the edge!

I’m also not sure if this is a keeper for me or if it will end up being a gift. Mother’s Day and Mom’s birthday are coming up in May. Shhhhh, don’t tell her! Maybe she won’t read this post and it will be a surprise. I think this color will be really pretty on her and I haven’t knit her anything in a while.

This is probably going to be my next project. Made out of this yarn. Just some Knit Picks Shadows lace I picked up on sale last fall. At this rate my stash should be shrinking pretty fast and my stock of finished projects just keeps growing.

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AND THE WINNER IS!

I almost forgot to post the winner of the T-shirt give away. It was Emily!!! Quite fitting since she inspired the entire thing anyway. Emily I will send you an email to let you know you won and find out which style and size you’d like. (I can bring it to you tomorrow at knitting!)

I’ve been doing the knitting thing again lately. Must be these long winter days of sub-freeezing temps.
This weeks finished object is this little shawl made with Socks that Rock mediumweight sock yarn in the Monsoon colorway.

I got this yarn in a barter deal with my friend Blogless Carla a few years ago. I did some sewing for her and she paid me in yarn. Since then I’ve tried to turn this yarn into something a few times. One of those attempts almost cost me this finished object, but more on that in a minute.

Just over a week ago I was going through my stash doing some “shopping” so I could cast something on without spending any money. I found a basket of all my pretty handpainted sock yarns. I really don’t have much desire to knit socks anymore and some of my favorites are just too pretty for my feet so they’ve just sat awaiting a nice small project to become. I brought my selections down stairs to my computer and after a quick Ravelry search I found a few possible one-skein projects. I had also just supported the Wool & Co. drive to raise money for Doctors without Borders so I had access to the free patterns they offered as a thank you gift. One of them was a pair of cute fingerless mitts. I decided to cast on for the mitts. I got the first one to the thumb gusset and just wasn’t happy. They needed to be just a tad bit looser and I didn’t have the next size up in double points or a long circular needle and didn’t want to spend money so I frogged them. Then I found the Multnomah pattern on Ravelry. Gotta love free patterns!

Disaster struck after I was through the third lace repeat when I ran out of yarn. I had seen many completed projects in the same yarn and yardage I was using so I was confused. I know my gauge was right on but there was no denying that I was out of yarn and no where near complete. Then I remembered a scarf I had knit with another STR yarn from Carla that I never liked and thought maybe it would look okay with this and I could combine the two. I dug it out of its hiding place in the front closet and started frogging.

Then a miracle happened. I had made this ugly scarf out of both STR colorways, alternating them similarly to the Chevron Scarf but in a drop stitch pattern a la the Clapotis. I never liked it because it rolled and the colors just weren’t my colors.

Once it was frogged I had enough yarn to complete the Multnomah.

I love the colors of this yarn. I’ve been wearing a lot more green lately and just bought some new grey slacks so I think I have a new outfit. I like small shawls like this because I wear them around my neck rather than over my shoulders like a traditional shawl. They fill in the space in my open necklines and don’t hang down like a scarf and don’t get in my way.

Now I’m being a Patriot and knitting a helmet liner for our troops. After that I think I have a few projects planned for some other reclaimed frogged yarn from unfinished projects that just weren’t destined to become FOs.

What are you working on? How long do you let an unfinished project sit before saying forget it and frogging it so it can become something else? Or do you let UFOs marinate for a while and then eventually get around to finishing them? What is the longest a project sat unfinished before you finished it or frogged it?