We’re getting one and a half minutes more sunshine each day, Spring is springin’, and it seems the long, deep depression that has consumed me the past…well. More than a year. Maybe two. ANYWAY it’s been a long one? And I think it’s finally lifting. Truly lifting, as opposed to just taking a break before surging back to kick my ass some more.

We prepped for the holiday with the help of the good folks at PAAS:

Thus began a weekend of all the rainbow egg consumption one family can possibly handle. The rest of our Easter weekend turned into a four day celebratory crawl from play dates to neighborly Easter-Egg-Hunts to a dear friend’s birthday party to a blissful recovery day of quiet and snuggling.

Pretty damn good, I feel. I’ll take it. How about you?

I know knitters everywhere already know that this is gospel truth: Blocking is MAGIC. Perhaps most astonishing when blocking lace knitting, it’s still shockingly effective in every other gauge for making a garment/accessory/knitted item look and drape and feel its absolute best.

Because I so often procrastinate on blocking the stuff I knit, I’m always surprising myself when I manage a marathon blocking session and see the befores/afters. So despite the fact that all knitters know (or should know) the beauty of blocking, it’s something I need to remind myself of now and then.

Is this blog-cheating, when I am showing you photos of things you’ve already seen the FO summary post for? Is blog-cheating a thing? Maybe. But you’re getting the pics anyway because come ON! LOOK AT HOW HOT THIS IS!

Awwwwww yeah. Wet wool, baby. You should get right down near that and smell the wafting fumes of good, damp wool. (unless you’re allergic, in which case, don’t do that. Let’s keep everybody breathing and not-itchy, shall we?)

Did you guys hear a primal knitter’s scream, though, a few hours ago? If so, that might have been me, discovering a bug-created hole in the grey section of that Lizard Ridge block, bottom of the photo, above. A HOLE. IN MY WOOL.

Mama’s got some words for the exterminators tomorrow, OH YES. Mass bugicide is forthcoming to Chez Cadorette tout de suite.

It’s okay, darling. It’s Kureyon. Some darning, maybe a bit of felting action, and we’re golden. *pets* (well. grey. but, you know.)

I am pretty sure I used every single pin in the house blocking three Lizard Ridge blocks, even with the use of blocking wires. Which, as an aside, I’d like to say are one of the best knitting tools I’ve ever purchased myself, second only perhaps to a high quality wooden umbrella swift.

Anything you’ve been putting off blocking? Confess, and be shriven.

My knitting mojo seems to have decided to stick around long enough for me to actually finish something!

Way back in July, I cast on for Laura Chau’s Dipped Infinity Scarf, the yarn for which I got in a kit from Fibre Space. At the time, I, um, forgot the ribbing? Oops. I guess I was so thrilled at the idea of the color changes to come that I launched right into the stitching pattern sans ribbing.

Anyway, I was so irritated with the mistake, and trying to decide how to fix it without ripping out what I already had done, that it took months for me to pick it back up again (kind of a metaphor for my life lately, actually).

This week, after casting off (remembering the ribbing on this end) the majority of the piece, I figured out how to pick up stitches in ribbing on the cast-on edge, and only 5 rows later, there was a cowl!

This is getting blocked today so the ribbing will quit folding over; had to stab a couple toothpicks into it to get it flat enough for glamour shots.

Project: Dipped Infinity Scarf by Laura Chau/cosmicpluto
Yarn: Neighborhood Fiber Company Studio Sock (sold as a kit at Fibre Space)
Needles: Chiagoo circulars, US 9s (I think. Need to double check size.)
Notes: I have an unhealthy adoration for Karida Collins’ yarn, and there was no way I could pass up these colors. They just…glow.

I have a second Turn-A-Square hat currently on the needles out of the same yarn combo as the first (Brooklyn Tweed Shelter & Noro Kureyon; not original by any stretch, but so beautiful, why mess with perfection?):

Meanwhile, I finished yet another hat that was a very late birthday/Christmas present for a friend, the Fair Kate hat by Thelma Egberts. This one had stalled out when I got stuck on the cabled decreases at the crown:

WHY I got stuck there is a mystery to me, though, because when I picked the project up out of hibernation, I picked right up where I left off & completed the hat with no difficulty. I don’t even know.

The yarn is a grey baby alpaca I picked up at MDSW, and is as soft, fuzzy, light, & warm as you might expect, looking at it.

Project: Fair Kate hat by Thelma Egberts
Yarn: grey baby alpaca, I believe from Misty Mountain farms?, via MDSW
Needles: Addi Turbo circular needles, US 5s
Notes: dear self: you are not a failure as a knitter if you use a cable needle for 5-over-5 cable crosses, damn it, so STOP THAT & use the damn cable needle! Love, self.

