Moving on

The pink lace camisole will be frogged tonight. It's one way to reduce the number of projects on needles!

Otherwise, all is going well. Meida's socks are almost done. I have only 15 rows left on the spider web shawl - so that's about one week of knitting. The first of the Ute socks is coming along nicely. I was trying so hard to get the gauge that the socks are coming a little too tight. I had to shorten the leg to compensate for this (and to account for the shape of my legs), and played with colors a little bit. Nothing radical, though.

Faced with two almost-completed projects, what did I do on Friday? I ordered the yarn for Venezia. I've decided I like colorwork and Venezia seems like a well-written pattern, exactly what I need for a first colorwork sweater. Eventually I'd like to move on to some Alice Starmore sweaters from Tudor Roses (I got the book, remember?), but it might be a while before I get there.

Did I mention that I now have an account on ravelry?

As you can imagine, I still have no internet at my house => no pictures.

Ta-daa!

Gauss would have been so proud of me and I am almost proud of myself, too. Here is my first-every attempt at Fair Isle knitting. Can you spot the mistake ?!



Now, I know the colors look awful together, and the swatch is being frogged as we speak (note to self: Fair Isle, or even pretend Fair Isle like mine, is hard to frog). But they are the only two yarns of the same weight I have in my stash, and who cares - I knew the swatch would be ugly to begin with. On the other hand, I didn't screw up the tension too much, and I think I could get the hang of this with some more practice.

I bet you want to see the back as well:



Of course, there is an ulterior motive for all this mess. Who could resist a beautiful pattern involving three major techniques I've never tried before? I give you... the Caspian Sea socks. Middle-Eastern wrap for toes, color work (I already have a plan for cheating on the small color patches by doing duplicate stitch) and after-thought heels. Oh, and color work that goes on through the heels. The yarn is on its way. It should be fun.

Bleah

Well, the entrelac socks are turning out... less than satisfactory:



As interesting as this tehnique may be, I cannot imagine knitting the gazillion little squares required to make this toecap into a pair of knee-high socks. I don't want to pick up the gazillion-and-five stitches required to make these little squares. I don't want to put such socks into my drawer because they will take up so much space and I know, I already know, that I will never wear them. Finally, I can think of better things to do with five skeins of nice german sock yarn.

I'm glad I realized all these things before knitting more.

In the "annoying" category: I've worn the poppy socks in Lorna's Laces once, and they're already showing wear and felting around the heels. What the hell? $10/skein yarn shouldn't behave like this. And I wasn't hiking or anything. I do expect to be able to wear the socks I make.. I am very disappointed in this yarn.

But not all is bad. I am making another pair of socks, with some merino I bought on e-bay. It is dyed by erikkim and feels very nice. So far the socks (Grumperina's Jaywalkers, in slightly thicker yarn) fit J with his funny feet beautifully. And Ms Yak is turning into a soft warm hat - perfect for the predicted cold spell this week.





The little cable is inspired by Elsebeth Lavold's viking knits project; she figured out how to make cables start and stop in the middle of a piece. I'd like to design a jacket showcasing her beautiful cable designs, but I need to learn more about jackets and such first. No rush...