the Akamai Knitter

For the past week, I have been working on the Luna Moth to the exclusion of all other projects. My sock projects and my Forest Path Stole lie neglected and forgotten. All thoughts of starting a new project are shoved mercilessly aside.

I really though it would only take a day or two to finish up this shawl. I thought that I only had to work the remainder of one pattern repeat to finish it off, but once I got it off the needles it was too small.

What I did not take into account was the fact that I used a needle two sizes smaller then what the pattern called for. Of course I ended up with a smaller shawl. There’s no picture as I was too frustrated to document my stupidity.

I had two choices, I could either live with a toddler sized shawl or I could undo the bind off and a couple rows of edging. Under normal circumstances, ripping out a few rows wouldn’t be so daunting but this shawl is knit with mohair.

This stuff seems to cement itself together in the humid climate I live in. No amount of time in the freezer alleviates the pain that is frogging hairy mohair. Nevertheless, I bit the bullet and tore the sucker apart.

It took me over two hours to get back on track. There was a lot of chocolate involved as well as some liberal cussin’. But I just couldn’t live with a toddler sized shawl and I don’t think the recipient of the shawl would be very ecstatic either.

I think I’ve made friends with the shawl again as the knitting is going smoothly, but I’m not taking any chances. I’m going slowly and carefully. Stitches are being meticulously counted and the project is put away in a Quincy-proof container whenever I’m not working on it. He may play the innocent, but given his past behavior I’m not taking any chances.

(Quincy honestly loves to sleep in the carrier. He has yet to learn the meaning of the carrier.)

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Here’s the third installment of the Mystery Stole 3 in all it’s glory. (Please excuse the uber crappy photo. I have to figure out a better way to take stole pictures.)

I started the clue the day it came out (Friday) and finished it that night. There’s something about the design that begs me to continue on until there is no more to be done.

It took me a few rows to get back into the rhythm of the stole as there were some minor setbacks. I miscounted a few times. Luckily I caught the mistakes while on the same row, so I only had to tink back a few stitches at a time.

I think that’s the problem with putting down a project for long periods at a time. I tend to lose my momentum and then I stagger to gain it back when I pick it back up.

I though that maybe working with black yarn would prove a challenge, but with the aid of my OTT-Lite, I haven’t had the slightest bit of trouble. The OTT-Lite has been my best investment when it comes to knitting tools. I just couldn’t live without it.

You might have noticed that I don’t use lifelines. The reason for this is not that I don’t believe they don’t serve a vital purpose. Only whenever I used them, I found that I inevitably made a mistake in the vicinity of the lifeline. And since the lifeline would obscure the knitting, I’d miss the mistake when I tried to read the knitting. I also find it easier to just ladder down to fix said mistake. Jackie E-S has an excellent tutorial on how to go about doing this.

There has been a flurry of guesses on what the theme might be for this year’s stole, but so far I haven’t the slightest idea on what it might be. I do think it has an Oriental flavor to it.

Would you like to venture a guess? The only hints I have are that it would not be suitable for a bride and that it has nothing to do with Harry Potter.

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Yesterday, my friend Veronica and I went to Isle Knits. It’s in the Century Tower building in downtown Honolulu, which is an office building, and it’s all the way up on the 14th floor. So it’s a little hard to find for the novice, luckily I had been there before so navigation was a breeze.

It’s a small space, but it’s chock full of good stuff. Once you walk in the yarn fumes hit you like a physical presence. I get a little delirious with just the memory. It’s easy to go overboard with impulsive buys in the store, which is why I went in with a Plan.

I had two specific projects I wanted to buy yarn for. The first was for Mr. Hedgehog and the second, was for the Rock Lobster Lock Bag*. From the top, going clockwise, we have Ella Rae Classic in Color No. 28 (Dark Purple) and Plymouth Boku in Color No. 1 for the Rock Lobster Bag.

Continuing on, we have more Ella Rae Classic in Color No. 104 and I’ll combine that with some eyelash yarn for Mr. Hedgehog.

What about those other two yarns? What about The Plan?

Well, while I was asking how the Ella Rae and the Plymouth Boku would felt together, Sue proceeded to show me a basket she had done in both those yarns. That basket just happened to be crammed with sock yarn.

I couldn’t just ignore the yarn. I’m not that strong.

So a couple of skeins of Artyarns Ultramerino4 in Color No. 108 came home with me too.

And that skinny skein? The wild one on the very bottom of the picture? Well that caught my eye just when I thought I was home free. You know, when you’re at the register and everything thing is getting tallied. You’ve gotten through the hard part of selecting what to buy and once you pay, all you have to do is waltz out the door.

But I think this is the moment when I’m most vulnerable because of those very reasons. There’s a basket full of sock yarn nearby that I can be strong-willed about, but on the opposite wall of the register there’s a delicious array of yarns to feast your eyes on as your waiting for Sue to write up your bill.

So there was this funky cord that didn’t look like yarn. So I investigated.

I was doing this for educational purposes. Really, this didn’t look like yarn, so it was okay to touch. Just a quick fondle and I was going to be done with it.

Work with me here.

It turns out that this is another fabulous Noro yarn called Daria. It’s 55% Cotton and 45% Rayon. It’s so tightly twisted it’s like cording.

See how shiny? And Sue showed me a gorgeous sample of a piece she was crocheting. How could I resist?

