The One Without a Title

I've been away for a little while, not physically, but mentally, I took a bit of a blog break. I kept thinking about blogging, but the physical act of actually blogging wasn't really happening. As a quick catch-up, since last we conversed, I've become a year older, visited with a blogger friend in town (Deborah) who was here for the DNC, had unexpected visitors in town for the DNC, watched Obama give his acceptance speech at Invesco Field, started a new school term and M2 is now a sophomore.

So yes, life is quite busy, but the knitting, the knitting is easy. Heh, well, maybe not all of the knitting being quite so easy.

I finally picked up the Flutter Sleeve Cardigan again, in an attempt to actually finish something soon. I am now on the second front, about halfway through it, although I am currently screwing up the short tows. Once I get that resolved, I hope to to get this sweater squared away. I would like to finish this before fall is over.

During the Ravelympics, I cast on for a new project. I was never an official participant of Ravelympics, but I had high hopes for finishing Hey Teach. Hmm, that wasn't possible. While I do love the look of this pattern, I prefer for the designer to spell things out. I know this is a manner of personal preference. However, I am not one of those knitters who can look at my lace pattern and not follow the pattern. I don't love charts, I like it written out. When it comes time for armhole shaping, the pattern requires you to figure it out on your own. When I am forced to actually graph out the lace pattern, let me just tell you, I was not a happy camper. The graphing made it easier to see the decreases, but my poor, addled brain did not appreciate having to do it.

I'm currently on the first front. The piece pictured is the back and it was the longest. This one is not as simple as the Flutter Sleeve Cardi, which actually has the sleeves built into the fronts, which eliminates the need to knit sleeves separately.

I have still been working on Barn Raising squares, albeit a bit more slowly than the frenetic pace I maintained during the summer road trip.

Socks are on the needles too. I finally kitchenered in the toe on the first Artemis sock and have started a pair of socks for M2. Both socks are knit out of  Mary Kay's yarn. Hopefully I will have some pictures toshare with you next time of the socks.

Now, I go back to the crazy life of a midterm and assignments to prepare for and a college friend in town that I haven't seen in over15 years. Back to go stick my head in the sand for a little while.

Squares Squared

I was knitting like a madwoman on vacation. Mostly in the car. Although I did help drive, M did the most of the driving and I got to get a lot of car knitting done. In the car, I worked on squares. Whee fun, but it is easy portable knitting. I did finish the first Artemis sock too, but that was the only sock knitting I did on the trip and I didn't have that much to do on it.

For Stacey's squares project, I knit 3:

For the squares exchange, the rest of the squares I knit out of one skein of Colinette Jitterbug, for a total of 5 squares (2 were already exchange):

So far, my stack of squares is small, but this is just the beginning of my squares:

I'm still knitting on squares, but the obsessive knitting on the squares is taking a backseat to a new project, to be discussed soon.

Have a great weekend all.

Just Like Potato Chips

These squares are so addictive. You can't just knit one. They're even more addictive than beloved cotton dishcloths, if you can imagine. I'm knitting them for the Barn Raising Quilt. My knitting group has decided to exchange squares as well. I have to knit at least 9 squares to give away, but I keep using sock yarn leftovers that I don't want to give away! These squares go so quickly, I've decided to have two on the needles, one for leftover yarn for me and one for squares to give away.




The two that are pictured are squares 2 & 3. The first square, I gave away to Cynthia, since she was here from out of town and all. But I'm currently on squares 5 & 6. It will take me some time to finish this quilt, especially because I will be making the quilt larger than the pattern calls for. It looks sorta small with only 40 or so required squares, so I'll just keep going bigger until I have a size that's satisfactory. I'm enjoying using my leftover sock yarns in this quilt.

I've got to hurry up and get one square to Kim. I want my beaded skully square. Aren't they awesome?