Category — Lizard Ridge

And also the beginning of block trois.

I have got to get better about documenting what I’m doing — I think I may have knit the first block on size 9 needles instead of 8s, which is what these are — I had to dip into a new ball to complete the last three rows of the six repeats of the second block, there, and am hoping that won’t be a trend for the rest of the blanket. I had a bunch left over from the first ball, but it may just be differences in yardage from skein to skein.

Also, I’m way behind on my projected/intended two-blocks-per-month to be done in a year (theoretically), so I need to catch up. 2 down, 3rd begun, 7 to go before the end of May. My trip to CA should give me the knitting time I need for the catching up, though. The question remains whether my fortitude to knit only on Lizard Ridge will last the trip.

I am so loving the color changes, though. I’m wondering how some of the subtler colorways will knit up, and whether I’ll want to do some mega-contrasty alternating skeins or not.

I spent last evening’s stolen spinning time playing with a bright yellow dyed silk cap, given to me Saturday at MDSW by Robin Russo at The Spinning Studio. (Where the drool-inducing inlaid Vermont spinning wheels lived, and don’t think I didn’t have a moment where I wanted to drop everything I was carrying and beg them to let me take home the mother of pearl one…)

Robin was perfectly lovely to me, when I asked how one prepares a silk cap for spinning — I’ve never spun with 100% silk before, and when I asked, she said, hand me that yellow cap out of the bin and I’ll show you. She promptly DID show me, and then gave me the yellow cap as a gift, saying that it doesn’t sell well as a color. (Admittedly I’d just purchased that stack of caps from her in blues and greens, but still. I was very touched.)

So in practice I spun up the yellow cap last night, all except the last layer, which I pre-drafted and is sitting at home waiting for me as I type. I initially was thinking disparate small skeins of silk laceweight, but now I am wondering if I will spin it all up as one skein with long color blocks. There is only the one yellow cap, and then I have two each of the green and the two blue colorways, so I must ponder. Anybody want to weigh in with suggestions?

Does this count as an F.O?

The first finished…I can’t say square, because it isn’t, it’s a rectangle. Unit? Anyway, it’s the first one-of-those I’ve completed for this project, so it feels as though it ought to be a finished object, even though technically it’s not.

This is the last time I’ll subject you to this particular square, though, since I’m sure you’re tired of looking at it already. But there’s that one, all finished, and I hope you’ll agree that Cat Bordhi’s instructions for picking up wraps in short rows worked to fix my previous issues that caused all the frogging.

Somewhat related to that — same project, different yarn — is some stash enhancement!

Thus far the Kureyon count stands at about 12 different colorways for the Lizard Ridge — there may be the odd ball floating around that I’m not sure of, but I think in the Great Sort-Of-A-Cleanup I did the other week I managed to gather all the yarn into one place, so that’s probably accurate. If I want to stick to my original stated plan (on which I am already behind, natch),  I have another three units to complete before the end of February. What do you think — can I do it?