I’m going to crochet cellphone cozies for my mother and myself. That’s the revised Plan. Yeah. Revisions are a goodness and it’s good to be flexible in life.

When all was said and done, Veronica and I spent over an hour in the shop. We left floating high on yarn fumes and money well spent. I got a few more odds and ends that I’ll share in the coming days, but nothing as stupendous as the yarn itself.

Here’s Veronica clasping her booty in front of one of the walls of yarn at the store. Doesn’t she look blissed out on the yarn?

After we left the shop, we headed to Kahala Mall to meet some Aloha Knitters. The Mall was an absolute madhouse and we were only able to find Jen. I’m afraid we might have missed some people because it was so crowded.

There were no tables to be found in the central area of the food court, but we were able to snag a mini-table at the Starbucks. After awhile though, the noise and the crowd in there started to get on our collective nerves.

Amazingly enough though, Jen managed to hunt down a bigger table in the lovely open space of the mall. I truly admire her table-hunting skills. I have no idea how she spotted it in the mad rush that was the crowd, but I will be forever impressed by that one feat.

It was a terrific day and I hope we can do it again, minus the Mall Mob.

Before I go, I wanted to thank everyone for the support and sympathy over the nightstand nightmare. All is well now and I’m no long angsting over it. My hands recovered nicely within a couple of days thanks to the wonder drug known as Celebrex.

I also finished Clue 3 of the Mystery Stole 3 on Friday. I can’t believe how quickly each clue knits up. More on that later. :-)

*Page 49 in her Pattern Catalog

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Does anyone remember this?

I started that way back in January. That’s right. January. I finished the knitting in February, but I could not get myself to sew the inner lining to the body of the hat. It was just a heinous chore that I couldn’t bring myself to do.

But last week my wonderful friend Veronica graciously came to my rescue and did it for me. So now, at last, we have a finished hat.

Pattern: We Call Them Pirates

Source: Hello Yarn

Yarn: Knit Picks Telemark

Needles: size 3US needles (2 circs)

Started: January 18, 2007

Finished: July 7, 2007

No modifications were made.

I had a ball making this hat. Fair Isle is such a fun technique.

The obligatory inside shot.

And here’s a shot of the inside lining. Look at what a wonderful sewing job Veronica did! (Thanks so much, Veronica!)

There is some non-knitting news. I didn’t get much knitting done in the past couple of days because I pretty much wrecked my hands while getting some furniture put together. I finally have a decent chest of drawers. I’ve been doing without for the past year or so. You don’t want to know where I’ve been putting my clothes. As for the night stand? Ha! Let me tell you about the nightstand.

I started assembling the nightstand and remember, I am no carpenter. I thought I was doing so well. Up until I tried to put the drawers in. Now this was one of the last steps. The bottom two drawers went in smooth as silk, but. But…

… I apparently I put one piece in the wrong way and what was supposed to be a 3-drawer night stand is now a 2-drawer night stand. Basically, there’s no way the third drawer will fit into what is now a tiny space of glaring failure.

I’d take pictures, but I’m still too pissed off about it. I’ll probably put the drawer front over the mistake to cover up the ugliness. I swear the directions were too vague for inexperienced me to have known which way to put the damn sleeper thingamajig in right.

Assembling the chest of drawers went much smoother, even if it did take over 4 hours. It’s a 5-drawer piece and there were a lot of screws to drill in. Mistakes were made, but they were easily corrected. My hands basically felt and feel like mush, but it was worth it.

Despite the nightstand fiasco, I’m very proud of the job we did. The chest of drawers is functioning as it should and I find it amazing that we were able to do it considering our lack of wood working skills.

And the nightstand? Well, I can live with the mistake as soon as I make it pleasing to the eye. I don’t really *need* 3 drawers. There are worse things that could happen in life then a deformed nightstand.

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Once again, when I started knitting the weekly installment of the Mystery Stole 3, I could not stop until there was I there was nothing left to knit. So here we have the stole finished up to the second clue.

The reason it might be knitting up so fast could be because the beading makes it so fun. All I want to do is zip along till I get to a row where I can insert the sparkly beads. Beautiful, shiny beads.

I feel that it bears repeating that the charts Melanie provides are extraordinarily easy to follow. There’s no squinting involved with the original size of the charts, which means you can use them straight off the printer. Also, if you weren’t able to join before the group closed to new members, the pattern will be available to all come September or October.

It’s back to the Forest Path Stole for me now. I’m about to start Tier 13, so I am making some progress. It’s becoming less of a chore now as I’m starting to build a rhythm.

Quincy has also bee having a bit of fiber fun. The other morning I woke up to this on the floor of my kitchen.

Luckily this is just leftover yarn. If it had been for an ongoing project or even worse, if this had been a project on the needles, then I would be probably be in the hospital due to a massive coronary. As it was, I was pretty aghast at the sight of such beautiful yarn strewn about with such blatant disregard.

Did I mention that this yarn was safely hidden in the bottom of one of my baskets? And that I have acrylic yarn in plain view for his playing pleasure if he so desires? But no, this boy is a yarn snob. He went hunting for the Socks That Rock.

Of course I chastised him by holding the yarn up to him and repeating “bad boy” etc. etc. This is the look he gave me. You can decide for yourselves as to whether or not he was properly repentant.

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