Chaos is Come Again

Its finished. Done. Kaput. Through. The End Times are upon us, and I finished the Ragnarok Shawl (formerly known as the 2nd Mystery Shawl).

I have to tell you, I'm glad I did it. I learned a lot, and its a lovely shawl. That said I will NEVER EVER NEVER (I feel very emphatic on this point) NEVER knit the thing again. When I grow up and design shawls they will not have three feet of cast off edge across the top. No indeedy.

Here it is in its pre-blocked, just-off-the-needles, dental floss state. (Please to ignore the funky mattress under the shawl.)

And here it is a-blockin' -- And now that I look at the picture the left hand side is pinned a bit crooked, but I'm not going back to fix it now.

Project Specs:

• Yarn: Knitpicks Shadow 100% Merino, Oregon Coast colorway, 1.65 hanks (approx. 700 yds.)
  
• Needles: Addi Turbo circulars, size 7
• Pattern: Mystery Shawl 2 by Renee
  

And the only reasonable response to finishing such a momentous and large project? Just a little bit of a Flower Basket Shawl. You know, just to take the edge off.

About Daddy

Earlier I explained that my father's death was one of the reasons that I needed a break from this blog for a while. I just ran across a comment that he left in the last post I made before he died.

The various kntting projects look wonderful. I am astounded at your speed and skill. Knitting is not an easy skill, but once mastered it seems to proceed on its own, the inner life taking charge and setting the spirit free to contemplate, pray, adore and dream of many things.

Thanks, Daddy.


Neil Andrew Mogensen
November 29 1937 - May 21 2006

Questions Answered

My lovely Jess leant me her camera, so this post ought to be a little more interesting to look at, at least. I have started working on the Ragnarok Shawl again. I've earned three penguins since I posted last. (Reward sticker for each repeat completed. Look, I need what motivation I can get, okay?)


Elizabeth asked, in the comments, about whether or not the intarsia skull n' cross bones on the Pirate Sweater for Mr. Adorable is centered correctly. Well, as far as I can tell, yes. Now the pattern does have two different charts, depending on size, so my guess is that the person who was having troubles may have been using the wrong chart.

Now, all of that only applies to horizontal placement. If she's referring to vertical centeredness, I'll have to get back to you.

In other news, I've finally gotten pictures of some finished objects. I realized that I also need to bump up both my "started" and "finished" counters. I'll worry about that later though. On to the pictures!

First, socks. Now, these are cool because at no point during the construction of these socks did I refer to a pattern. Nawp, not once. Yeah, I'm that cool. I used Knitpick's Palette in peach on size 3 needles.



I've also finished a Warshcloth of Mason-Dixon Knitting fame. I used Peaches N' Cream, or possibly Sugar N' Cream. Cream was involved anyway.

Knitting, Quilting and Christmas

I haven't accomplished a bloody thing in terms of knitting in FOREVER. I have a fingerless flamin' glove (one glove, mind you -- I do have two hands) nearly finished. I have one (yep, one) Glad Raggs sock done and about half of one (there's that number again) dancing toe up sock done. I still haven't finished the edging on the eternally unfinished MS2 shawl. Grrrr.....

I bet it would be totally counter-productive to cast on a new shawl or a third pair of socks, huh?

On the other hand, now that my sewing room is mostly re-arranged, I've started sewing again. I threw together a dress for Morgan that I cut out for her last year (luckily her growing has all been up this year. It still fits). So that's a project finished, and some RAM freed. I've also made two more Dear Jane blocks, bringing my total up to 38. I decided that I'm going to have to seriously rethink my layout -- I'll post specifically about that later.

I've also started working on some Christmas presents. I am hoping to actually have things finished before, you know, December 25th this year. Wish me luck.