Exciting News!

I have exciting news. I am completely caught up on my Bloglines posts! I know, that may not be that exciting for you, but it certainly is for me. It's been a really, really long time since I've been completely up to date on my blog reading.

Ok, if you're not wowed by that news, how about this - I'm done with my Weeping Willow Shawl! Here it is pre-blocked:



Before I got my clothing steamer, I prefered to wet block everything. I still like wet blocking the best for lace, so that's what I did - put it in the washer and soaked it in the water, then spun it out a bit so it wasn't soaking wet any more. Then I got a chance to use my new foam blocks and pinned it all out:



I love the foam blocks. I'm so glad I finally took the plunge and bought them. As you can see, I'm not that good at geometry and didn't put the middle of the shawl at the halfway point of the blocks, so I ended up going over the edge on one side. What an idiot I am. I was too lazy to take it all out and move it over, so I just rolled up a towel next to the block and pinned the end to the towel. Here's a close up of the lace being blocked:



I probably could have blocked it out even more, but I am always afraid of stretching it too much. I think it looks ok at this gauge, though. Once I have it completely dried and unpinned, I'll get someone to take some action shots.

Beautiful Day!

Oh, it's a gorgeous one around here today. 71 degrees and sunny with a nice breeze coming through the window. Perfect! I was going to say that I wish it was like this every day, but I think because we have those frozen winter days and the hot and sticky summer days, we can truly appreciate a beauty like today and not take it for granted.

I mentioned that I had Book Club last weekend and I thought I'd talk about the book we discussed:



Pretty Little Mistakes by local author Heather McElhatton. If you're around my age (39), you may remember the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books that were popular when we were kids. This book is sort of a grown up version of that. Page 1 starts with your graduation from high school (the book is written so you, the reader, are the narrator) and you choose to either go to college or travel. You flip to a different page, depending on what your choice is and read a bit, and then are faced with another choice. You keep making choices until your story ends - as all of our life stories do, with death. Each story is pretty short and doesn't take longer than maybe 20 minutes to read, so you can flip back and start all over again, making new choices, and having a different life. The cover says there are 150 different stories, but I didn't count. I also didn't read every single one, though I did do quite a few.

At first, I didn't really like the book. In the Choose Your Own Adventure books, you would have quite a bit of story in between each choice, so there was more of a narrative thread. In this book, each section is only 1-3 pages long, so you're constantly making choices and there's a lot of jumping around. it doesn't flow quite as smoothly as you would expect a novel to flow. However, I got really hooked on going back and making a different choice at different points and seeing how my life would change from that point on. A lot of the choices don't lead where you would expect - you think if you make a "good choice" something "good" will happen. Sometimes it does, but sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes you do something that you know is wrong, but you're amply rewarded for it. I kind of like that. It is just like life. Not everyone who works hard and lives well is rewarded. And not everyone who has good things happen to/for them is a good person. There's a lot of darkness in the book - lots of drugs and violence. A lot of the deaths are violent. There aren't a lot of stories about getting married, having children and working a regular job. It also seems like you can perhaps tell the author's biases. For instance, it seems like the stories that come after you choose to travel are a lot better than the stories if you choose to go to college. And the author travelled after high school herself. However, I really did like this book. It was really fun, easy reading - perfect for a sunny Summer afternoon!

I've also been knitting of course. I'm almost halfway done with the border on my Weeping Willow shawl:



It still doesn't look that great, but I'm hoping that the blocking will work its usual magic. Here's a closeup of the edging:



I bought two balls of yarn for this shawl and thought maybe was going to be enough, but I'm coming close to the end of the first ball. I may have to just break into ball #2. Still love this yarn (Zephyr).

