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Enstriped

There is a finished object in the house. 

I know, it's been awhile since I've finished a pair of socks, hasn't it? (about a year)

 These are knit out of Knitpicks Felici Sport (Boutique colorway) on US 2.5 needles, 64 inches around. I was completely ridiculous about matching the stripes, and thus the second sock is actually bits and pieces of both skeins so they would match relatively well. It was kind of a pain. BUT I like stripes to match, it's how I roll. The second skein didn't start anywhere near the stripe sequence of the first, I wish they'd be a little more careful about that, it would make my life easier. 

These are the never-ending bluebell rib socks. They are so never-ending I can't remember what yarn they are made of. The colorway is "Peeps" though, and I do heart these socks. I only have 5 more pattern repeats before the toe, and when you are trucking along on the pattern, it moves pretty swiftly. 

Finally, another pair of stripeys:

Knit Picks Felici in what colorway I do not recall (Picnic or Summer or something – the colors are prettier in real daylight) but it is currently available. This one is ribbed and I am trying out a new-to-me technique: afterthought heel! I am interested to see how they turn out and fit because I don't really care for the fit of short-row heels. 

I am working on numerous other socks too, but I will photograph them another time. I am a half-repeat away from the heel turn on the second Bas-Relief sock and I actually turned the heel on one of Abby's rainbow socks, and a pink striped Jaywalker. I don't know when those pairs will be done, though. I'm trying to bust a move on the rainbows, and since I seem to be feelin' the stripes at the moment, I'm hoping to get going on those for real. There is a lot more stripey goodness in my arsenal too, so I'm trying to strike while the iron is hot. 

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A Bevy of Beautiful Shawls

Since I'm clearly on a shawl kick at the moment, I pulled all my finished shawls out of their special shawl drawer (yes, they really have one) and laid them out on my bed to compare with each other. I was curious to compare the different sizes of the different projects with each other, since Eiki turned out a bit larger than I was expecting.

Eiki, Brandywine, and Aeolian are basically the same size, with Aeolian edging out the others by a bit. By virtue of its construction, Eiki is larger than Brandywine, which is more of a true triangle shawl – both Eiki and Aeolian are curved to some degree.

The smallest shawl is my small orange Ishbel, then the Swallowtail shawl.

My least favorite shawl is Charlotte's Web, my favorite is Eiki. (Favorites are, as always, changing and somewhat subjective.)

The best shawl I've made is Aeolian, by far.

From left to right, in order of when I knitted them, oldest on the left: Charlotte's Web, Swallowtail Shawl (yellow-orange), Aeolian (turquoise, beaded), Ishbel (small; orange), Ishbel (large body, small edge; purple), Annis (light turquoise), Damask (olive green), Brandywine (mustard yellow), Bellingrath (hot pink), Eiki (dark red). Not pictured: Multnomah, which lives at my mom's house.

Considering the trouble I went to to get the Charlotte's Web pattern, and the Koigu to knit it with, I'm super irked that I don't really like it all that much down the line. I may take the unholy fringe off and reblock, which will help, but at the end of the day, I just don't really like the colors. At the time I knit it the pattern was at the height of its popularity, in 2004ish. I really liked all the different ones I was seeing on the blogs and was just dying to make one. I finally tracked down the Koigu and the pattern at Hill Country Weavers in Austin, TX. My friend Daphne and I were staying in Austin with her mom, who was at a teacher's conference there. That was a fun trip – we were only there for a couple of days, and went to Plucker's, a delicious hot wing restaurant, the world's biggest Half-Price books (so big, in fact, that neither of us bought anything – we were both a little overwhelmed!), a mall, a couple of bead stores, drove through UT Austin (Longhorns, boooo), and stopped at Hill Country Weavers, which is one of the best yarn stores I've been to in this country (and Lord knows I've crossed off quite a few on my list). Here, I finally found the koigu I'd been searching for. I liked the colors I chose at the time all right (they didn't have a huge selection), but they never won me over. I'd like to make the shawl again, but in my signature blues/greens/turquoise. 

Under-the-sea colors, if you will. And I wouldn't use Koigu, I'd likely use stash yarns. 

I was unable to resist piling the shawls in rainbow succession:

I could go for a few more colors stuffed in there, yes? A true green for sure, and a blue, both of which are on the needles, actually. More on those later, I'm terrible at photographing WIPs. But I'm working on a Snuggery Shawl in the Sanguine Gryphon Eidos I got at Stitches in an awesome green colorway (Hydra), and the Holden Shawlette in a yarn that I lost the ball band for, but got at Stitches I think 2 years ago in a lovely royal blue. 

I'm still sick, what is this plague???

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Eiki Shawl

Since I last posted, one of my friends had a baby, and I got sick! Suck! I also managed to sucker a couple of people into driving me places go to Ikea and SuperWalmart, which were both fun excursions. 

Today I stayed home from work as I lost my voice almost totally from all the coughing I got up to over the weekend. By now it's mostly back, but I can only imagine what a day of answering phones would have done to it. I'm looking forward to getting back into the groove of things tomorrow. 

I napped part of the morning away, then managed to stay awake in the afternoon and since I had some free time I decided to photograph my latest FO, which is the Eiki Shawl by Janel Laidman. I finished it last Friday and blocked it on Saturday.

Turned out MEGA nice. 

It's one of the largest shawl(ette)s I've knit, and has rocketed straight to the top in terms of favorite. The yarn, Sanguine Gryphon Bugga! in Landlubber Grasshopper was purchased directly from the company at Stitches West. I don't think I've ever purchased yarn and finished a project so soon with it before! The pattern calls for 440 yards of yarn; I not only chose a yarn with 412 yards, but I used a bigger needle than called for as well. Let's just say it was a bit of a nail biter towards the end as the yarn ball kept getting smaller and smaller – and I have no other yarn this particular shade of red in the stash, so I wasn't sure what I would do if I ran out early. Luckily, while I worried about it extensively it turned out I didn't have to, though there is very little yarn left. 

OKAY so I just weighed the shawl and the leftover yarn and the yarn weighed 4.25 oz, so if my calculations are correct, that actually means that I had 437 yards, in which case, I was fine. Hmpf.

Here's some detail shots:

The colors are actually pretty accurate on my monitor – you can see the flecks of purple and gold in with the deep red.

This was truly one of my favorite knitting experiences – all that garter stitch plus leafy lace? It's basically my favorite things! Plus my new favorite yarn so it was doubly nice.