Knitting News

Yesterday was indeed a knitting day. I felt worse and worse as the day progressed so it was a good day to stay inside. This flu has been a bear! It will be two weeks on Wednesday and while I must admit that I haven't been totally good to myself (stayed home the first W, TH, F but weeded on Friday and went for a happy hour drink, then went out to dinner to celebrate tenure of two faculty on Sat night), I did stay home in bed the first two days and then came home from work for afternoon naps 3 days last week and went to bed early almost every night.

But back to the knitting... I finished something! The lace net shrug for Aunt Pat is done! It is made from a handspun cotton and silk blend yarn in natural beige. It has ribbed cuffs, but the rest of the shrug is a lacy *k2tog yo* on every other row. The in between rows are pearl or knit depending on whether you are working in the round (just after the cuffs) or on the flat part of the shrug. I had been putting off the end where I had to back from flat to circular cuffs because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to do it in a way that matched the start where I went from circular cuffs to lace. I shouldn't have worried. It was as easy as just doing the opposite of what I did in the beginning. Sorry for no pictures of the finished project, but you can see an in progress photo in this old post.

I must say I am quite proud of this since I saw one last year at Stitches and sat at lunch drawing what I would do to make my own version. Then I came home and found the yarn in my stash and got started. I started it on the way to the Stanford spring FB game last April. Part way through the project I discovered that one of the (unlabeled) skeins that I had planned to use was a three ply rather than the two ply that I had started with. Not to worry! I had more fiber so I spun more two ply yarn. Well, I was a little worried. It had been so long since I had spun the original that it took awhile to get the size right. And the color of the fiber looked different than the spun yarn. But I was sure (?) that it was the same fiber, wasn't I? It turned out that, yes, the fiber was the same and once the yarn was spun, it looked just the same.

So now, I just need to wash it and steam it so the lace stays nice and lacy and send it off. Aunt Pat, your shrug will be ready for spring!

I also worked on the Aran Sandal Socks (see them in this old post). I started them when niece S was graduating from high school. They were my in flight project. One sock is done (had problems with the heel that made it stall) and now I am at the heel again with the second sock. Still couldn't figure out doing the cables back and forth on the heel rather than around. How do you do the crossed stitches from the back side? What did I do, lo those many months ago, on the first heel when I finally felt like I figured it out? Well, this morning I looked on Ravelry at the others who have done this project and found an errata sheet! Argh!!! I hate it when patterns have mistakes! But I love that I can find out what they are from Ravelry. So, now I know. The Right Side rows are the even rows, not the Wrong Side rows. That's a pretty big mistake! It was what I wanted to do yesterday, but I kept thinking, "No, Kelly, just follow the pattern. On something like this it is important not to go off on your own and do your own thing." This ability to find out the mistakes in a pattern is the best thing about Ravelry. The second best thing is the ability to see a finished pattern on an actual real person. It is amazing how many knitted objects really don't look all that good on real people!