Knitting and spinning. The fun never stops.

I am pleased to report that I am now on the edging of my shawl, and with any luck (and a bit of commitment from me), the next time you’ll see it will be in blocking photos on Sunday.

Oh, and I lied about the number of edging rows. I said there were 30-something rows of edging. There are actually 26.

A couple of you asked if I am going to offer the pattern for sale. The answer is — it depends on how it looks once it is blocked. I think it’s going to turn out just fine, but because I didn’t knit a swatch of the lace after I charted it — who knows? Fingers are crossed.

So next up on the needles will be the Mason-Dixon Knitting Daily Sweater. I plan to start it first thing next week, so if you want to knit along with me, please feel free to do so. No pressure — start it when you wanna, and finish it when you wanna.

I’ll likely be moving somewhat slowly on it, because I’ve got a lot of non-blog work to do that is taking up a bunch of my leisure time.

Lucy and I wish y’all a great weekend!

The sock flat I posted yesterday sure spawned a lot of comments.

Disclaimer: While I had heard of them, I have yet to knit with a sock flat, so anything I say ought to be taken with a grain of salt.

I have seen the flats sold as “blanks” — plain white or cream, ready to be handpainted. I bet that would be a lot of fun!

You can unravel a flat, wind it into a ball and knit with it that way, but I think a lot of people knit their sock directly from the flat, unraveling as they go. Because my flat is knit with 2 strands of sock yarn, it would be perfect for people who want to knit their socks two at a time. I’m not a two-socks-at-a-time kind of gal, so I would need to unravel and wind mine into balls (and since it is double knit, the advice is to get a friend to help you with the winding!)

Would I hand it and wash or steam it to get the kinks out? Nope. Too lazy. I’ve knit with unraveled kinky yarn before and never had an issue. But that’s just me. And it probably depends on the yarn itself and how riotously it kinks. Your mileage may vary.

(I paused there to open iTunes and start playing some Kinks music. Don’t know why I felt the urge . . .)

Daily Sweater

The lovely and talented Ms. Kay of Mason-Dixon Knitting gave me a heads up about the charts for The Daily Sweater — the size “large” chart is missing from the book — she posted a link to it on the patterns Ravelry page here and the chart will be posted over at Mason-Dixon Knitting as well. Thanks, Kay! I’ll be starting the Daily Sweater just as soon as I complete the shawl I’m knitting.

. . . mumble-mumble . . . knit-along, anyone? . . . mumble-mumble . . .

Speaking of my shawl . . .

I’m almost to the point where I will start the edging chart. The edging chart is 30-something rows long, so it will take me a while to get it done, cuz the rows are getting longer and longer, but it is progress!

Ms. Lucy the TV Cat

After her initial excitement over the new tv, Lucy has not gone near it again. Because at this point there is nothing on the bottom shelf of the tv stand, she will go sit on that shelf from time to time. I’m planning on putting DVDs on that shelf, so it will no longer be cat-accessible. Will Lucy push the DVDs off the shelf to make room for herself? Who knows?

Lucy sez:

“Hey, that’s a good idea!”

Why was Lucy so interested in my A/V components? Cuz I got a new tv and tv stand! And as we know, all new additions to the home have to be thoroughly inspected and approved by the feline residents.

Fortunately, Lucy has stopped walking back and forth on the stand in front of the tv, because that was getting old for me. (And in case you care, that’s a 40″ Samsung LCD HDTV. Love it so far!)

Of course, to counteract the joy of having something shiny and new in my home, I yesterday discovered that the pole in my coat closet has collapsed from the weight of the coats hanging on it. Don’t you just hate when stuff like that happens? I’m thinking about working on a solution to the problem. Part of the solution is to get rid of the coats I don’t wear. But when I discovered the situation I simply closed the door on it and thought to myself (a la Scarlett O-Hara) “I’ll think about that tomorrow.”

There is still not much to see here knitting-wise. I am working along on my shawl. Here I am holding it artistically:

I am making good progress and I’m still loving it. And I’m dreaming about starting my Daily Sweater from the lovely Rowan Calmer I blogged about yesterday.

A couple of you have asked if I still work on the sock yarn log cabin blanket I started ages ago. The answer is no, I don’t. It lost its allure a long time ago and is stuffed in a tote bag in my stash room.

Oh, but to counteract the boredom of this blog post — something cool I got in the mail today.

This is a handpainted “sock flat” — sock yarn that has been machine knit into a long rectangle and then handpainted. To use it you unravel it and knit your socks from the unravelled yarn.

This is from Black Bunny Fibers. Carol has a small sock club that I’ve been a member of since its start. This go-round she did something different — sock flats! Isn’t that fun?

And what’s really cool about this sock flat is that it is double-knit, with 2 strands of sock yarn. That way your 2 socks will be identical. Pretty cool, huh?

Here is the flat laid out, well, flat.

Meanwhile, Lucy is just hangin’.

Nothing much to see here.

I’m still knitting along on my shawl — see?

And I have the yarn for my Daily Sweater (from the second Mason-Dixon Knitting book, which comes out tomorrow):

This is Rowan Calmer, colorway is Khaki.

And Lucy seems to think she is an audio-visual component.

Here we go. I did manage to make some progress on my shawl:

It’s at the point where it’s too big on the needle to spread out for a realy satisfactory picture. But I’ve still got a long way to go on it. No worries, because it is a fun knit and I’m enjoying the process.

Julie the Purple Chick had a good question in the comments:

I’m hoping you will recommend to me a shawl pattern. I am ordering the Riverside Cafe Lace Sampler pack from KnitPicks (6 different hanks of 440 yards each for a total of 2200 yards) and am a bit stumped about how to handle the use of six different colors. It seems some patterns would lend themselves better to bands of color than others. I’ve considered another option ~ holding two colors together throughout and switching the two-color combinations often to lessen the “jolt” of a clean-cut color change. And, just to make this a real challenge for you in terms of a recommendation ~ I want a fairly simple pattern. “Lace Aerobics” isn’t my sport.

My general rule of thumb: the more variegated the yarn, the simpler the pattern. I follow this rule in sock knitting, and it makes sense in lace knitting as well.

I’d go with a pattern like the Fiber Trends Leaf Lace Shawl. Or Susan Lawrence’s Forest Canopy Shawl. Or Evelyn Clark’s Shetland Triangle (which I just finished). Or Kiri, which has the advantage of being a free pattern.

A suggestion: if you are on Ravelry, look at all the projects made with Kauni Effektgarn 8/2 — that’s the self-striping yarn I made my Lismore from a few months ago. A bunch of people have used that yarn to make shawls. Browse through the project photos here (Ravelry link) for inspiration! It’ll give you a very good idea of what lace patterns look good in bands of color.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some shawl knitting to attend to. And Lucy is busy arranging her little catnip quilt.