Who is the patron saint of yarn stashing!?

I want to thank the proper saint for my miraculous yarn find on Saturday.

I have had Percy all but finished - 10 rows left - and had been planning on going back to Depth of Field to look for a similar ball of Harmony. I bought the first ball last fall or summer, but wasn't too worried about a perfect match - I figured I only had an inch to go, and with the wide gradations of color, a close relation was all I needed.

Saturday I tossed my almost-finished shawl, along with the color and dye lot info, into the back seat of my car Knatasha, thinking I might have time to swing by Borealis Yarns.

I didn't, really. I pulled up to Borealis at 5:10pm, could see the lights were on, and saw someone go in. I hopped out and crossed the street to read the "Hours" sign. Closed at 5. I stood for a moment, uncertain, and unwilling to be one of those customers who ignores a closed sign. A woman came out, and said "They said I could go in if I knew exactly what I needed." Aha! I knew exactly what I needed. I went in.

"I heard I could come in if I knew exactly what I needed," I announced as I came in. A nice young woman asked, "What do you need?" I told her, and she walked over to the cube of Harmony and plucked a ball of the top. "That looks like it..." I murmured, because again, I did not really expect to find a matching ball a year later and city away from where I bought the first.  I read off my color and dye lot, and patron-saint-of-stashing be praised, the ball was indeed Color 1, Dye lot AC01!

How crazy is that?!

I finished Percy on Sunday afternoon. I knit to the end of the first ball, which ended in a cool green, and started the new ball, which started with a warm green - although I can't really see the difference in the shawl.

I started blocking, and was very happy with how it looks and how big it will be, but had to stop and watch Lost. I will block it tonight if time allows!

Percy survives more puppies

Boomer and Bear have lots of energy. Lots. They tumble and play all the time. I realize that tumble and play room is a bit short in the bathroom where they are stabled, so I give them closely supervised playtime in other areas until they have earned my trust.

They did play time in the kitchen, and did very well. They had play time outside, which was also a success. I decided to go for play time in the living room, and after a couple short sessions, we all seemed able to maintain a satisfactory level of sanity, as long as all pens/paper/socks were put out of puppy reach.

Of course, I had put away all my knitting. Puppies love knitting - they love running with balls of yarn bigger than their heads gripped tightly between their tiny teeth. They love pulling needles out of projects. They love chewing on wooden DPNs, and the cords of circular needles with metal tips that discourage chewing. Puppy + knitting = badness. I know this, so I had put all my projects in a tote bag. No yarn dangled, no needles stuck out. Everything was tucked carefully out of puppy view.

I don't know which little puppy nose stuck itself into the knitting tote, but when I glanced down after stepping 8 feet away to close the hall closet doors... Boomer and Bear were playing tug of war with Percy.

After this discovery, I'm not sure what happened (besides a shriek). I know sharp puppy teeth were removed from lace. I know puppies were returned to the bathroom with No Chance of Parole for Some Time. I know they had somehow neither pulled Percy off the needle nor broken the size 0 bamboo circular. I checked only that much, then stuck Percy back into the tote and moved the bag off the floor. I could not check Percy for wear and tear, not yet at least.

After lalala ignoring Percy for almost a week, I have just inspected the shawl this evening. It appears unscathed. I found one loose loop near the working edge, but no obvious tears or snags anywhere else.

Poor Percy. Lucky puppies.

Percy progress

I've been working on my Percy shawl on and off, and put some good hours into it in the past week. A third repeat of Chart B took just another 5 grams - but the ball of yarn is (finally) noticeably smaller.

I'm on row 4 of my fourth Chart B repeat. Can I do another full repeat, plus 0-27, plus Chart C? I think so. I may do some Ravelry research to see where others started the edging chart...

Percy progresses again

I'm back to the Percy shawl, and so happy. I was a little rusty after the relatively large gauge chemo hats, but now the lace knitting is moving along smoothly. I refer to the chart less, find counting less annoying, and can see the lace pattern as I begin the third repeat of chart B.

This picture makes ol' Percy look huge, but it's not. Contorting the shawl along my arm, it looks like it's still quite a bit smaller than my wingspan. I'm 5'11", so I have quite a wingspan, but I think even blocked this would still be a smallish shawl.

Cobweb weight yarn: not for an impatient knitter.

According to my scale, I had knit through exactly half the ball after repeat 3; the second repeat of chart B took almost exactly 5 grams. It should take slightly more to knit repeat 3, as the shawl is ever expanding. I hope to finish repeat 3, do a final pattern repeat through row 27, then begin the 35 row chart C edging.

I will definitely measure at row 27 of repeat 3, though, just in case!


I was in Rochester over the weekend for a Sandman event, and visited a couple local yarn stores. Kristen's Knits was great. Tons of Noro, lots of skeins in most colorways, but I fell in love with a single: soft greys and greens and blues, like a misty spring day near a lake - not the usual electric purples, pinks, blues and reds I usually go for. I bought it to knit Dianna, a leafy entrelac shawl I found on Ravelry. The Noro ball is slightly less than the 500 m required, but the other Noros just didn't call to me the way Color No. S150 Lot A did.

I also found four balls of white Fixation on sale. Hurray! Hand-dyed cotton chemo caps! I also bought a bandless ball of lovely red bamboo. This makes it two weekends in a row that I have broken my yarn diet, but the Fixation was a great find - I would have bought it anywhere. Being on vacation makes the other two alright - no dieting on a road trip!

