Starting over

Sometimes, it just isn't working the way you're doing it. And sometimes, a lot of things just aren't working the way you're doing them.

For example, in my last blog post, I mentioned that I would probably be ripping out DD2's butterfly shrug and starting again, because I was running out of purple yarn. My plan was to use flourescent yellow for contrasting bits to get the purple yarn to go farther. And that is indeed what I did. It was a massive pain in the butt to do the back all over again, I don't mind saying, because the three-dimensional butterfly construction is achieved through a heck of a lot of wrapping of stitches, which I just don't find fun. But the good news is, I'm much more pleased with the result. Here's the back of the shrug plus the beginning of one of the front butterflies:

I like it very much, actually.

The bad news (aside from the fact that all those ends might kill me) is that I'm still running out of purple yarn. Oh, well. Hopefully they have more at my local Michaels where I originally bought it. (We will not discuss what I shall do if they don't.)

I also made excellent progress on DD2's teacher's gift - the Musica fingerless gloves. I cast on for them very shortly after my last blog post, and had almost finished the second one...when I ran out of black yarn. (It was left over from another project; I was hoping the leftovers were enough for the gloves. Guess not.) Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), I was super-close to being able to finish the second glove when the black pooped out on me. So all I had to do was make the cuff ribbing three rounds shorter, and I would have enough black to do both gloves. Of course, this meant ripping back both gloves and doing them all over again. Oh, well. I wasn't happy with how my original thumb gusset increases looked, anyway. Also, it's a fast knit. They're now all done except for the blocking:

And finally, I made the decision that I was going to frog DD3's Lady Emmeline cardigan. You may remember it:

The problem here was that the two colours I was using just weren't contrasting well enough because one of the colours in the variegating yellow yarn was exactly the same colour as the solid butternut it was supposed to be contrasting with. Hence, contrast in some places, but not in others. I thought if I worked on it long enough it would stop being annoying and start becoming an "interesting colourway choice", but eventually I had to get out of denial and choose a different colour combination. After much frogging (fortunately I had been nervous enough about the bad colour contrasting that I had avoided actually cutting any of the yarn after the various bind-offs, so it was still all in one piece), I restarted, using the same butternut as before for my main colour, and some of my new pumpkin-coloured sock yarn as the contrasting colour. I think it's looking fabulous:

It's fairly annoying having to re-do so much knitting, but at least I have good knitting speed to make up for my dumbass decisions...

Holy bleep, that was fast

Last Sunday, as I mentioned in my last post, I placed an order with Knit Picks. I took advantage of their black-and-orange sale and their book sale to get some stuff I'd wanted for a while, plus I took the opportunity to order something which I needed for the holiday knitting (not on sale, but you can't have everything), plus I bought some other sale stuff on impulse. :) Oh, and DH piggybacked on my order to get some stuff for himself. :)

On Thursday, I got a note that it had shipped on Wednesday. So I figured I'd probably get it early/mid next week.

Nope.

It showed up yesterday. That is some pretty damn fast shipping. Yay!

Firstly, we have ten balls of black sock yarn. Black sock yarn is in pretty high demand around here, so I wanted to re-stock my supply while the going was good. And it's not just for socks - I'm going to be making my brother a black-and-grey scarf for Christmas this year using some of this.

I also got Kerin Dimeler-Laurence's book, Illuminated Lines, which I've wanted ever since it came out.

Then there's the impulse stuff I got because of the black-and-orange sale: some pumpkin-coloured sock yarn (it is going to go fabulously with some "butternut" in the same yarn that I already have, for a Christmas cardigan for DD3), some gorgeous fall leaves-coloured roving, some orangey-yellowy-brown slowly-variegating sock yarn (which I also predict will turn into something for DD3, she's the only one around here who can pull off those colours without looking sickly) and some cream-coloured Capretta (it has 10% cashmere content) sock yarn for DD2's teacher's gift - I'll be making Musica by Anne Neumann (I already have some black Capretta left over from my Bukhara sample).

So - happiness through yarny goodness!

In not-so-happy news, the butterfly shrug for DD2 is coming along...but I think I'm going to run out of yarn. So I'm going to rip it all back and start again, conserving the purple yarn by using some flourescent yellow colour of the same type of yarn for contrasting bits. I'll be doubling it up for the butterflies' bodies, doubling it with the purple for the butterfly's wings, and maybe using it as the sleeve edging if the purple situation gets desperate enough. I'm not very pleased about this because frankly, although the finished garment itself is going to be really lovely, the actual making of it is not really fun (it involves a lot of stitch wrapping, which is a) slow and b) not actual knitting). But I love my kid, so here we go.

Something's gotta give

It is a sad truth that when I am diligent about spending my after-work, at-home time on responsible, grown-uppy things like checking children's homework agendas, driving children to lessons, making progress on designs, keeping up on the laundry, cleaning the house, and running vital errands...that blogging takes a back seat. (Similarly, I have no idea what's been happening in my Facebook and Twitter feeds, and I'm sure my PVR is about to explode from all the unwatched shows it's been storing.) So, I'm sorry for the radio silence, but...gah. Gotta love back-to-school season.

There's not much to show you today, mostly because the thing I've been working on diligently for the past few weeks is something for a magazine submission, and I have to keep it under wraps. (Although I'm super-excited about it!) However, I can say that I'm making good progress on the holiday knitting - I took advantage of the Knit Picks Hallowe'en "orange and black" sale and bought a big mess of black sock yarn (which I'm always running out of around here), plus a few other things I need for planned gifties, and a few books I've been hankering after which were also on sale. I'll take a picture of the haul when it gets here. :)

Also, last night I started DD2's gift. It's the Butterfly Shrug by Lorraine Hearn. I'm using the leftover royal purple from my niece's gift and hoping like hell that the yardage doesn't run out. I cast it on at Knit Night yesterday. So far, I'm done the butterfly's body and have made good headway on one of the back sides.

Visuals coming soon!