ha ha!

Grafting complete! GO ME.

Now all I need are some more pins, and I can block tomorrow morning! ("Morning" being the important word in that sentence, as the shawl has to dry in time for me to have my bed back tomorrow night.)

I'll be so bummed if I can't find enough pins around here. A pin-buying excursion will throw off my timetable. Not, as we've established, that there's any hurry. I'm just dying to see the finished product, because if I hate it or it's not big enough or whatever, don't think I'll hesitate to take stuff apart and re-do. You know I will.

Guess What:

Only six rows and some grafting left on Queen Silvia! Can you believe it?

Y'all, the birthday deadline is July 19, and this year I didn't even have to allow three extra days for mailing purposes. This means I will be done with this bad boy a full NINETEEN DAYS (ok, eighteen with blocking--crap, I think I need more pins, darn it) ahead of time.

Dang. What on earth will I do without Birthday Deadline Drama? Perhaps I should knit something for my brother for his 35th birthday. That's on the 28th. Of course, I don't think Charlottesville is a place where you need a whole lot of knitwear, so maybe I'll get him some nice . . . I don't know, karaoke tracks he doesn't have?

Anyway. Yay! I'll get more pins, and we will have Finished Product Pictures very soon.

And then I can finish my tank top.

oh, the interwebz.

One of the things I dig about the internet is that--usually--if you have a bit of a look around, someone has already asked your question, and people have already answered, so you don't have to sit around and wait.

What brings this up is that I was wondering how the heck long a rectangular shawl should be (to me 'stole' seems like fur should be involved) for a woman 5'3" inches tall who wears a 48" chest sweater. Would it be the same size as is comfortable for a woman 5'6" inches tall and approximately 36" around?

It looks like it might work, on the same principle as the time a costumer was hemming skirts for me and two much shorter women. She marked them all for my height, and said that their hips would take up the extra room and we'd all match. Dude. We totally did.

I'm thinking that the specified size (give or take a few inches) of the Queen Silvia shawl will work well for my mother. I'm also thinking that I really have no idea how long it's going to block out to be, given that I've changed needle sizes and borders. Oh, the adventure.

If I were making it for myself, I would just knit until the yarn is done, because I like long dramatic garments, and it's the sort of thing I'd wear on fancy occasions, probably with three-inch heels, thereby making myself a 5'9" person, and giving more room for things to dangle.

Anyway. It should be done within a week! Holy crap, wait, it could possibly be done THIS WEEKEND, because I think I'm on repeat 17. The pattern calls for 20 plus one partial, so I was thinking of doing 18 plus one partial, given my deeper borders.

Holy crap. What will I do if I'm not knitting right up to the wire?

quick update:

Number of repeats left to go on Queen Silvia: 4

Number of letters finished on Devil Scarf: All of them

Number of days left till my mother's birthday: lots

Number of days left to finish the Devil Scarf: 6

How much of a time-crunch we have with the Devil Scarf: none

Chances we will soon be able to knit something else: good

Next thing we have to finish: the straps for my linen tank top.


(I can't believe I haven't finished the linen tank top yet. At the VERY LATEST I intend to finish it by July 8, because the next day I am going to Spokane to visit my brother, and I don't have all that many nice summer tops right now. Of course, if I finish it by this weekend, then I can wear it to a family party and have everyone tell me how great I am. Only the Devil Scarf stands in my way.)

bitten in the rear.

Oh, I have so much time, I said. Queen Silvia is trotting along so quickly, I said. I can even cope with vacation time, I said.

Right, until my dad decides he wants a custom scarf to give to a friend of his at a retirement party. On June 30. ARGH. It's not so bad, really, except that I have to do Penn State colors, and I feel a bit unclean doing a Penn State scarf. My dad has only himself to blame for this: he raised me to think Penn State was the devil.

I shall have to find a witch doctor to perform some cleansing rites when I am finished.

(Queen Silvia is totally hanging in there, though. I counted, and I can get it done in less than two weeks if I have to. This should work nicely with the ol' schedule.)