I have two sweaters planned, both in the blue color family, so my Blue Period seems to be continuing, but I also grabbed two new Kureyon colors to add on to Lizard Ridge, The Afghan That Never Ends:

Where are you on your own color wheel?

I just got the okay I was looking for, though, so now I get to squee at you about this:

That, my friends, is NYT best-selling author Jim Butcher, writer of the Dresden Files and Codex Alera novels, wearing his Brain Hat, knitted by me.

Cannot begin to describe how cool it felt to receive this photo. But I suspect y’all get it.

So I’m browsing Ravelry this morning (likeyoudo), and there smack in the middle of the “what’s hot right now” list of patterns is an old knitblogger’s friend: Cornelia Tuttle-Hamilton’s Klaralund! [rav link]

It’s possible that I am particularly knitstalgic at the moment, having finally imported ancient Typepad blog posts over that reach back to 2005. Certainly I was more clever in my blog headlines then, and FAR more prolific in my posts than the past ~mumble~ years have shown. But to come across a pattern that was one of the first in what felt like a constant wave of projects that would zoom across the (then somewhat limited, compared to today’s 2m Ravelry users) knit-blog-osphere, trending as one of the current projects that knitters are into in 2013, feels almost like an out-of-body experience. Time traveling, if you will, but with more needles and fewer Daleks.

Terribly pleased to see that the pattern has had more sizes added; I thought the reason it might have come back into knitterly awareness now is because of the release of the Noro: Knit 40 Fabulous Designs book, but since that happened in 2009, I really don’t know why it’s come back around. Not sure it’s relevant, really; I’m just kind of glad to see what feels like an old friend coming across my Ravelry options.

Okay, so. Everybody knows it isn’t real unless you blog it, right? So here’s all the stuff that hasn’t been real until RIGHT NOW, since last we met:

The Sainted Husband got his (almost)annual Crazy Hat Project result earlier this year – his Skully Hat remains the most oft-worn, beloved knitted item ever to come off my needles, so, as TSH is a professional editor and English teacher, I made him We Call Them Ampersands, a spin-off of the same pattern as his skully hat, now with more typography!

True to form, I’ve discovered I haven’t got a good Finished Object photoshoot of this one, but here’s a couple action shots of the hat doing its job:

(That’s my dad in the background; we were visiting them in Raleigh, NC and it was COLD that day. YAY knitted things to keep people warm!)

And a hazy at-home, natural-habitat shot:

Project: We Call Them Ampersands; original pattern is Adrian Bazila’s We Call Them Pirates; Ampersand chart by Susette Newberry

Yarn: I don’t actually know. Generic shetland-esque wool I had in stash, no ballband.

Needles: Addi Turbo Lace US 5s

I don’t have a timeline for this one, either, I’m afraid. This is what happens when I don’t blog for forever; I have no digital memory to help me remember these things.

Hats are pretty much all I have had any knitting bandwidth for of late, it seems; I have a rainbow Ampersands I started for myself, but will have to rip because my gauge was wonky:

That’s Kuani for the color, and I think a shetland for the white. Pondering other options for this one.

The other hat I knit last year ate up nearly all my knitting mojo, and it was a confluence of Twitter Bravado and commission. I follow many of the authors I love over on Twitter, and one day the infamous Brain Hat was mentioned as a desired object by one of my most fave authors. I, perhaps foolishly, replied that I had two sticks and some string and could probably make that happen. Several DMs later, I had a commission to make the thing.

It took four football fields of yarn, months of time, and at least half my sanity, but I TRIUMPHED:

Pattern: Alana Noritake’s Brain Hat [Rav Link]

Yarn: Madeline Tosh Sock in “Nectar” from WEBS

Needles: Addi Turbo Lace, I think US 4s? Can’t remember specifically what size needles I did this on, am guessing based on some in-progress pics I’ve got on Flickr; I do know that purchasing an i-cord machine saved. my. bacon. with this project; holy crap but did this ever take forever! Thank goodness the recipients were terribly patient with me for it.

Started: February 4, 2012

Finished: December 18, 2012

As I’m sitting here doing this, I’m realizing that even though it feels like I haven’t knit anything in years, practically, I actually did finish a fair number of projects this year! Long-time readers (if there are any of you remaining) may recall the Samhain wedding shawl knit for Miss Plum’s godmother; so, when this lady birthed her first child this year, there had to be a small suite of Wee Laddie Knits! First, the obligatory Baby Surprise Jacket:

Pattern: Baby Surprise Jacket

Yarn: My own handspun (!!!!)

Needles: No idea. Addi, yes, but size? No clue.

Completed: Sometime in March 2012.

I had enough handspun leftover to crank out a wee tiny Aviator cap:

I can’t remember what book I cribbed this off of; it was one of the very first knitting books I ever got, but it’s about the same as any other infant ear flap hat pattern that’s floating around out there. I was just ridiculously proud that it was knit from my own handspun.