On my birthday, I also managed to finish up my Disco Lights Scarf during my pedicure:



Still can't see the sparkly little sequins in the picture, but that color of red is closer to reality than the close up I showed last time. Here are the specs:

Project Name: Disco Lights Scarf
Designer: Me, I guess
Pattern Source: I just googled eyelet rib pattern and found it somewhere, I don't remember where. I think a Lion Brand pattern maybe.
Yarn: Tilli Tomas Disco Lights
Yarn Source: Little Knits (evil yarn store because it has fantastic sales that are hard to resist)
Date Started: 6/17/07
Date Completed: 7/1/07

Comments: I posted before about my difficulties figuring out what pattern and what size needles to use for this scarf. I'm happy with the finished product. One skein of yarn knit a nice size scarf. It's too darn hot to wear now, though.

You can also see the other project I'm working on this long weekend if you look to the left of the door - I'm painting my living room green. Too bright for many, I'm sure, but I love it. I think it looks great with the moldings in the room that are the same dark brown wood as the front door. I'm only half way done with the room, though. The difference between that the ugly sponge painting that I did about 15 years ago when I moved in is amazing, though. You can see the sponge painting in the picture of Michael a couple of posts ago, if you want.

Anyway, I've also been working on my Weeping Willow Shawl. In fact, I finished the body of the shawl and now I'm just doing the edging. Yay! I took these progress pictures before I finished the body, but ran out of time to post, so I'll just use them now:



Just looks like a blog, doesn't it? Here's a close up of a section sort of spread out:



This thing gave me fits in that heavily lacy part with the chevrons. I'd make a mistake and the rows would be so long it would take me forever to figure out where the mistake was made, tink back to that place and then fix it. I never had to go back more than that row, though, so I guess that's good. Here's what I did to help myself:



It's kind of hard to see anything but red, but I color coded the chart. Red is ssk, blue is K2Tog and green is a double decrease. I used some highlighter tape that Kerry gave me to mark the rows as I went. The tape is great because it's like post it note adhesive, so you can replace it over and over again. It's see through so you can see the row you just knit but it's easy to keep track of which line you're actually on. And when you're done knitting, the chart isn't all marked up like if you used a real highlighter. Not that I'd probably knit this pattern again. Normally I use copious amounts of stitch markers to keep track of things on my knitting too, but with this pattern I would have had to move them around to make my decreases so often that I decided it wasn't worth it. I just had one stitch marker for the middle of the shawl.

I also started a new pair of socks - a pattern KAL, project spectrum and Summer of Socks project all wrapped into one. But I'll show you that after I have more than just an inch of ribbing on the needles.

Not Much Progress

There's not a lot to blog about around here lately. I've been busy, but it's mostly been work or things that just aren't that interesting. I did try out the new Taste of Thailand in downtown Minneapolis on Thursday night. Just as good as the St. Paul location.

I have been knitting a bit, but I haven't made a lot of progress. I'm almost done with knitting up my Yarn of the Month samples - I'm working on this month's selections. I have fallen in love with a couple of the yarns. I spent about two hours spinning my wheels on the Weeping Willow Shawl. This pattern is just one big chart and there's an error on the last row that I knit (there's a K2Tog toward the beginning of the row that should just be a knit). I knit and re-knit and counted and just couldn't figure out why it wasn't coming out right. I FINALLY figured out that I should check to make sure that all of the YOs were paired with decreases and found the extra K2Tog. So, I need to undo that row again and re-knit it. UGH!!!

I made it through the heel and started the leg on my Shimmer Socks too. I put all the stitches on a piece of yarn and tried it on and it seems like the short row heel and toe fit really nicely. Here's how the toe looks:



and here's the heel:



I can't wait to finish the leg and really try it on and see how the ankle fits. Still loving the pattern.

While I was knitting on these I was watching "Shut Up and Sing", a documentary from last year about the Dixie Chicks and the whole controversy about Natalie Maines' comments about being ashamed that the President is from Texas. I'm not a huge country music fan, but I did really like the film. It was interesting to see how these women work together as a group and their reactions musically and emotionally to the controversy. I wonder how an all-male group would be different. I'd recommend checking it out if you like documentaries or have any interest in the DC music.