Thank you, Lord Stanley!

Ok, this isn't really a post about the awesomeness of hockey, but damn, yesterday was a great day for hockey. Well done, Pens!

In other news--and why I'm actually posting--argh, my dad wants me to come visit him in DC next week, possibly with my mom, and that plus the probable Spokane trip will really cut into the ol' Queen Silvia time.

This may be more adrenaline than even I can handle.

Oh hey. Just because I can:

Ha ha!

I am officially halfway done with Queen Silvia! Whee! (There are supposed to be 20 repeats + one partial, and I've done ten.)

I might even be more than halfway done, because A) my end borders are wider than the called-for border, and B) I'm using size 4 needles, not 3. I was too cheap/lazy to buy the threes. Also, my mom is short.

If you force yourself to do one whole repeat a day, this thing goes pretty quick.

Is it bad that I'm already starting to wonder what I should make next? I guess I could finish my Print O' The Wave theoretical Christmas gift. (Note To Self: I'm pretty sure we're on row 8. I'm also pretty sure whatever scrap of paper I jotted that down on has been thrown out.) What I'm hoping will happen is that my mum will like her stole and wear it to my brother's birthday party, and then I can see how the female relatives feel about a lace stole. If they like it, then Print O' The Wave will go into the Christmas swap. If not, darn, I guess I'll have to keep it.

My life is so hard.

(Oh, and you know the drill: GO PENS! It's a great day for hockey!)

I am not a joiner.

Y'all, I just went and looked to make sure of when that knit-in-public day is, so I can make sure not to knit in public on that day.

I'm sure this makes me some sort of bad person, but I'm A) not a joiner, and B) not keen on ostentatious displays of . . . I don't know, stuff. It's hard to articulate the feeling of ick that stuff like this gives me, (and not just as related to knitting, but as related to all things) but there it is.

In other news, today I keep leaving nupps out on my stole. That is not something you can fix like picking up a missed yarn over. That's something you have to undo back to the bit where you left a nupp out. The first time I did it I caught it fairly soon, but the second time . . . let's just say I had to put the whole thing down or I would have pitched some sort of fit. Bad brain! Bad, bad brain!

perhaps a snag?

Uh-oh: I might be heading to the Pacific Northwest to visit my brother for a couple of days in July. This is an "uh-oh" because it's right before my mom's birthday (and my mom will be on the trip as well) so that means I'd have to get the Birthday Shawl done before I leave.

I have clearly done way too much crisis theater, because I actually think that having a closer deadline for this project is kind of fun. Oh, the adrenaline rush caused by things going wrong. Sometimes I really enjoy it.

Anyway, here's a picture of the shawl from a few days ago:



It's definitely longer now. I've got between 10-12 repeats to go: basically I'm planning to stop when A) the yarn runs out or B) I think it's long enough, whichever happens first.

I guess I'd better get knitting!

nupps, nupps, and more nupps.

Still knitting away at good ol' Almost-Queen-Silvia. It looks like a meshy red blob. I'm thinking, though, that since I'm fairly sure I have plenty of time to finish the queen up before July 19 (those will probably be famous last words) I might find me a little something else to knit at the same time, so I don't go nuts from the sameness of it all.

Soooo I may just cast on for the Full O' Win Mitts, and play along with this month's fingerless glove KAL over on Ravelry. 'Tis a lovely group, with many lovely, fingerless patterns to be found. Best of all, these are worsted weight. I may just freak out after a few weeks of only laceweight.

I have two options, color-wise. One is (if I have black yarn, which I don't think I do) to do a black mitt with the purl bands in gold, therefore making awesome Penguin (and other Pittsburgh sports team) mitts. Second, which will probably happen, is some kind of burgundy and brown.

All I know is that some lucky friend or relative of mine is going to be getting fingerless gloves for Christmas. (If I make the black and gold ones, I'm keeping them, though. It may be June, but it's damn cold here.)