Category — Startitis

Who can keep track when in the grip of illnesses like these?

Handspun Nereid mitts were begun.

Then I made of the mistake of going to the local-to-my-office yarn shop, Stitch D.C., to pick up some lace Addi needles. (A need sparked, as I said in the last post, because the other US 3 and 4 needles I have are currently lost in the abyss of my disorganization at home. Also I think they’re too short anyway. Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself.) While there, after discovering they did not have the needles I needed, I had a wee accident with the card and ended up with some amazingly soft yarn:

Lacey Lamb 100% lambswool yarn. Rub-against-the-cheeks soft.

Then I ended up in a bookstore — never good for the wallet but nearly always a necessity for my sometimes-fragile ability to cope with the world — and came home with A Gathering of Lace and Lace Style books. I’d been seeking a project to knit for my best friend’s impending Samhain wedding. She’s a very tall, willowy, utterly gorgeous red head. (A pause, so you can all hate her guts with me…okay, moving on.) Anyway, I figured, she’s getting married on Halloween, and the bridesmaid’s dresses are all burgundy. Sorry — Cabernet. Therefore, despite having purchased the above burg — I mean, Cabernet-colored yarn, I went stash diving for some lace yarn I got from eBay waaaaaay back when I first started knitting again in earnest.

Found it!

This is how much knitting happens from cast on to present when one spends all weekend doing very little other than knitting whilst being immersed in Blue Planet DVDs:

Okay, so that doesn’t show you the whole thing, because the whole thing? Is just a variegated red blob. But that is a circular shawl, knitted from the center out, through the Shetland Fern chart, and one repeat of the Horseshoe lace chart. For me? This is lightning fast knitting. This is the Shetland Tea Shawl from the book A Gathering of Lace, and I am L O V I N G the knitting of it. (Dear Jared, sorry for stealing your letter-spacing thing, but I love how it looks! Also you are intensely cool and I am a fangirl. Forgive me? Love, Liz)

A couple of shaky pics of the lace repeats are over on Flickr — they were slightly blurry because holding the lace out so you can see it with one hand and taking photos with the other hand is not so very conducive to sharp photography.

And then, (NOANDTHEN! Name that movie reference…) The Sainted Husband required wee circle thingies from Michael’s for his gaming group, whereas Youngest Rat required a new job, and Michael’s is hiring. So Youngest Rat, my daughter, and I all piled into my car and trundled ourselves to Michael’s to obtain wee circle thingies and a job application for Youngest Rat. (My two teenaged stepsons are collectively “The Ratz” — Youngest and Eldest. I can’t remember if I have explained this before. No, I do not trundle large rodents to and fro during my errands. :)) (Also? Oxford comma, baybee. Stoopid AP Stylebook. Hate.)

Upon walking into Michael’s, I beheld there upon the shelves Something I Had To Have.

And yea, the fluorescent lights shone down in benediction upon the Wee Skully Lunchbox of Awesome, and verily didst The Knitter squee unashamed before all and sundry; and spaketh She to those gathered therein, “This. Is. AWESOME. And I must have it.” Thus did The Box Of Awesome appear in the Holy Shopping Cart of Antioch, and lo, The Knitter Was Pleased, and It Was Good. Here endeth the tale.

And finally, because I don’t have ENOUGH going on the needles, I got the perfect honey-colored lace for a gorgeous honeybee-themed stole from KnitSpot.

Now I want to get some lovely beads to knit into this, and maybe some honeybee beads. I’m thinking I want lampworked glass bees to dangle somewhere from the stole, but I haven’t solidified that idea in my head yet. (Which is just as well, given that I have so many things in progress floating around that the likelihood of my getting to this anytime soon is slim.)

Did I chase everybody away with my inconsistencies? My stats page says there are people reading, but still all my comments read ~NIL~. Therefore, if you’ve a moment, tell me — is there anything you’d like to see here that you’re not seeing? It looks as though most folks read on the weekends, so is it better for you if there’s a regular schedule of Friday posts? I seem to have finally regained my Mojo (Interestingly corresponding with losing a fair percentage of my bank account), so I’d really like to know your thoughts. (Also? Me = Comment Ho. NICE.)

If found, please mail to startitis.cure at yarngeek dot com.

This weekend, I:

• Saw Kung Fu Panda with my husband, four year old, and eighteen year old. Score on all counts — wonderful movie, definitely one we will want to own as soon as it’s available.
• Enhanced the stash by one skein of Penthouse Silk laceweight [<--Ravelry Link] by Neighborhood Fiber Company in golden honey tones. (I believe the colorway is called Lincoln Park. For the circle in D.C., not the band.) Oh, and two more long-cord Addi laceweight needles in sizes 3 and 4 because I can’t find any of the multitudes of the same in my hugely disorganized house. Purchase location: Knit Happens.
• Enhanced the stash by two skeins of laceweight baby lambswool yarn in a deep burgundy. Purchase location: Stitch D.C.
• Enhanced the stash/pattern library by two books and three patterns.
  • Pam Allen and Ann Budd’s Lace Style (I thought I already owned this, but can’t find THAT, either.)
  • Meg Swansen’s A Gathering of Lace
  • Three patterns from KnitSpot’s Anne Hanson:
    • The Honeybee Stole (see above re: Lincoln Park silk laceweight yarn in golden honeyed tones…)
    • Bee Fields Shawl (likewise in the running for said honey-toned yarn)
    • Cluaranach Stole, which I had to have on general principle, what with the thistles, ‘n all.
• Cast on and knit obsessively on a shawl for my best friend to wear on her wedding day, the Shetland Tea Shawl from Gathering of Lace. (Link to the book is above; Ravelry link for the pattern is here.)
• Went grocery shopping (but only because we’d all have had nothing for dinner yesterday or today had we not gone)

Things I neglected in order to purchase and fiddle with all the above:

• Everything else.

Stay tuned to see how much lace knitting can be done from Friday to Sunday when one does nothing other than what is necessary, and puts every disc of the Blue Planet DVD series into the DVD changer on “play all”.