Have you noticed the pattern sale benefiting earthquake relief in Haiti over on Ravelry? It has not escaped my eye. I have been drawn to shawlettes as of late - I purchased In the Land of Oz (perhaps it would make an appropriately named shawlette for my mother, Dorothy) and I plan on purchasing Daybreak before the sale ends at the end of the month.

(I realize I am behind the curve, as I usually am on all things in the knit-blog-iverse, but have you seen Stephen West's collection of patterns? So many lovelies!)

I am faithfully working away on a second sock as well as an Ishbel for my Grandma. I've set aside the laceweight Forest Canopy Shawl for her and am working on something more manageable. I'm slowly realizing that lace shawls are just really tough for me, and I want to enjoy my knitting, not stress about it the way I do with each charted row of lace. I will ease my way into lace knitting with this, my second Ishbel.

In an ideal world, I would finish Ishbel (I'm just starting the lace) in the next two and a half weeks so that I could cast something for the Knitting Olympics. (Like one of these shawlettes I keep scooping up in the pattern sale.) In reality, I know that will be highly unlikely. Maybe I will surprise myself!

another sock is done

Pattern: Shifty by Anne Hanson
Yarn: Hazelknits Artisan Sock in Pacific (color is more accurate here)
Rav details here
Mods: Knit 5.5 repeats on leg instead of the 6.5 called for in pattern, though now (of course) I see I could've probably done 7.5 repeats. Oh well.

This sock is super sproingy and fits my foot like a glove. The pattern is really easy and intuitive. I highly recommend it.

I've cast on for its mate already, as well as the mate to the purple toe-up sock I blogged about most recently. No SSS here!

In other yarny news, I got a new piece of furniture for yarny notions and things at Ikea last weekend and did some reorganizing/cleaning of the office. I really love it in here now. Click the photo to learn more about what is where!

toe-up FTW

In my last post, I posed the question: Which sock would I finish first, a toe-up or cuff-down one?

Ladies and gents, I share with you now my first toe-up sock:



Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy in Pansy Go Lightly
Rav details

I am thrilled with how this turned out. It is super tall on my leg (though it doesn't look especially tall in this photo). It's easily the tallest sock I've made. I could've made it a bit taller (by my measure of weighing the yarn), but I grew tired of it and just wanted to finish already!

I am hoping to cast on the mate in the next few days, but now I am itching to finish that super sproingy cuff-down sock that is nearly done ... I've never had Second Sock Syndrome and I don't intend on starting now!

A shawl for me!

Let me tell you, it was awesome finishing this shawl up in the glee of post-Christmas-knitting. I felt wicked spending all this time working on something for myself!



The pattern is Mara, a shawl from Madelinetosh. Here is the Rav link to my project.



I used 4.5 balls of Noro Silk Garden Lite in what I think is a discontinued colorway. I also used about 2.5 balls on the body and two balls on the ribbed edging. Boy does that edging take up a lot of yarn - you kfb in every stitch to get the ruffled edge, and I was up to 520+ stitches per row once I did that!



I like the sassiness of the bright colors. I was afraid they would be too much, but the more I look at it, the more I like the shawl. I think it will come in handy this week as we are getting some cold (for Norfolk) weather: temps in the 20s with a wind chill in the teens. Perfect weather for knitwear!

I'm knitting on two socks right now - one is toe-up, one is cuff-down. I am equally obsessed with both. Which will I finish first? I'll report back soon to let you know!