Out of Season

Hellloooo!

Tuesday morning on a very COLD day in South Mississippi, which of course means we’re sitting at a blustery 45 degrees.  Okay, so not exactly frigid but the current “cold” snap was enough for The Husband to light our first fire in the fireplace the night before last.  Every year, the cooler temps also make me long for woolen things to place upon my person.  Also every year, I find that I’ve knit no woolen items for myself besides socks (but I am oh, so grateful for those socks).  Perhaps I should engineer a sweater made entirely of socks.  Instead, I continue to work on my Summer Blooms shawl  made of lace weight yarn.  Yeah, I’ve never been really good at working on items that actually fit the needs of the current season.  Meh…

You can see that the shawl is growing.  I inserted a lifeline a couple of days ago and began work on the short rows and I’ve made pretty good progress on it.  Once the short rows are finished, I’ll insert another lifeline before I begin the final beaded lace section prior to the cast off.  I usually hate blocking things, but this is one item I can’t wait to block.  That’s the thing about lace.  You plug along and think things look good but you never really know what that scrunchy bundle of labor-intensive, tear-inducing, on-the-edge-of-losing-your-religion project looks like until you’ve stretched it all out.  

Along with that anxiety, why not add another issue that brings me to a perilous road not-yet-traveled?  You can see in the photo that my ball of yarn is tiny.  So tiny that there is no way to get out of the fact that I am going to have to join new yarn in order to finish this thing.  Folks, this is LACE. WEIGHT. YARN.  I have a knot in my stomach just thinking about it.  Somehow, internally, I just knew that the more common methods of joining new yarn were not going to work for this, so in a rare moment of actually thinking ahead before a crisis, I turned to the all-encompassing storehouse of knowledge - Google - and found these instructions by Eunny Jang.  I must admit, I am still quite apprehensive about trying it, but hey…Eunny wouldn’t steer me wrong.  Right?  RIGHT?!?

Turning my mind to happier things, look what showed up at my house yesterday:

Happiness delivered right to my door!

My lovely daughter got me a WEBS gift card for my birthday back in October.  It took me this long to decide what to purchase with it.  I mean, come on, it’s WEBS.  If I ever get to visit the actual store, I’m taking provisions in with me, lest they find me two weeks later buried under some beautiful merino.  I’d be dead but I’d have died happy.  There is SO MUCH to choose from.  Then add to it that I’m not working right now, so I have to make that gift card go as far as I possibly can.  Two words:  sale yarn.  

I purchased the Berroco Fiora in a beautiful blue-gray shade to make the Trapeze Tunic/Dress by Irina Poludnenko.  I want to get some knit dresses into my wardrobe that I can wear with leggings and a toasty turtleneck or the like and this pattern is free which is in my budget.  With my expanding middle-aged waistline, a dress that flares a bit is a must and this should work nicely.  I got the Sirdar Country Style 4-ply because it was on sale and because I absolutely love this color of blue.  I don’t know what this will be yet, but I got enough to make something nice.  And finally, I bought two skeins of Plymouth Yarn Company’s Holiday Lights because, hello…sparkles.  

You’ll notice I have not mentioned anything about Christmas knitting.  That’s because there isn’t much of it happening and even what is happening is a secret because of the whole gift thing, you know.  

How are you doing on YOUR Christmas knitting?

Lisa

xoxo