Heigh ho

It's off to Yarn School I go! Lots of pictures to follow, I'm sure.

The last of the gallbladder episode

Thank you to everyone who asked after Mike. The ultrasound showed he had stones, so the gallbladder ended up coming out with no further ado... it was done laproscopically & he came home the same day. His recovery has been completely uneventful and he is feeling fine, eating normally & was back to work within a couple of days. All is well again.

Rosebud

Yarn: Elann.com's Peruvian Uros Aran (50% wool, 50% llama) Needles: size 8 Stitch pattern: Rosebuds from 356 Knitting Stitches a Year My second lace shawl, this one made as a gift for my dear friend Miriam, who loves all things rosy.

Lace, of course, is all about the blocking. Before blocking, the shawl resembles nothing so much as a crumpled, wadded mess.

I soaked it in the sink for a few minutes, then squeezed it out in a beach towel. Now it's ready to block.

For this project, I invested in a set of blocking wires from KnitPicks, which made the whole job much easier. I heartily recommend blocking wires to anyone who wants to knit lace.

The lace pattern opened up beautifully, and the shawl grew by several inches. I actually finished this shawl a couple of months ago, but have been holding off on posting until I could present Miriam with her gift. Happy Birthday, dear one!

Griffindor Quidditch Robe

The second major piece of Hunter's Harry Potter costume -- the robe -- is done! (The sweater, you may recall, was finished a few months ago.) The last bit that I need to make are the (faux) leather greaves & vambraces. Then we'll come up with some white pants, a broom, and some round-framed glasses. Voilà, a perfect little Harry Potter.

ER Booga

The ER Booga is finished & felted. It's tiny! I put it in the washing machine with the intention of checking on it every ten minutes, and then promptly forgot about it. The result: it felted down to a tight, dense little purse that's half the original knitted size. It stands about 7" tall and the base is a 5" square. The spiral stripes turned out nice too.

ER and another Booga

I'd just as soon not have another weekend like the one just past, thanks. Mike, who has been having a few recurring episodes of stomach pain (he saw the doctor about it last week; she diagnosed a possible ulcer & put him on Pepcid AC pending further tests), had the worst episode to date -- he was having such severe pain that we wound up going to the emergency room at 2 AM. They admitted him for a couple of days while they ran tests to figure out what the heck was wrong. Turns out it was his gallbladder, which will no doubt be coming out very soon after he meets with the specialist. In the meantime, the poor guy is home & back to normal, but he's afraid to eat more than a couple of bites for fear of triggering another attack. This, not surprisingly, has turned him into El Grumpo.

All I can say is, thank the gods for the knitting bag by the door. I had the presence of mind to grab it on the way out, which kept me sane during the hours of cooling my heels in the ER waiting room, not to mention the hours of bedside visits once they moved him to a room. I had just cast on for a new Booga-ish bag when this all happened... this one is a little different, though, it has thin stripes from four leftover skeins (two browns, a grey, and a yellow), with a square bottom cribbed from the French Market bag. Much more subtle colors than my California Booga. Also, I just learned a really, really cool way to do single-row stripes in the round like this without carrying up the side! It's in the current issue of Cast On, the magazine of TKGA. Here's how you do it:

1. Divide your total # of stitches by the number of colors you want. Call it n. (Round up to a whole number if you have to, it doesn't have to be perfectly even.) Place a stitch marker every n stitches.

2. Knit your cuffs, or base, or whatever. I knit the bag base in a solid color and then started striping when I reached the sides.

3. On round 1 of stripes, knit to the first marker with color 1, change colors, knit to the second marker with color 2, change colors, and so forth until you knit to the last marker with color last.

4. To start round 2, you will begin knitting with the color you have in hand, which is color last. Knit to the next marker. When you reach it, drop the current yarn and pick up the one that was left hanging, and begin knitting with that color.

5. Continue in this way until you reach the desired length -- every time you reach a marker that has a hanging color, switch colors. The only marker that won't have a hanger is your end-of-round marker. Watch your tension on the color changes! It can sometimes get a little wonky. But there's no carried yarn & no ends to weave. Just stripey goodness.

Anyway, here's my striped pseudo-Booga about three quarters of the way through. The leftovers, in case you are curious, are from Mike's vest (dark brown), a Ravenclaw (grey), and a pre-blog Dr. Who (camel & yellow). Should look nice & subtle once it's felted.

A setback on Angelina

Sadly, I frogged it. About three skeins in, it was so huge that I realized that I had overestimated once more (why do I always do that?!?) and was on the way to making a ridiculously sloppy-large sweater. And Angelina is all about the fit, so that wouldn't do.

So, I've started it over, several sizes smaller. The one good thing -- I was starting to wonder if I had enough yarn in stash, or if I'd have to buy a few more skeins and hope it was close enough to do that crazy two-rows-from-each-dye-lot trick to blend it in on the cuffs. Now, with a lot fewer stitches, I don't think I'll be anywhere near running short. :-)