Dog vs. Percy (with cute puppy photo)

The Percy shawl is my primary project right now. I have tried casting on a sock, or something easy, but Percy calls to me.

Today, however, Percy called to me from a heap in the middle of my living room. I found my ball of Harmony first. "Hmmm... I didn't leave that ball of yarn there OH-MY-GOD-WHERE'S-PERCY!?"

Percy was, thankfully, still attached to the ball, and mostly still on the needles. Mostly.

There was no question as to who snatched Percy from my knitting basket. I currently have three dogs in my house, but only new foster puppy Clyde has not heard the shriek that comes from seeing a ball of cashmere in a slobbery puppy mouth (that of O'Malley or Calloway, I think it was).

Clyde is one of four "toolbox pups" from Harlan County. He was found stuffed in a plastic toolbox with three siblings and his mother in front of the shelter. One pup didn't survive, but Clyde, George, Moose and their momma made it to Minnesota. Momma is a spaniel of some sort, red & white with a sprinkling of spots, but much too thin. Moose was the runt, with her coloring and a wide white blaze down his nose with a red spot in the middle - too cute! Clyde and George have the build and markings of Bernese Mountain dogs, according to Khi. I suppose they could be beagles, but we've seen big furries from Harlan before, so there is some large fluffy daddy making it with the ladies.

We brought Clyde home Friday night. He is a sturdy pup, with lovely grey-green eyes. He is sweet, lusciously soft, and awfully endearing (except for his sleep habits - he doesn't like to sleep alone at night and isn't afraid to say so).

After two days with us, he has decided he is at home. Comfortable enough to tease Harley (who has 25 pounds on him but is too soft-hearted to snap), to chew crayons, books, and the doggy bed basket (typical toddler), and to eat the big dog food and completely ignore his special puppy food. He may already know his name, or just the baby voice we all use when we talk to him.

He will learn the rules - like leaving my yarn alone. I will learn to put my projects in a safe place. In the meantime, I was able to tink less than half a row of Percy and get my stitches back in order, and added a dozen more rows. All is well!

Percy-vering

I finished the first repeat of Chart B last night. After a day of no shawl knitting. I made a couple mistakes right away, and found I'd knit less than two rows forward when I had to tink two rows back to found a mislaid stitch. I found it, and two missed (or slippery) YOs.

Dagnabit.

After getting past that point, though, the rows flew by. I rethreaded my lifeline on row 31. Tonight I start rows 0-27, which I will probably need to repeat at least 3 times. The inches accumulate slowly when knitting with cobweb yarn on 0s!

I'm less needy for yarn, with many yards of Harmony left to knit, but I may cast on an easy project - perhaps a pair of gloves, since my cabled sangria Knit Picks Andean Silk gloves are starting to show some wear. I keep finding silky bats in the ends of the fingertips. Much nicer than wooly pills, I guess, but after a while I find myself getting too fidgety and I have to pull them out. Maybe if I kept all a' them, I could spin them into something new! Heheh. :)

Shawl #4: Percy

I have been redirecting my yarn lust by searching for patterns on Ravelry. Ravelry is amazing. Not only can I see 35 versions of the hat I liked in the latest Vogue Knitting, I can find 35 free shawl patterns to knit (or at least ten). Then, instead of sticking a scrap of post-it into my latest VK, so I will have some chance of finding the pattern, I can just add the Ravelry shawl pattern to my queue. Bonus: I can add the Vogue hat! I love you, Ravelry.

Last night I cast on Percy by Sanne K., http://abitofknit.blogspot.com/, and for the first time, that crazy provisional-cast-on/garter-ridge-pick-up set up worked. I have been trying to get it right for the past week, but usually it ends up looking stooopid. The knitting gods smiled on me last night, though (out of admiration for my dogged persistence, not doubt), and made it work beautifully. I see now the point of the cast on: it gives a nice strong garter strip start that completely blends with the garter edging of the shawl. Now that I get it, maybe it will work better for me. Here's hopin'!

Why did I cast on a fourth shawl in less than a week? The silk shawl, knit on 9s in the lovely Dandy pattern, flew off my needles. The cream shawl was naughty and had to be frogged quite a bit so I could find a lost stitch. It broke my stride, darnit, and so needs to languish a bit longer. The Echo shawl is not really working for me. My yarn is variegated, so the lace pattern is disappearing. I should frog this one and start over. I have more lace yarn (and then some more), so I could just start it up in a solid color, or maybe go up a needle size with the Galaxy yarn.

Back to Percy: I'm using my ittybitty 0 bamboo circular for this. The Jojoland Harmony yarn actually calls for 0s, but the pattern calls for 3s. No gauge is listed, so I'm just going for it. I expect I will have to knit more pattern repeats, but since I have 880 yards of Harmony and the pattern calls for less than 440, that shouldn't be a problem. Even though I'm on 0s, my natural loose knitting is producing a really nice drapey fabric.

After reviewing manymany Percy shawls on Ravelry, I'm going to do some extra repeats of the A chart before moving to B. A is very repeatable, with only 4 pattern rows, but B is lace knitting, with YOs and K2tog in every row. At least the recalcitrant cream shawl taught me to be careful with that. Also, I rather like how a bigger A area looks. I'll use a life line in my last row of chart A, and probably halfway through B, just to be safesafe.