Then there was a second wee laddie sweater:

Pattern: Fibre Space‘s Baby Stripes

Yarn: Spud & Chloë Sweater, purchased at Fibre Space

Needles: Addi Turbo Circular US8s

Completed: March 12, 2012

I have a grey hat in progress for another friend that stalled out on the crown decreases; need to take some pics of that for you; also I took some of this Clover Leaf Farms fiber in colorway “EarthTones”:

And am turning it into some handspun, like so:

Not sure yet what that’s going to be.

Holy crap you guys, there is so much. I shall sum up what remains in a forthcoming post.

Meanwhile, tell me how y’all are doing?

PS: I went from dirty blonde to red while you weren’t looking:

Before:

and After:

Ahem.

While I slog through the home stretch of The Brain Hat That Ate My Mojo, I cast on a side project: Tom Bombadil socks for The Sainted Husband(TM).

(side note: look quick, y’all, because those nails are RARE and never last long. As soon as I start feeling like, “wow, I actually have reasonably pretty fingernails!”? That’s when they all break into ragged nubs.)

It seemed fitting to post these on the day when Peter Jackson announced they’re breaking The Hobbit into three films, rather than two. Why it is that one comparatively tiny book gets three whole films when the massive trilogy garnered three total for novels far longer is a mystery, but I feel these socks at least are a nod to the left-out Tom Bombadil from the previous LotR trilogy.

This yarn is Dragonfly Fibers Djinni Sock in colorway Mushroom Hunting, and it’s one of the only things that captivated me enough at Maryland Sheep and Wool to come home with me. I’ve got some spinning to show you that encompasses the rest of that small haul, but this yarn is I think my most fave to date.

I had a hard time capturing the color of this properly; will try again at home with The Big Camera, but for now, suffice it to say that the colourway is perfectly titled. It really DOES resemble leaf litter and beautiful fungi, in the best way.

How’s by you?

Twice annual posts surrounding wool festivals. I know. Let us not speak of it again.

Tomorrow is Maryland Sheep and Wool festival! Which is fab.

Today, however, is my 10th wedding anniversary, which I posted about over on LizSquared. Do go check it out, won’t you? I shall report back post-sheeps-and-wools. Pinky swear.

But I, like Meg Ryan in French Kiss…I HAVE TRIUMPHED! ~fist~ So take a look around and let me know what you think of the re-design. I’m not entirely convinced I’ll keep it (though after this much work, it goes against the grain to just chuck it and begin again. So perhaps I’ll sit with this one for a while?), but for now I think it’s pretty cool.

There has been knitting, not that you could tell from the silence around this place – I finished TSH’s Neverending Skully Scarf of Doooooom on Christmas Day; it awaits weather and schedules to permit a proper photo shoot, but here it was just after completion:

Pardon, if you will, the filthy bathroom mirror, vacation-dressed me, Christmas-tie-dye project tee shirt, etc. You know that’s how we roll around here anyway, yes?

I give you: Pole, also known as my Blue Sweater of Happiness. C’est Finis.

Pattern: Joji Locatelli’s   “Pole” Sweater

Yarn: Malabrigo Worsted in “Buscando Azul”, purchased from Fibre Space in Alexandria, VA. I thought I’d purchased 10 skeins of this, but my Ravelry notes say I only got 7. If that’s so, I only used 5.5 skeins, which seems odd. (UPDATE: Fibre Space, because they are awesome, confirms that I did only purchase 7 skeins, so this is technically kind of a bargain sweater, considering the fiber in question)

Needles: Addi Turbo circulars in (I think?) US 9 and US 10.

Notes: For the most part, I’m thrilled with this garment. Because I’ve got body issues, I naturally dislike the bit where it exposes my least favorite anatomical unsightlinesses, but I haven’t yet figured out a tweak that would work. This entire thing is essentially a circle knit around a rectangle. With sleeves. So to add a few inches on to only the front portion of a circle’s edge would be a challenge I am not sure I can tackle just yet. We’ll see. For now, I get compliments anytime I wear it, and it’s warm and soft as one would expect, wallowing in Malabrigo, nevermind the fantastically electric color.

So, like…HI. How’re you?

I’m now 1.15 repeats into The Sainted Husband’s thrice-damnned skully scarf, which I’ve attempted a minimum of three times before with no success. I think at least I’ve got the dang thing down to the right gauge and style, though, so now I have 8.85 repeats to go. Guh.

If this motif and yarn look familiar, that’s because he’s already gotten a hat and a pair of mitts from this Hello Yarn free pattern. But he’s been after me for a scarf for literally years now, and finally it’s getting knit. I MUST love that man.