Friday, September 3, 2010

Four Days

Apparently "forever" is four days long. At least that's how long it took me to finish knitting the edging on Juneberry. I bound off the last few stitches on Sunday, blocked the shawl on Tuesday evening, unpinned when I got home from work on Wednesday (no it doesn't take nearly that long to dry - I just wanted to go to bed instead of waiting to unpin that evening), and now am waiting for a time to get some decent FO shots. I got off work early today (thanks, boss!) and was able to snap a few preview pics for you.



That's all I've got for now. Trust me when I say that the finished piece is really, really lovely. More shots to come this weekend when our favorite photographer gets home.

Let me instead distract you with a little project that slipped in under the radar over the last few weeks: a BSJ and matching booties for a friend's baby shower last weekend.



The pattern for the booties is from The Opinionated Knitter, just a few pages past the Baby Surprise Jacket. Knitting these made remember just how much working an Elizabeth Zimmerman pattern can be an exercise in trust - especially the first time through a pattern! Until the last stage, these looked absolutely nothing like booties. Putting your trust in a talented designer and hoping that everything turns out alright in the end is a little bit like the knitting version of bungee jumping: enjoy the feeling of free fall and know that the cord will be there to catch you. (Personally, I'll stick with the knitting version since I know the worst that will happen is that I'll have to rip and restart - way less dangerous).

The yarn is Knit Picks stroll tweed (I think - Nayyir seems to have stolen all of the ball bands that I had lying around). I used about a skein and a half for both the sweater and the booties. Size 3 needles for both.

You'd think that I'd done something productive with my extra couple of hours this afternoon, but instead I'm completely distracted by the thought of knitting October Frost (rav link) from Lisa Lloyd's fabulous book A Fine Fleece right now. It finally feels like fall (until we get 90 degree temps again next week) and I just love the idea of knitting a big cabled sweater again. Sadly, I don't have any appropriate yarn in the stash for this one and I'm really trying to be good about not buying new yarn at the moment.

So for now, I'll be good and go work on Kai-Mei so that I can get started on Hallett's Ledge. Hopefully that will help tame my current desire for cables.

Have a fabulous long weekend!

4 comments:

Jonah said...

All very nice, but really I just can't get over the picture of the bootie. Very nice!

Brendaknits said...

I knit those same booties this year as part of my year with EZ. I think I'll try them with bigger yarn for a bigger size. Love the BSJ

Rachel said...

Hey, maybe my 're-challenge' will be accepted since you are trying to be good with both yarn buying AND casting on until you get some things off the needles!

Did you treat yourself to any splurge at the end of your exam? Cuz seriously, if that is not a good excuse to buy yarn for a special project I don't know what is. I respect knitting from the stash, but treating yourself for an accomplishment that big is just sensible. ;)

Your BSJ and booties are perfect!

Saro said...

I had a much easier time visualizing the finished booties than the finished BSJ while knitting - I think I was a third of the way through the BSJ before the sleeve topography finally made sense, whereas the bootie seemed more intuitive. MAybe that's just me.