I'm in love....

...with myself!

I've decided to make a little Valentine's gift for myself. Dee over at Tangled Up in Sticks and String put up a lovely free pattern the other day, and it was like she had been reading my mind. I've wanted pair of socks with eyelet hearts for a while. I have one that's toe-up, but I really can't be bothered to learn toe up at the moment... so I was going to design my own... but designing takes time... and this is pretty much exactly what I wanted!

I was up at Mom's for dinner tonight so I snagged a skein of Top Cat (because oddly enough... I don't have any pink or red sock yarn in my stash!)
Colour is Candy Girl.

I will probably start them this weekend - but I want to cast off my STR socks first... I've just got to the heel on the second one... so maybe a long night of knitting tomorrow and a little more on Friday and then I'll be knittin' up a little love...

Frozen Leaves Finis!

Well here it is... Frozen Leaves all blocked and ready to wear... and I am!

This was a really fun knit. It was a little confusing at first. The designer, who is obviously very talented, is Russian - so the English translation isn't all that clear.

Unless you understand shawl construction, the charts may be confusing, but I understand someone on Ravelry has redone them and they are better. That said - with a few looks at other's finished projects and some common sense, the original ones aren't hard to figure out.

I did make a few mods:

The pattern is done without a centre stitch - which looks quite nice, but I was having some issues with the double yarn over. I got tired of those issues so I just said screw it and threw in a centre stitch - which works just fine too.

The pattern calls for lace weight yarn and 3.5mm needles. As mentioned before, I knit this with our Wandering Cat Yarns Top Cat, which is fingering, on 4mm needles. The result is a slightly less open space between the leaves but I think it works.

The colour is "Mystic Midnight". It's a beautiful colourway that happened totally by accident - but as you can see it was a Happy Accident! It's full of moody greens, purples and blues. I am going to try and duplicate this and get some up in the store for you all - it truly is one of my favourites (yes I know, I have a lot of favourites... but this one is on top of all those favourites!) It's the perfect way to dress up a plain black dress with just a touch of elegant colour.

The Top Cat (Merino/Cashmere/Nylon) worked out beautifully for the lace. It's soft, has great stitch definition and blocks beautifully! Definitely not just for socks!

Unfortunately I only had one skein which lead to a couple more modifications.

I ran out of the Top Cat about halfway through the second chart and I really didn't want to rip back and do less leaves (I'd also neglected to put in a lifeline like I'd planned - I knew when I started I probably wouldn't have enough yarn). I had some solid black Regia that would work in a pinch, but as usual Mom saved the day... she had a skein of Lorna's Laces in a nice soft black - a much better match than the stark black of my Regia.

So - I cut Chart 2 short by about 12 rows, added a double garter ridge between Chart 2 & 3 and completed the border in the soft black Lorna's Laces. I also cut the border short by two rows because I prefer patterns in multiples of threes (that's just a weird personal artistic thing).

The result (because of the limited yarn) is a nice little shawlette measuring about 56" x 25". I will definitely make this one again - I'd love a larger version and both Mom and I agree it would make a beautiful wedding shawl (if I can ever convince that boy to marry me!)

I really motored through this shawl too - I'm not sure if I was just feeling particularly monogamous, if it was the yarn, or just the pattern or a combination. Once you get working the leaf stitch pattern (31 rows) is very easy to remember and you want to knit just one more row to see them unfold.

This was also a great practice shawl for me. I feel a lot more confident about starting the Red Dragon shawl with my Handmaiden Sea Silk. It's one of those yarns that's almost too nice to knit with. I really don't want do screw it up! But I think I can handle it now - scary lace is scary no more!

This post is brought to you by the letter 'F'

Since it's February and it's a little frosty outside, I thought I'd write a post on topics beginning with the letter "F"

Fibre: I've been a bad business person - mom has done two updates in the shop and I haven't mentioned either. There is some new Alley Cat, Stray Cat and Fat Cat up... check it out.

Here's my latest favourite:

Creeping Phlox

Free time: After a lot of thinking and some serious number crunching, I have gleefully said goodbye to Job #2. It's not that it was a bad job, it was easy and everyone was nice. I was just starting to feel overwhelmed.

So, now I'm sitting here with a whole bunch of free time ahead of me thinking, what am I going to do with it?
Fill it of course - one of the reasons I let the job go was to focus on expanding the amount of freelance writing I do. Dave is also planning on starting a business from home, so I will be helping him get that off the ground. And then there is the whole Wandering Cat world, with yarn, jewelry and beads, that I'd like to devote more attention to. And of course designing... so it's not really free-time, more like flexible time I'm not tied to any one project or workplace for a set amount of hours. And its time spent doing things I love, rather than just "work"

Frozen food: As mentioned before, Dave and I are trying to cut as much processed food out of our diets as possible. We are doing pretty good - the freezer is free of chicken fingers, fish sticks and the like. But it's made it tough for the nights when we get home late, or I just don't feel like cooking.

