tuscany, day 1...again

So i messed up on my tuscany and had to restart 4 times. Today I restarted for the fourth and hopefully the last time. i have completed 2 repeats so far, and I guess I'm going to try and get it done 11 days from now. :) We'll see.

tuscany, day 3

I have begun the tuscany shawl, as of two days ago, and I am two repeats into it. THat should change when I get some knitting time later though. I don't know if this is feasible, but I am giving myself a knitting challenge with this shawl: there are 11 repeats, so I'd like to finish in 11 days, averaging 1 repeat a day. I know the repeats grow in stitch count, so I'll probably do more than 1 a day til they get really big, then take a few days per repeat. THe last shawl I made took 3 months, and I'd like a little more instant gratification on this one. :) plus I am a much faster knitter now.

baby blanket finished

I am extremely excited...I finished the baby blanket this morning. well, I didn't weave in the ends or wash it, but I will do that tomorrow. I was to anxious to get to my tuscany shawl, the yarn has been teasing me since it arrived. I'm not sure how I feel about the color way though, it looked a little different on my screen. Also I'm not that wild about variegated yarns, but I wasn't able to find silken in a solid color.

a pictureless update

I'm going to try and really use this blog, but we will see. Since my last post, I have not finished either of the things I posted about. Instead, I pretty much made a bunch of scarves and dishtowels, and am now working on a baby blanket, which is half done. I'm trying to go on a yarn diet as well as a book diet, but it hasn't exactly worked out so far. I've only bought 2 new books since I started my book diet, fitted knits and no sheep for you. However, I did fall off the yarn diet wagon pretty hard. I recently purchased 3 skeins of handmaiden silken to make the tuscany shawl in no sheep for you and 3 big skeins of sea silk. I now have enough yarn, including what I already have for at least 4 shawls. At least I have plans for most of it, the silken I already mentioned, 1 of the big sea silk skeins is going to be a shetland triangle from wrap style, the sea silk I already have is going ot be a shawl from victorian lace today, and as for the other two I'm thinking maybe something out of a gathering of lace or traditional knitted lace shawls. We'll see. But first, I'm making myself finish this baby blanket. I know if I don't finish it before I start other stuff it will take a lot longer to do, and my cousin is having the baby in a few weeks, so I want to get it done in time.
Hmm, I just looked back at my first post in november about the book diet, and I think I did pretty well only buying 2 in 5 months. (I was trying to buy NONE but I'll go easy on myself.) I am now back on the wagon and I'm not buying any more books or yarn for awhile. Also though, I have used up some stash yarn. The baby blanket will use the 2 balls of bernat baby I've had sitting around, and I made 4 scarves mostly out of stash yarn (a few more balls of yarn had to be purchased to complete, but those don't count, they were knitted up right away) and I've also made a few washclothes from the peaches and creme stash. Alright, off to work on the baby blanket (I hope to have it finished in about a week, the silken is calling to me....)

works in progress

Right, now I have two works in progress on the needles: I'm knitting the simple shrug from speed knitting (I really think I am addicted to that book, it's awesome!) in Rowan cotton tape in Hazy and the swirled pentagon pulllover from knitting nature by norah gaughan (a really, really beautiful book) in Lion Brand Microspun in black. Yes, I know Lion Brand sucks, but I love microspun. I think it may be their only yarn that has any redeeming value. It's so soft, and since I'm not using wool right now it seems like it would be the best choice for this project. Plenty of commercial sweaters are made of acrylic. I also hear really good things about Lion Brand cotton-ease so I will probably try that if I ever see it in a store near me. *shudder* When I first started knitting I did a project with lion homespun and lion suede and both were completely awful. Even more awful, I have leftovers of both yarns that stare at me whenever I go into my stash. Maybe I can give them away....
And now for a pic:
beginnings of the sweater:

Scarf style-lady eleanor

I have my second fo and book review- Scarf Style by Pam Allen
I think this book is just awesome. It has tons of different scarf patterns with a lot of really clear directions for different techniques. Colorwork, lace, entrelac and cabling to name a few. Also, a lot of popular designers are represented: Teva Durham, Norah Gaughan, Nicky Epstein, Annie Modesitt, etc, etc. However, the designs aren't only traditional rectangular scarves, incuded is a triangular neck shawl as well as a shrug that is a turtleneck with sleeves. For my selection from this book I chose the lady eleanor shawl, which will be a gift to my grandmother for Christmas. I found it to be a fairly quick knit, and entrelac is definitely not as hard as it looks. It is knit from 10 balls of patons sws in Natural Plum. I really liked the color of this yarn, but I think it is itchy. I actually think I may be allergic to wool, everytime I've knit with wool lately my eyes get itchy and my neck starts itching like I may break out into hives. I'm going to the allergist soon to figure it out (I have other allergies too) so in the meantime I'm knitting with non wool fibers. I was actually fine when I began this shawl, but after awhile it started bothering me, so I was knitting one tier a day to get it finished. Pics:

And a closeup:

speed knitting-a fo and a review

Woops. I started a blog and then didn't make any entries. :) But all that is about to change. First, a book review of Speed Knitting: 24 Quick and Easy Projects by Kris Percival

In general, I'm with a lot of other knitter when I say I'm not a big fan of books that include quick and easy in the title. Everything, including knitting does not have to be fast and instant gratification. With that said though, sometimes it is nice to have a quick knit for a boost while working on a large project, or try out a new technique on something small. I really didn't expect to like this book when I picked it up in the book store, but I was pleasantly surprised. I've only been knitting about a year, so I sort of consider myself an advanced beginner (I've already done a shawl, and several scarves, etc, etc.) and this book is good for beginners who want to branch out to knitting something other than scarves. I would definitely reccomend this book, the patterns are clear and well photographed, and I found 5 out of 24 that I would actually knit.
The book is divided into 5 sections: 1-getting started which is pretty much your usual discussion of needles and yarn type you find in some knitting pattern books. Section 2- Accessories which includes a 3 scarves, 2 hats, a belt, a messenger bag, wrist warmers and mittens. Section 3 includes a poncho, a capelet, a shrug, a shawl, a vest, a ballet sweater, and summer dress, a mens sweater, and a halter top. Section 4- blanket, pillow cover, baby shower set, dog sweater, cat mat, small childs tank top, baby blanket, and toddler tank dress. These projects are fairly diverse giving one a lot of different options for a quick project. I chose to do the wrist warmers. I learned dpns and magic loop on this project. Also, I think there is an error, it says to pick up 4 stitches for the thumbhole but I picked up six, 4 made too many gaps. A pic: