Adapting

Time to face facts:

It's December 4th.

In 20 days, I will be past the point of knitting anything for anybody.

It takes me an average of 30 days to come up with a pair of socks, to say nothing of the other 5 or 6 things I'm supposed to be knitting for presents.

I can't knit socks for my likely-to-enjoy-handknit-socks friend.

I can however substitute a hat out of qiviut:


Let's just hope I have enough qiviut in the stash!

When in doubt, wind

Christmas is coming so soon! and I am so not ready for it!

The sensible me:
NOT knitting for every single person on my list, like last year.

The ridiculous me:
NOT committing to projects for the few people I am knitting for.

Three people are definitely getting something knit, because I've got their things underway.

Two more might, if I can decide on a colour to use for the project that seems most likely to work for them.

Two others should, but I haven't decided on colour or pattern or yarn.

Enter winding.


What better way to maximize your stash potential while minimizing your decision-making efforts than to wind wool from skein to ball?


I had these two from Decadent Fibers (Cookie Dough and Creme Brulee, but I'm not sure which is which at the moment) custom-dyed so they would match. They both knit up on biggish needles... think I have time to make a mini poncho/shoulder warmer for an adult-sized person?

Can't quit

Cannot quit the Vesper Sock Club.


Yes, I am swimming in sock yarn I can't possibly knit all of, but dang. Julia just keeps outdoing herself... I would be so bruised from kicking myself for missing out if I skipped a season!

Are we there yet?

My new kitchen scale is, seriously, the gift that keeps on giving.

Lately I've been wondering about how much more knitting there is in the shawl I'm aiming to finish in time for Christmas, and yesterday the thought occurred to me that I could find out by putting what's left of the skein on the scale:


54 grams.

I started out with 100 grams.

And it's taken me two full months to get this far.

I'm going to have to shift this particular project from 'travel knitting' to 'every spare minute knitting', yes?

Estonian Lace - The Haapsalu Shawl

I first read about this fabulous-looking book over at Northern Lace, an enormously enjoyable blog in its own right, but especially for tips such as this. (You can read the actual post here.)

Bottom line:

Lace stitch dictionary
Gorgeous photography
History

Do I need to say I've been trying to get my hands on a copy ever since?

The good news: the English translation is finally available!
The bad news: for some reason I haven't been able to get the website to process my payment.

If you feel you'd like to have a copy, you too can try ordering directly from the publisher. The pricing is in Estonian Kroon, which you can convert into your own currency here (it works out to about $55 Cdn., including shipping, as of today.)

Or you can also order it from this very nice shop.

Charting

It had to happen sometime... you can't be writing up patterns and admiring lace and cable stitches and avoid charting forever!

Fortunately, others have forged this trail already.

At first, I just used ordinary graph paper to pencil in my plans, only to discover that the shaping - big surprise - looked very different once knit. So I was very pleased to find this free source of gauge-specific charting paper.

Also at first, I made a chart for myself and then wrote up the pattern as text.

But having fallen for stitch repeats greater than four stitches over four rows I can't really get away with that any more, so I was even more pleased to find the blog of a Very Clever and Very Generous person who figured out how to chart in Excel and related software and then went to the trouble to share the details.

And now you know what I'm doing today. Well, that and avoiding the resident box of Turtles.

Comfort shopping

I realize that most people reading this are taking a break from basting a turkey or wondering whether anybody will notice a missing piece of pie (tip: serve the pie from the kitchen, or on a platter of cut pieces, and nobody has to know)

but after wishing said people a Very Happy Thanksgiving, I will also say this:

Read it and weep.

No, seriously. Gorgeous word sketches of Italian places you're probably not in at this very moment! And a freshly blooming white amaryllis, which is also probably not on your table.

And...

beautifully hand-dyed, hand-spun yarn that you can't have, because I beat you to it!

I know, I'm mean.

And fiendishly plotting how best to put Corriedale handspun into a hat.

And very aware that the lovely, peaceful, inspiring thoughts at Quite A Handful can't possibly induce competitiveness or gnashing of teeth. Really, it's almost as good as chocolate, this reading of blogs full of photographs of life in New Zealand.

(But buying yarn from said New Zealanders is better, heh heh heh.)