Progress Pics and Painter's Wrist

Finally! I got pictures of my current progress in both shawls. So, for your viewing pleasure:

Secret of the Shawl - worked through Clue 3

Springtime Swirl Shawl - worked through Clue 3

(Please excuse the horrible lighting, we've had weird weather and I need to find a good place to take pictures.)

I am so desperately behind on the Secret of the Shawl. Clue 6 comes out tomorrow and I have not yet started Clue 4. I am hoping to maybe, possibly catch up sometime this week. I am also slightly behind on the Springtime Swirl. I am half way through Clue 4 and Clue 5 isn't out until tomorrow, but I don't think I will be able to finish it today since we still have a lot of house prep to do.

That is where my painter's wrist comes in. For the past week and a half I have been painting. And painting. And painting. Painting the hallway, painting the kitchen, painting the kitchen cabinets, painting the living room, painting the bathroom, painting new doors. I am so sick and tired of painting. So today I decided that I would take the day off and knit. Just knit.

Which was fine, until about an hour ago when I noticed my wrist was starting to hurt. Now, I don't usually get paint from knitting so I believe I've been painting so much that I've strained this incredibly vital portion of my body. I didn't want to stop knitting (because I have so much catching up to do and it calms me and generally makes me happy) so I adjusted the way I held the needles for now and it seems to work enough to allow me to keep going.

But tonight Ben and I are doing the rest of the bathrooms, so we'll see how tomorrow goes for knitting.

I'm Still Here

Sorry for the radio silence! We've been so incredibly busy fixing up the house we just bought and trying to get settled that it hasn't left much time for knitting, much less blogging about knitting.

In my time away from painting, cleaning and organizing I've been very slowly working on my mystery shawls. I have one row left of clue 3 for the Secret of the Shawl. Since clue 5 just came out this past Wednesday I have a lot of catching up to do...

Once I'm done with clue 4 of the SotS I think I'll switch over to clue 4 of the Springtime Swirl shawl and get that done. It should go fairly quickly. I'm hoping to get caught up but that might not happen for a little while now. It's really hard to knit lace when I have to put it down every few stitches to chase a wayward child!

I will take in-progress pictures when I get a chance and get those posted for y'all. They're both looking very nice and my camera now has fresh batteries so that I can get that done.

I'll keep you posted!

Mystery Knitting

This will be a picture-less post because my camera is dead and we're out of batteries.

I've been working away on both mystery shawls. I'm half way through Clue 3 on the Springtime Swirl Shawl, which will mean I'm caught up once I'm done with it. Clue 4 doesn't come out until next Wednesday. I'm hoping to finish it by this afternoon. It's really, really gorgeous so far. I can't believe how pretty it's turning out.

And for the Secret of the Shawl I am 4 rows into Clue 3. Clue 4 is sitting next to me awaiting to be knit. I'm hoping to get caught up on that too, but I'm not sure I'll be able to do that by Wednesday when Clue 5 comes out. The rows are really long now since I'm doing a wing shaped shawl, which means three repeats of the chart across the row. So it takes awhile to get across.

I probably won't get much knitting time in for the next few days - I'll be busy cleaning, painting and moving into our first house this weekend!

Goodies!

My package from Knit Picks came late last night! Looky looky!

Counter-clockwise from left:

7000+ yards of Bare 100% Merino lace weight yarn.
2 sock-in-progress holders.
Brass stitch markers
2 balls Essential sock yarn in "Granny Smith"

I will be dyeing the lace weight eventually. I'm going to try dyeing with Kool-aid and see how it goes. I'm going to use some of it for the Spring Mystery Shawl that I have the first 2 clues for, then will dye it after I'm finished. Or I might leave it white. I'll see how I feel when it's done.

The Granny Smith color sock yarn is what I'm doing the Secret of the Shawl in and I only had 3 balls/693 yds so I figured I would order more. Getting yarn for the same projects at different times can be really dangerous because the saturation of dye can differ from dye lot to dye lot. But I figured it was an open lacy shawl and it hopefully wouldn't be too obvious. Then I get the yarn and take a look at the ball bands and see this:



No problem!

W.T.F.?!

I need to keep my mouth shut. Apparently typing "shouldn't take me too long" is grounds for the knitting gods to laugh in your face and smear problem after problem into your work. The sad part is it's been the same problem.

I finally finished clue 1 of the Secret of the Shawl and have been working on clue 2 since yesterday.

Should be finished by now, right? Nope! I have missed a yarn over on almost every row. One. Single. Yarn over. The irritating part is I don't find it until I've purled across the back side and am working on the next pattern row and my count is off.

Should have learned my lesson the first time and check my pattern rows before purling, right? Nope! At least 5 times now I have just gone on thinking everything is fine and at least 5 times now I have have had to tick back every single stitch for 2 and a half rows and start over on the previous pattern row. Because, you know. I apparently can't catch on enough to put a lifeline in either.

I am 6 rows in. I've been 6 rows in for about 20 rows now. I should really be done with this clue.

Lesson to self: Don't try to do lace when at any kind of social gathering. Must. Count. Alone.

FO: Jasmine Lace Edge Cardigan - Pink

Technically I finished this like a month ago, but I couldn't post pics until it was given to the intended recipient. Plus I hadn't sew on the buttons until this morning. Please excuse the horrible pictures. Not great lighting and my camera sucks.

Pattern: Jasmine Lace Edge Cardigan
from Natural Knits for Babies and Moms

Yarn: Ella Rae Baby Cotton (88% Cotton, 12% Nylon) in "Peony" - 1 and a half(ish) balls

Needles: Body - US 6/4mm
Sleeves and edging - US 5/3.75mm

Variations: I knit the whole thing from one side to the other, rather than back/left front/right front and seaming together. I hate seaming. I picked up for the sleeves and worked the instructions backwards for those, in the round. I also made the sleeves about an inch shorter than the pattern called for since the intended baby is due in May and it gets hot here pretty fast.

Very, very cute and really easy to put together. Took me about a day total to knit the whole thing up.

Projects

So, apparently "keeping up" takes me a few days. I've been trying to get around to taking pictures of stuff I'm currently working on. It's kind of hard when two munchies are running around under your feet all the time.

I cast on for The Secret of the Shawl and am almost done with the first clue. There are 3 clues out at the moment and it shouldn't take me too long to catch up. The next clue comes out on Wednesday. I'm liking it so far. Alas, this one I can't post pictures of because it's a secret! But once the KAL closes I'll make sure you all get to see it. ;)

There are a ton of projects on my side bar. I'm not working on all of those. Anything that is 100% is finished, I just haven't gotten final photos of it yet. Once you select "Finished" on your Ravelry project page it shows up in the massive list of things that people have just finished. So I try to make sure I have final photos before I do that so people are looking at what I actually did, not just a blank space. I'm trying to hold out until we're moved in to our house so I can get some nice outside pictures with natural lighting. Either that or I'll hire my sister for a photo day and get caught up.

Getting Serious

I've decided I needed a dedicated knitting journal. I have a LiveJournal, but that seems to cover more of general life than just knitting. Plus Blogspot seems to open more as far as linking to Ravelry and the things I would want in a knitting journal.

We'll see how well this actually goes and if I stay on top of it. Maybe having a dedicated place for it will cause me to actually take pictures and keep better track of my projects.

ETA: Shiney Ravelry project widget on the side now!