Down to the Wire

We're officially one week from opening for Mary Poppins, and I'm super excited. This is going to be such a great show, and while I'm literally collapsing into bed at the end of each day, I'm so glad to have this experience.

Surprisingly, I'm not as far behind on knitting as I thought I might be-but I think the sheer number of projects I've been juggling the past few weeks disguises most of my progress. Not only do I have a ton of stuff actually on the needles, but I also have several skeins of yarn that are just waiting for me to find an hour to wind them up! This pile has all my knitting projects, in progress or still in yarn form, that I want to have done before fall (gulp).

In the pile of WIPs up there, I have a hat for my brother, my mum's Rocky Coast, a cowl/scarf sample, and Mottled Daydream. Not too bad, although I am leaving out some stuff that I've decided to ignore for the next few weeks (including a top for me, a sweater that got stuck 4 rows in, the neverending blankets, some socks, and several bits and pieces I've conveniently forgotten about).

Pattern: Nelumbo

 
I've got a new shawlette pattern out this week! Nelumbo is a light, floaty shawlette, perfect for transitional wear. I designed it specifically for The Dyeing Arts Lush, which is a gorgeous 80/10/10 blend of Merino/Nylon/Cashmere. I was really inspired by this colorway, "Koi Pond," and tried to evoke water gardens in the design elements.

The shawlette is basic top-down triangular construction, with alternating bands of stockinette, garter, and eyelet stitches. The whole thing is finished off with a lightly scalloped border. As always, you can get the pattern here or in my Ravelry store, but wait, there's more!

In a partnership with The Dyeing Arts, Nelumbo is available as a kit! You can request a kit by visiting thedyeingarts.com. I'm fortunate enough that I can stock up on The Dyeing Arts stash a couple times a year in person-I absolutely love the fun sense of color, and the yarns are always a joy to knit with.

Meet Priscilla

I bought a car!! This is my first car, and I thought it was going to be the most valuable thing I own, until I realized that my insulin pump cost about 10 times as much as my car did. But whatever! I'm mobile now, and it's awesome.

This is Priscilla, my 1992 Oldsmobile 88 Royale, and I am so impressed with her so far. She's got a couple of quirks, but her motor is fantastic. It feels like I'm driving a hovercraft. I can drive this car on the highway with the windows down without my hair flying everywhere. It's amazing.

So now I can go places! And take trips! And, most importantly, I don't have to negotiate with my parents to use their cars. That's pretty cool. Plus, the trunk is HUGE. There is so much space in this car. Which is going to make bringing home all my loot from NCFF next month a lot easier. (I haven't won the spinning wheel raffle yet, but I just know that this year is my year. And if it turns out that I don't win it, I'll just have to get some consolation yarn, right? Also, I'm not 100% sure that I'm not going to steal a sheep this year.)

WIP: Mum's Rocky Coast

Right now most of my knitting is in the stage of "I promise it's getting bigger, even though it looks exactly the same." Which is tough for this blogger, because I don't really want to give you identical photos every day. Or a series of posts that all consist of "I've knit seven rounds on this cowl. Yes, it's still the same size," or, "The rows on this shawl are twice as long as they were a couple weeks ago, even though there's less than an inch of visible progress."

So I'm really glad to have some actual, tangible progress for you today: I finally divided the sleeves for Mum's Rocky Coast! Not only is it finally starting to look like a sweater, but the body knitting is really coasting along now (see what I did there? I kill myself). Not surprising, given that there are 100 sleeve stitches total, and now I don't have to knit them anymore. Plus, I don't have to keep track of things like raglan increases or integrating new stitches into cable repeats. It's just smooth sailing.

Now, of course, comes the problem of it's going to get rather large rather quickly, and it's still hot enough that I don't feel like dragging a giant pile of wool around with me. But that's a problem for Future Kat.

Rules for Feeding Your Stash, Part II

In the spirit of one of my most popular posts ever, I have some more rules for feeding your stash:

1. It doesn't count if it looks like Halloween

2. It doesn't count if it's been sitting in the yarn store for ever and ever and you felt sorry for it

3. It doesn't count if it's already in a ball, so you don't need to wind it

4. It doesn't count if it's one of your favorite yarns ever in the world

5. It super duper doesn't count if your friends' kids dyed it (bonus points if you got it in a swap!)

Work Weekend, with Bonus Hair Flowers

Well, it's been quite the weekend! Surprisingly, on a work trip I'm busy working, so I didn't get too much knitting done. I did manage to start the second ball of yarn for my lavender cowl, which is a sample for this fall, but that's pretty much it. I'm going to have to figure out something strategic for mum's Rocky Coast if there's any hope of her getting it for fall.

I'm driving back home today, and I really can't wait to be back in my house with my family and my dogs. But it's been a pretty good weekend-all the work stuff went well, and I only got moderate acne, so yay!

I've also been rocking flowers in my hair lately-I have a few headbands that I've recently started getting into, but this flower crown one is one of my favorites, and I also recently got some flower barrettes that I've been playing around with. So if I disappear, odds are I ran away to the forest to be a fairy princess.

Culling the Queue

Today I'm driving west, armed with enough knitting to get me through the weekend. Hopefully the hills will be significantly cooler than it's been on the east side of the state, and I'll get a nice short break from the sweltering heat.

Sometime last fall I got it into my head that I wanted my Ravelry queue to have fewer items in it than my projects page. I've been serious about culling my queue since then-and I finally reached my goal a couple of weeks ago! It's been great to be more intentional about what goes into my queue-there's no more "I don't know how often I'd wear this sweater, but 19-year-old Kat really wanted it, so I should probably get it done before I move onto that exciting entrelac wrap."

My old queue was really unwieldy-I was never going to knit everything on it, especially if I kept adding new patterns! That really started to stress me out-my queue now is a great place for inspiration and planning. It's all stuff that I want, that I have plans for, and that I'm excited about knitting.

I have a better understanding of who I am as a knitter and what I use and love in my wardrobe now, and my queue reflects that-most of the stuff there has been added in the last 18 months! My new queue also reflects that I shouldn't feel beholden to who I used to be as a person and as a knitter. That person doesn't exist anymore-she's turned into Present Kat! (Maybe this is my ego speaking, but I think Present Kat is pretty darn cool.)

So! Are any of you motivated to start culling your queue? Even just one or two items at first-it's definitely hard the first few times, but I found that I almost immediately forgot the things that I had deleted, and if they haunted my thoughts for days after deleting, it was easy enough to find them and re-queue!

A Change in Plan: Sick Day Pullover

I started this pullover with the intention of using four skeins of Lion Brand Fettuccini, but after knitting the body up, I changed my mind (surprise!). I was expecting the pullover to be slightly cropped, or to hit just above the hip, and with the extra skeins of yarn, it came out much longer than I expected. It was also heavy-this yarn is sold by weight, not yardage, and each skein is 355g! Plus, there is no consistency across skeins, so there were major gauge/drape changes.

Here's the body before I ripped it all back-I barely remembered to take a photo before I started frogging it, so sorry about the poor quality. It ended up reaching to just about the end of my butt, which just felt long. My plan now is to re-knit the body using the grey skein only, and then do the top part of the yoke and the sleeves in the pink. I think that will give me more of what I'm looking for. The other skeins didn't have as much drape, so I might use them to make grocery bags or a small rug-who knows!

This project is getting pushed to the back burner now. I already mentioned I have to go west this weekend, so I think I'm going to bring my mum's Rocky Coast to work on (I'm still two rows from the end of the yoke!) and my current cowl project, and that should get me through a couple evenings away.

WIP: Yellow Camas

Well, I couldn't put off knitting up this yellow yarn any longer. I decided to go with a hat, because, duh, what's the point of knitting if you don't have a hat for every outfit? But that could just be me.

I decided to go with Camas because, 1. It's hella cute, and 2. I think that the crown looks a little bit like the sun, and I'm cheesy and like to knit things that look like the sun with yellow yarn. I wound up the first of the skeins during play practice last week, and started the garter stitch brim.

It's just a little bit of a start, but I'm already charmed. We'll see how much I actually get done this week-play rehearsals are starting to ramp up, and I have to go west for work this weekend, too. But this whole concept just seemed too charming to leave for later.

Sick Days

I was home sick yesterday with strep, which normally would be primo knitting time, but I've been feeling a little tired this week and I indulged in a 3-hour nap. While I wasn't sleeping, I had a little Twin Peaks marathon in bed with the puppy and started knitting something new.

I got four skeins of this Lion Brand Fettuccini a few weeks back, and I pretty quickly decided that I definitely needed a baggy pullover. It's been on my to-knit list since then, but I didn't know when I'd get around to it. Turns out yesterday was the lucky day-I did a quick swatch, then just jumped in. I'm knitting from the bottom up, and my current plan is to use up the grey yarn, then go to the other whitish skein for the yoke, and then use the hot pink for drop sleeves.

If my math's right, this will have 8-10 inches of positive ease. I was hoping for something cozy and slouchy, just an extra layer to wear with yoga pants and a tank, and I think this is going to fit the bill nicely. It's definitely not what I normally knit-but I'm having fun with it so far! The yarn is all "undetermined fibers," but these skeins all feel to me like some kind of cotton blend jersey-so it should definitely be nice and comfy!