Blogging Break! (of dresses and cracked kindles)

I need to get away from this mountain of essays for a while, so here I am.

I'm halfway done the second stole. It's knitting up much more quickly than the first, mostly because the pattern uses size 7 needles. But each row takes forever. This particular pattern is knit lengthwise, which means I have 278 stitches on my needle. Hence the bunching. (It was supposed to be 289 stitches, but apparently I can't count and ended up with 274. I was sneaky and added a few more on in the third row so the number would be right for the pattern.)

I also finished the cover for Keith's Kindle, though the only picture I have of it is on the needles. (You can see the flat spot on the left side where I forgot a cable ... whoops.)

Of course, I managed to break my own Kindle after owning it less than a month. By falling on top of it. While folding laundry. I'm assuming I'll find this amusing later in life, but right now I'm pretty upset, since it was a Christmas gift from Keith's dad.


In a happier vein, my cousin has ordered her bridesmaid dress for my wedding, and I am now in possession of my bridesmaid dress for her wedding. (She is beating my by a month and a half, the stinker!) I brought along a hank of yarn from that I ordered from Knit Picks as a potential for my own bridal shawl, to see if it matched the dresses. Nope--too green. I'm thinking it will be easiest to go with white.

Although I am in love with Sweet Georgia's Cashsilk Lace in Riptide, and it looks closer to the right color.

I don't mind at all splurging on yarn for my wedding, but I can't spend money on skein after skein just to to see if it's the right color. Even though I wouldn't mind owning all of said yarn ...

almost done ... bridesmaid stole #1: "seascape"

The next batch of Rowan Kidsilke Haze arrived a few days ago, so I can start the next bridesmaid stole soon. Depending on whether I decide to try out a different pattern (as opposed to having all the stoles be the same), I need to buy a new pair of needles first. In the meantime I've been knitting a cover for Keith's Kindle to take a break from all the lace. (He carries it around everywhere in his coat pocket.)

I've been waiting for a sunny day to take pictures, and it appears that the angle of light through the window was too sunny and a bit blinding; but there are pictures nonetheless.


This pattern is called "Seascape," and it's fairly easy once you get into the flow of it, although repeating the same chart seven times for the middle got a little boring. (This is why I'm contemplating switching things up a bit for the next stole and trying a different pattern, such as Dancing Cranes.) The picture above gives some sense of the size. (And of the general state of our living room: my books and papers all over the place.)

You can see that it's sort of lumpy and rumpled looking, as opposed to smooth and fluid. That's because I haven't blocked it yet. This will involve soaking the stole until it's good and thoroughly wet, carefully rolling and squeezing in a towel to remove the excess water, then pinning it out and letting it dry. It opens up the lacy openings in the fabric that make up the pattern--which means that it will get a little longer and wider in the process--and will make it look less ... well, "homemade," and more like this. (Except I'm also afraid it will make my mistakes more obvious. But practice really does make perfect: most of my mistakes are in the first half of the stole.)

I'm debating whether or not I should wait to block it so that I can use the unblocked size as reference to make sure any other pattern I choose to knit matches up. But I also want to make sure I'm happy with the blocked size ... and just see what it looks like.