Yesterday was the beginning of WWKIP Week and the knitting readers I meet up with monthly decided to combine our monthly meet-up with some public knitting at the mall. We met at the fireplace area at Memorial City Mall and had 4 new to us knitters join us.

I decided to bring Lady E along to knit on because she is so showy with all her Noro-licious color changes. I am about 5 or 6 balls into this and the stole is about 5 feet long with at least another foot or so to go. I am totally enamoured with this bit of knitting just as I am every time I start one of these. This is my fourth one if I am not mistaken.

Not sure if I have already mentioned it, but Elizabeth and I joined a Frida Kahlo art journal Round Robin. There are 11 women participating, and by the end, we will all have a Frida Kahlo art journal with a page contributed by each member. the deadline for mailing them is tomorrow and mine is finally ready to go out the door. I decided that rather than a traditional journal format, I will use materials salvaged from the trash. The panels for my pages are the sides of six-packs. The theme for my journal is Dia de los Muertos. I used loose binder rings to hold the pages together and it will live on a shrine that is another work in progress, hanging from cup hooks, I think. I say I think, because my first plan was to collage a tin or box to hold it, but I think I want something more available. Of course I might also change my mind again a time or two since it will be about a year before I get it back again.

My first felting project was a Lady eleanor Stole gone wrong. I was 2 balls of Noro Kureyon into it when it occurred to me how warm it was sitting in my lap, and how inescapable that warmth would be the more of it I knit. Kureyon is wool and a worsted wool at that. That means it’s heavy. A little too heavy to get much use in Houston.

As I folded what I had already knit in half, the knitting was covering my laptop that was on the table in front of me. I knew from reading about felting that most things shrink 30%. this seemed about a third bigger than my laptop…hmm…

I made the decidion to sew up the sides of my bag and give it a try. She turned out pretty good and I learned some things about felting in the process. I also didn’t have to rip out all that knitting. the bag was a perfect fit for my at the time new Mac iBook. Now that the iBook has a new home, I use the bag as a knitting bag or sometimes as a lunch bag or just…a bag.

More recently, I knit this Lady E as part of the Gratitude Project for my friend Beth. This one was in a bulkier yarn and soft and luscious in shades of pink and black. I tried knitting a basic striped wrap with this same yarn and it looked like barf. Lady E was the perfect solution.

About three or four years ago, I had some extra birthday cash that coincided with a less than pleasant dental appointment. As a reward for keeping the appointment and making it through it, I stopped and bought some Noro Silk Garden Lite that was intended to make a Lady Eleanor that wouldn’t be interminably hot for the Houston clime. There was a sale involved plus a quantity discount, so I ended up with 14 balls of the same color and dye lot. Woohoo. I think i was in there choosong for more than an hour.

I thought the yarn was various shades of pinks and browns. I think I even remember the blues peaking about. I had no idea about the lime0ish green, or even the mossy green, but I have to say I absolutely love them. With noro, there are often color surprises hidden deep within the ball making it necessary ro look closely to know what you are getting. I am sure I didn’t know this then but really, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

This Lady E is color way number 2014 lot B. somepeople, when knitting with Noro, will painstakingly cut and splice so that they have a continual progression of color patterning throughout their garment. That. Will. Not. Happne. Here.

I am about halfway through the second ball and finding it rather addicting. L O V E it.

It was so easy to blog every day when color week was going on…having that prompt made it more necessary in my brain, I guess. Today, my brain is just misfiring, so there shall be no cohesion or effort toward such in this post. You’ve been warned.

Last week I had a little knitter finishing spree and I finished up 4 older projects. Do I have pics? No…but I was feeling very accomplished and most of the items will end up in the gift/sale bin. I did manage to cet a scna of the Traveling Woman shawl.

I started and finished this on our trip to South Africa. It’s knit from Colinette Jitterbug sock yarn and it is a nicely saturated mix of denim blues. It was headed to the gift pile, but Elizabeth put a stop to that, gently suggesting we keep it. The pattern was quick and relativelt easy and I think I am going to knit it agin, maybe in some Malabrigo silky merino.

In lieu of finishing up a few things, I finally cast on for another Lady Eleanor wrap. I will leave musings on LAdy E to her own post because really, she deserves lots of eye candy. I am using some Noro Silk Garden Lite that I bought a few years back just for her.

I am a little concerned about the Round robin Journal project I started in one of my Ravelry groups. I make every effort to not be attached, and this doesn’t feel like attachment as much as just wanting it to progress to its conclusion. It should be over already, and I have only gotten 4 of the 9 journals, one of them my own. It seems to have stalled out and I am at a loss for how to nudge it along. All things in time, I guess.

On another journal note, I am getting ready to participate in a Frida Kahlo round robin journal swap. I am mostly ready and still have about a week and a half before my journal must be mailed. I am trying to not be intimidated by the project. I sort of feel like I don’t knw enough about Frida to do a page in 11 journals, but I think it will evolve for me as I go so I am not stressing about it or anything, but it is on my mind.

I am also trying to keep momentum with my online journal class and really the only thing for that is just doing the artwork. I find a spurt of desire around it every few days and have just been going with that particular flow.

