stash, knit, repeat

In coincidental timing, I’ve finished both the hoodie and the shawl tonight. FO posts will wait until there is proper picture-taking light, hopefully tomorrow. Am I already swatching for the next great thing? Of course I am! What is it? An Elsebeth Lavold cardigan for my maternal grandmother’s birthday, in Silky Wool. I’m totally in love with the Silky Wool. Divine. Inspirational. Gorgeous drapey fabric.

Where did I get it?

Weeeeelll…. I might have done a little shopping when we went to WEBS. It’s not all mine, of course. The Greatest Enabler Of Them All came with me and bought plenty of what you see above. What’s that? You don’t believe me? Well… you’re right.

See that tiny little pile on the right? That’s hers. This… uh… this is all mine. *cough*

In my defense, most of it (all except the red Silky Wool and the sock yarn) is for birthday, baby, and Christmas gifts. And further in my defense, this haul just about doubles my stash. (Which TGEOTA pronounced “pitiable”, I’m sure just to get me to buy more yarn! ;-) I admit to getting a slightly-crazed giddy feeling when I left the store with bags heavy with wool and silk. Speaking of Christmas gifts, does anyone have a recommendation for a sub for Jaeger Cashmere 4-ply, which I can’t seem to find? It’s for a very special scarf.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go back to petting my acquisitions… I’ll leave you with some sneak previews.

There are changes afoot Chez Stash, and they necessitated a spur-of-the-moment road trip to Burlington, VT this weekend. And what’s a road trip without a little knitting? The hoodie is finished except for some buttons, but I’m saving the pictures for an FO post. Which leaves the lace:

It turned out to be really good car knitting. I finished the ten recommended pattern repeats (for a DK weight yarn and the small size), but I’ve decided to add one more repeat because I have the yarn and I’m enjoying working with it so much. This Pure Silk gets my vote for Yarn of the Year, all the way.

From Burlington, we drove to a birthday party in CT by way of the Green Mountain Spinnery:

I got some of this truly amazing Mountain Mohair in three colors for a sweater for young master J. I was shown around the spinning-related machines (it’s VOODOO I tell you, TOTAL MAGIC!), and fondled much yarn, and generally had a grand time while the hubby and son were playing outdoors. It was a really nice day.

We also stopped at Northampton for lunch at one of our favorite restaurants. After lunch, we went to Webs. All of the times I’ve been to the Pioneer Valley, and I even lived there for a summer, and I’d never been to Webs. It took my breath away. I was literally too stunned by choice to buy any yarn. (The baby was getting really cranky, and after the initial interest wore off husband was loudly bored.) I got out of there with a few hard to find patterns, a couple of books, and a firm resolve to visit again. Soon.

In fact, since the husband is in Italy this week, perhaps I’ll visit Friday! Anyone interested in a road trip? ;-)

One down-side to knitting multiple projects at once is that sometimes, even though you’ve been knitting and making progress, there’s very little in the way of interesting pictures. I finished both hoodie sleeves and they’re blocking along with the front (”only” the hood and finishing to go!), I got over my splicing fear and have knit a few more rows on the leaf lace shawl… but that doesn’t really make for anything visually exciting.

This, however…

This is my birthday present. Now, my birthday isn’t until Sunday, but since Mr. Stash is going to be out of town until next Monday, we celebrated this weekend. That’s *two* hanks of Cherry Tree Hill Cascade Silk, fingering weight, Java colorway. It’s going to become Seraphim, probably after Leaf Lace is done. Because the Misti Alpaca is wonderful and light and airy and all that, but the Pure Silk is definitely giving me a taste for silk’s smooth feel.

So three cheers for Mr. Stash!

It seems that my (previously) anti-stash nature isn’t the only thing that has changed recently. True to form, I wove in the ends and blocked the back of the Fibonacci hoodie:

I cast on for the front, but halfway through the first big block of fuschia I got second-sleeve syndrome. (The front and back are essentially the same, two big squares.) I thought about continuing on the Pebble Beach socks, but decided they’re still in quarantine except for car trips. Of course I have plenty of stash to work up, and that Misti Alpaca was tempting, but then I visited my LYS to chat about Bea with the ladies. And now I have two things to distract me this week before taking up the hoodie again:

Any guesses on the identity of the first yarn, or the destiny of either?

Bea is finished!

Pattern: Bea from Rowan’s “Little Treasures”
Yarn: Rowan Soft Baby, cream color
Needles: Recommended US7s gave me pattern gauge (which I have of course forgotten)
Thoughts/Modifications: Aside from using a whole half-ball *more* of the yarn than the pattern called for (despite perfect gauge!), I didn’t deviate from the pattern at all. It was a fun knit, and for most of the time I was working on this sweater I didn’t understand why it got the 3-star difficulty rating. And then I got to the finishing. Man, there’s a lot of finishing. Most of it is very easy–nothing of drastically different lengths to ease in, or anything–but I eventually wound up agreeing with the difficulty rating if only because your average knitter would toss it across the room in boredom. Since I’m fairly anal about such things, it was okay. :) If I were to knit it again, I’d recommend just picking up and knitting the button bands and the collar, both of which were knit as pieces and then sewn on.

The yarn, as I’ve said before, is divine to work with. One thing I didn’t get with Harvey was that after awhile, the yarn did hurt my hands. But since I always have a sock to switch out on, it was okay. All of the photos for the project are up on my .mac site. No photos of it on the recipient yet, as the 11-month-old I’m knitting it for lives in CT. Soon, though!

(Edit: A friend wrote to remind me of all of the bitching constructive criticizing I did at the beginning of this sweater. It’s true! The chart in the book is almost impossible (for me) to read, and so after some major ripping I eventually just had to figure out what the cabling pattern *should* be, and do it. Also, MJ: sewing on the button-bands is *totally wacky* and I have no idea why they suggested it, but I always knit a pattern as by-the-directions as I can, the first time.)

I’ve been knitting on the Pebble Beach sock, and *gasp* I’m actually enjoying the striping. No photos of that for now, though, since I’m taking a short break. I was pretty excited about the next baby sweater I have in the queue: The Hooded Striped Top in Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino. I’m knitting it for another friend’s baby girl. And because this girl is no namby-pamby pastels girl, I’m altering the stripe pattern a bit.

(Please excuse the horrendous lack of blocking.) Yup, that’s a Fibonacci sequence! Two of them, actually, interleaving from top and bottom. I’m tremendously excited about it.

I stopped by my LYS today to show off Bea, though, and asked for a substitute for the Suri Elegance recommended for the Icarus shawl in the current Interweave Knits. (I felt it in person some time ago and was underwhelmed, for the price.) They recommended Misti Alpaca to me, which happens to be only $6.50 a skein there. (Score!) So guess what came home with me?

So the real question is… how long before I cast on for it?