Friday Snapshot

basil

Wrapped a little extra batting around my basil plant since it’s so cold by the window.

needle books

Needle books – the top one was given to me by my friend Denny, the bottom one I cobbled together back in high school. (The pages are made from this horrible poly fleece that I made a pair of wide-legged pants out of. Yikes, the static!)

new sweater

Started a new cardigan yesterday, in Zen Yarn Garden superwash merino – colour is Romi’s Garden.

squish

Thinking of resurrecting this long-term handspun log cabin blanket. I have a few skeins of black that I think I might just knit on there as a border and call it done.

Happy Friday!

on blanket-making and distraction

I was digging through my closet the other day, trying to organize my stuff ahead of a trip to Ikea (gotta plan to figure out what I need!), when I came across a long, long neglected WIP. This one was stuffed into a bin with a bunch of other WIPs, but it’s the only one I actually bothered to pull out!

handspun log cabin

A handspun log cabin blanket! I made one a long time ago, but have since given it away. This one is very random, with snippets of ends and unevenly sized strips, and is knit mostly with double-stranded worsted-ish weights on 8mm. I found a bag of handspuns I’d been using for it, too, and brought it all out to the couch to work on over the weekend. It’s perfect weekend knitting – simple and meditative, but with awesome colours to entertain me!

squishy garter stitch

Working on it did derail my sweater knitting a little bit, but I’ve managed to get just about up to the armholes of my lace cardigan. I’ll be starting sleeves today.

lace sweater progress

return of the handspun log cabin

a new log cabin

Loooove.

Really I was a bit fed up with all the wee little bits of handspun lying around, and needed some garter stitch therapy, so on it went! A few hours later (and a few episodes of HBO’s Rome)….

log cabin a few hours later

I’ve used up a number of the smaller bits that I had, but still have rather a large bag of balls of handspun to choose from, and I’m sure more will pop up somewhere. But for now, the blankie is kind of on hold, in favour of this:

one honking back

A fabulous sweatercoat, being knit out of Dream in Color yarn (which lettuce knit will have at the Frolic this Saturday!) – now I’m in a bit of a race with myself to see I could possibly finish this for Saturday. I’m done the back, the left front, and a sleeve, and am a few inches into the second sleeve. Still another honking front and the collar to knit, but then again it’s only Tuesday.

I’ve blocked the left front and the sleeve, not really having enough space to block the back at the moment. I need to mark buttonhole placement too, so I can knit the right front with the holes in the right places!

And….trying to study for an exam tomorrow too (history of medicine, modern period). The easy sleeve knitting is good for studying, though – I close my eyes and try to recite things, and can knit it with my eyes closed.

It’s beautiful again today. If I can finish this soon, I can wear it as a spring coat!