Maybe now that some of this has spilled out ontot he page so to speak, my brain might get back on track…maybe…

Green is a piece of seaweed in the sea…In the sixth grade, we sang a goofy song at the xmas concert, or maybe it was at winter carnival. I think it was at winter carnival because I think it was the entire sixth grade. We each held a flashlight that had a celophane gel of our assigned color. When the color we were assigned was sung, we turned on our flashlight and held it under our chin, making us that color. I was a green. I am still perplexed at the things my brain chooses to hang on to and that I still know all the words to that song.

The first image is a scarf that I knit and have actually kept and worn a lot. I love the green and purple together and this sacarf is some yummy Malabrigo. Anyone see a problem here? An addiction to Malabrigo? I wish you could feel the yummy softness of this yarn. The colors are always delightfully saturated and I’m not sure what the official Malabrigo name is for this colorway, but I think of it as lettuce and violets.

The second image is yarn from another yummy company, Lorna’s Laces. This is the Shepherd Worsted and is a baby blannket I knit and was not quite pleased with how it finished up. It is in the frog pond which means it is waiting for me to ‘rip-it’ our so the yarn can be used for something else. Lorna’s Laces has a knit celebrity selection of colorways and this one is called Panopticon, so named for Franklin’s blog linked to the left.

The third green above is a project that has been hibernating. It is the Noni Medallion Bag. I was quite enamoured with it when I started it and had to get it when I first saw the pattern. I am not sure what happened. I am committing to getting back to knitting it this weekend and deciding if I will continue and finish it or send it to the frog pond. The yarn is enough of each color to make a gift sweater, so I want to love it or not knit it at all. I currently have the bottom done and about an inch of the side.

The last green image is a shawl I am knitting from unspun fiber from Yarnorama in Paige, TX. Susan dies up a colorway of the month and I think these greens were from January. I really like the process and the finished feel of this fiber. It is very soft and the finished shawl will be very basic with the color doing all the work.

Via Curious Lisa linked on the left…Monday is Red/pink

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I totally forgot about this until I was home andI am editing the date on my post to be monday.

This is a hand blended batt from Gritty Knits. I am knitting it up as unspun fiber because I have yet to venture to the dark side (spinning). i just pull off a hunk of my red fluff and start knitting it. Needle size 9. The scarf image is the knitting in progress.

I have been knitting with unspun fiber from Susan at Yarnorama in Paige, Texas. The before image of the fiber is pictured a few posts back. I have done a few rows more than pictured here, but this is a good representations of the colors. I really like the organic feel of the finished product. There is enough weight for the shawl (when finished) to be very warm, yet also a nice amount of drape. I am at a point where I need to switch to a circular needle because my stitches are getting a little crowded. I forgot to make note of what size needles these are, but I think it might be a US 8 or 9.

It’s magic.

Stuff is in the mail. Almost all of it. the only remaining thing that needs to be in the mail is a sample of some yarn I have to send to Fleece Artist for them to match and send me back enough to finish a Lady of the Lake sweater I am working on. It was almost done. It was almost going on vacation to South Africa with me. I ran out of one of the yarns just before I finished the second sleeve and still need some for the collar. Truth be told, I would like the sleeves to be longer, too, but I can live with them the length they are (about 3/4) if I only get enough new yarn for the collar. time will tell. but that is what isn’t in the mail.

What is in the mail is the first few items for my ongoing Gratitude Project. Last year I did a meme which I took from Annie Modesitt’s blog. The first 5 people to reply get something handmade by me. They, in turn, post the same offer on their own blog, and Gratitude ripples across the water ad finitum. I really enjoyed participating in that, and since then I have had an ongoing Gratitude List stuck on my keyboard at work. When someone or something strikes me in a certain way, I add them to the list. The list itself is a little one inch Post-It note, so it never gets out of hand, and I just crossed 4 names off it which makes room for four more. So far, it is a good outlet for my knitting obsession.

This quilt square is also out the door. We participated in a group quilting project with some lovely ladies in CT. The only rules were that we had to use 100% cotton fabric, and we had to incorporate a sample provided to us. The two chicks are the incorporated fabric. It’s finished and in the mail. It even has a tracking number!

I also got something in the mail yesterday, a book I had ordered called The wonderful Weekend book by Elspeth Thompson. So far, it’s lovely and I am enjoying it. The focus is on reclaiming the weekend for personal relaxation and balance. The author is English, so it’s rather…Brittish…maybe a tad pretentious…but it is what it is and I find it somehow delightful.

I almost forgot to mention the journal project I am doing. I started a round robin journal project in the Simple Living group on Ravelry. 9 of us are participating and as it is my first time doing such a thing, it feels rather loosey goosey in terms of guidelines. Basically each person starts a journal, whether written, collage, painted pages, whatever, and we mail them to each other every 2 weeks or so. Eventually, if the universe is being kind, your original journal comes back to you.

Time to flee to the Island. Maybe more later, maybe not.

To the right is some luscious merino top hand dyed by Susan at Yarnorama. She posted this pic (which I shamelessly borrowed) on Ravelry to announce her new Colorway of the Month. She is dyeing fiber and yarn each month in an original colorway and making them available for purchase. This is the January offering and It is aptly named Awakenings. Since I am newly obsessed by knitting with unspun fiber, I thought I would give hers a try.

I am going to get started with this this weekend and I am thinking maybe a simple shawl for this loveliness. I might do a triangle that I can leave unblocked because I am not sure how blocking unspun fiber will go, and I am not ready to wing it for something bigger. Best to just let the muse take me where it wants to go, yes?