A Little Knitting Progress and Many Thanks

I want to thank all of you who have left comments or sent emails in sympathy for our loss of Shadow. You have all been so generous and so understanding, and I truly appreciate your support. My heart still hurts whenever I sit down to knit and she's not there beside me, especially late at night; it seems so lonely.

Midnight is doing her best to shoulder the burden of being Only Cat, but she is by nature more solitary. Today I decided to bring the CatBookMom to the Midnight mountain, so I've moved to the living room sofa and I'm catching up with some of my TiVo'd programs - the SciFi Channel is running all of the old 'Enterprise' episodes, in order, and I'm a Star Trek fan of 40 years' standing.

I've made a lot of progress on knitting projects, so I have a lot of yarny goodness to share. Most happy-making is that I have finally finished my Highland Triangle Shawl, from Cheryl Oberle's 'Folk Shawls'. I made this using Elann's Highland Chunky in the Tranquil Lagoon colorway and it took exactly 10 skeins, or 760 yards on size 9US needles. Tranquil Lagoon has a blue-grey overall color, but it has a lavender look closer up. Love the color!

Being vertically-challenged as I am, I knitted at least one repeat less of both the sort-of-brambly central section and the razor-shell lace. Even so, there were more than 250 stitches to be trimmed with the knitted-on edging. Since each stitch of the shawl takes 2 rows to form the edging, that's over 500 rows, but there's only 9 stitches. I found that the tips of my Denise needle set made perfect very-short needles on which to knit the edging.

Unblocked, the shawl measured 67in across the top and 30in deep; blocked, it is 77in across and 41in deep. My first pass at the blocking came out nearly 8ft by 4ft, so I scrunched it up and tried again. I really love this shawl and I have used it nearly every day, early mornings and late at night.


I have started a gift scarf for a long-time friend, who saw some of my Handpainted Yarn, aka Malabrigo and oohed and aahed about it. HY is, I think, from the same source of yarn as Malabrigo, but is far less expensive. It's become difficult to find any 100% merino through HY, since Malabrigo has become so popular, but they do have some from time to time. This is 'real' Malabrigo, in the Cactus Flower colorway, bought from WEBS before I found HY. I'm using a simple double repeat of Vine Lace, from Barbara Walker #1, with eyelets on the side. There's not enough of a border to keep the stockinette from rolling, but this will block beautifully. Knitting with this yarn is so lovely, with the plushness of the single-ply yarn and the very subtle color changes.

Curlerchik, a knitblogger friend in Canada, tipped me off to some gorgeous yarn, which she used to make a moebius scarf. So I have to 'fess up to a small tumble off my KFTS (Knit From The Stash) wagon. This is Lang's Mille Colori yarn, which is 50% wool/50% acrylic, though you'd never guess the acrylic content from the soft, silky feel of the yarn. I got this from Kaleidoscope Yarn, but it's available from other shops, too. The plies are very, very fine and that makes it tend to be a bit splitty, even with my relatively-blunt needles. But you have to check out this yarn. I ordered some just before my credit card number was stolen and before Shadow got sick, and somehow in the turmoil I have completely forgotten what project I had in mind. I must have had something in mind, since I specifically ordered 6 skeins. The picture is just a swatch, with the only purpose to play with the colors and see what needle size I want to use. The yarn band says (10-10.5US) 6-7mm, but I'm a loose knitter and I may want to use an 8US or even a 7. (5mm or 4.5mm). This is colorway #46 - blues and purples, of course!

The next projects are pretty ambitious: I want to finish my Dayflower Shawl in Elann's cedar-green Baby Silk; that's about a third done. The Elann Chat group is going to be doing a KAL of Chicknits' Ribby Cardi, and after much frustration trying to find a zippered cardi or hoodie that's not too long for short-waisted me, I'm motivated to knit one for myself. I'm going to use Elann's Highland Wool in Deep Blue Sea and Dusty Teal, the body in teal and the sleeves in the darker blue. And my DH wants a sweater. We found a not-too-heavily cabled pullover in Melissa Leapman's "Cables Untangled", and I have some bluish-green Debbie Bliss Merino Aran yarn that will look great on him.