Divided Priorities

I only missed yesterday, but I feel like I haven't blogged in forever.

I also feel like I haven't knit in forever, but I'm sure that can't be correct.

Hubby's sock is limping along. (snicker. I crack myself up.) I'm through the gusset shaping. Now it's just 40 odd rows of plain knitting before I start the toe shaping.

Piece of cake.

But still taking longer than anticipated.

In Swatching News
There is a ton of swatching going on still. Which explains the slow down in production on Hubby's sock.

I was given that lovely skein of yarn you see above to review. Very exciting.

It's Lace Merino from Ella Rae. This is a fingering weight, 100 percent merino yarn. The skein is a whopping 460 yards. Plenty for a pair of socks, small shawl, or fingerless mitts.

I have that nice green one (color 16) and a red/blue variegated (color 123). You can see the color card here but I'm pretty sure my samples are so new they aren't listed yet. (See, I told you it was exciting!)

I've been swatching with the green, but haven't made enough progress to bother taking a picture to show you. I think I'll used the red/blue to make an existing shawl pattern, but haven't decided which one.

What I can tell you is it is very soft and springy. It feels normal during the knitting progress, but the resulting fabric is really soft and petable.

For a while now I've wanted to make a pair of green fingerless mitts with a leaf motif. Probably a lace pattern. But didn't have the right yarn and had the project on a back burner so didn't feel the need to buy any.

Of course, now that this yarn has dropped into my lap it's go time!

Stitch Dictionaries are Black Holes of Knitting Time
Let me tell you, it's a good thing I only have the first two Barbara Walker books. The amount of time I spend pouring over them, mooning over the patterns, and adding bookmarks is just ridiculous.

I think I have at least four patterns flagged for the gloves.

Since the pattern will only cover the back of my hand I'm restricted in number of stitches I'll have available. This really helped eliminate a lot of patterns as I needed a low repeat number. I tried to stick to 6 st repeats, or panels of 15 stitches.

Cropped Cardigan
At the same time, I have several cable patterns flagged for a cardigan I'm working on.

Beth got samples of Woodstock Knits Yarn which she is considering stocking at Westport Yarns. The trick is the yarn doesn't have much direct pattern support. She told the staff we could take a skein if we feel inspired.

I don't have a picture of it, but I took a massive hank of a light blue alpaca blend (which I don't see on their website). We were all surprised to see some darker blue varigation when I started knitting it up. It's lovely yarn, but my needles were too big so I had to frog the swatch and start over on a smaller size. Actually, that first swatch was all lace options that weren't working.

Again, I don't have anything to show you yet. Mainly because I've only reworked the St st swatch so far.

It's hard work having all these planning stage projects on the go.

If only life could always be so hard. Right?