But I've come up with a solution - faced with a mountain of leftover mashed potatoes the other night, I decided to make some Shepherd's Pie. But instead of making one large pan and having another mountain of leftovers, I went out and bought a bunch of individual aluminum dishes with lids - voila - frozen dinner with out all those preservatives. I plan on doing this with lasagna, maybe some macaroni and cheese or even stir frys. Just heat them up in the oven when you're hungry! I will probably make some more up this weekend.

Funny: I generally leave for work before Dave, and normally by the time I get to work, there is an email about the cats stalking him while he's getting ready. This morning I got this: "Put your yarn in kitchen closet the dam cat 10 minutes after you were gone was running around with yarn in his mouth you had better lock that shit up"

This made me laugh so hard, because if Dave had his way, the cats wouldn't be allowed to do anything. I already have a hook on the basement door (where they get put at night when Dave is here because they keep him up) because they learned that if they take a run at it, they can force it open. His studio has a hook on it, because he's convinced the cats can open it - they can't he just wasn't pulling it shut all the way so it wouldn't latch. Said kitchen cupboard has a latch on it, because Peno likes to open it - just for fun. She doesn't want in she just wants it open - which drives Dave crazy.

Finish it: A few people have asked if I'm going to take part in Ravolympics. I'm not. I don't like putting myself under that kind of pressure - not with my knitting. I work for a newspaper, in a world of constant deadlines, I don't like deadlines on my hobbies too.

However, since I'm still riding the high of the cast off Frozen Leaves, I've decided to see how many WIPs I can get off the needles in the remainder of the month. I'm calling it 'Finish it February' Wanna join me?

It doesn't matter when you started you projects or how many you finish, or even if you start one fresh... the fun is to just see how many we can finish by the 28th! It's not a deadline, it's an open-ended challenge.

Sneak Peak

It's a crappy picture for colour, but it shows the lace pattern beautifully
After several long hours today, I finally cast off Frozen Leaves.
I'll get better pictures, and give mods and details later this week after blocking

Little Pinky

I did indeed salvage the yarn that Rocky thoroughly mangled. And for those of you who asked... yes, he's still alive... but only because he's so darn adorable....

See for yourself:I've completed another repeat or two on the shawl, but I can't show you any pictures. It's sooo big on the needles I can't spread it out and it just looks like a giant blob of knitting.

What I can show you is that Fluffy Cat shawlette that was blocking all those weeks ago. It's no longer blocking and Mom took some lovely photos for me:
The plan is to get the pattern together sometime this week. When I do, you will be the first to know.

I think his soul is made of pure evil...

You remember that comment about spoiling cats...? I take it back - at least about one of them.
After working 12 loooooooooooong hours - I came home to this....Actually.. it was strewn across the entire house, a little chunk in each room. I guess at least he didn't chew through this like he did with the last one.

But you know what really ticks me off... this was tucked away in a knitting basket - with a lid on it!

Grrrr. I guess I'm off to untangle some yarn.

If spoiling my cats is wrong... I don't want to be right

Is it wrong to want to buy a couple of skeins of Madeline Tosh Merino to make your cat a blankie?
Every time I pull out the Tea Leaves cardigan a leave it unattended - I find Peno on it. Last night was no exception. I finished blogging, turned around and there she was (with Mr. Rocky trying to figure out if she might share). What is odd is that Peno is the kind of cat who will run and hide if you look at her the wrong way. But she absolutely refused to get off my cardi. I had to pull it out from under her. She really loves that yarn.

Under the heading of spoiling your cats - Tux has been thoroughly enjoying his couch. But it's been pretty cold and there is a really strong draft that comes across the floor, right by it - so I wanted to make sure he was warm enough...
... he's a cat that just loves to be tucked in! (Mom says I need to have a baby - I say why? I have a furbaby!)

On the knitting front I've just been working on the Frost Leaves shawl. I have the pattern memorized now (it's only a 31 row repeat - that's not weird is it?) and I can work on it without referring to the chart. That will change when I get to the border but for now I'm trucking. I've completed four repeats and I'm working on the fifth...Sorry about the crappy picture - there are days when I really miss my SLR camera.

I think I only have two or three more repeats until I do the border, but it's hard to say because:
1) the pattern doesn't give any measurements (at least not in the English version)
2) The pattern is written for lace on 3.5 mm needles. I'm using fingering on 4 mm.
3) I only have 400 yards of this lovely yarn and very little chance of dying more to match (this was what I call a "happy accident" skein) so it's going to have to be a shawlette and I'm going to have to be very careful on my guesstimating repeats so I don't run out. The pattern gives a very unhelpful 383-437 yard guideline.

I thought this yarn was nice for knitting socks (its our Top Cat - Merino/Cashmere/Nylon) but man - is it ever fun to knit a shawl with. It's unfortunate I don't have more, because I'd love to turn this into a full size shawl. I think Mom and I are going to have to start dying some "matched" skeins in case anyone wants to knit shawls with it - what do you think? Would you like to see multiple skeins of one colourway in the shop for shawls? If so, are there any particular colourways that are your favourite?