Triplets

I finished the third Sipalu Bag. It is by far my favorite!! I like it so much that I am taking it on my vacation next month. I just have to line it and it's good to go. I managed to tear myself away from my Glenesk cardigan long enough to get it done. I am going to take my baby-gift-knitting project with me on my vacation. 23 days to sailing - I've got some Royal Carribean coming.

Storage and Stuff

Progress Photos: I completed Chart B and the next 25 Rows of Chart B. The first photo is without flash and the colors are truer. The second picture is with flash and the Mountain Hare is pinker than it really is. The third is close up with flash on.

I have created my Starmore Storage Box. Each yarn has a cubby hole and is labeled with the picture I took for my Ravelry Inventory. The pictures are of the yarn skeins with the label indicating the plys and lot numbers - which is really helpful. When I finish Glenesk I will remove the leftovers and sort Henry VII yarns into the cubby holes. If I finish Glenesk before September, I may start Leo or Lismore. It depends on the timing. This shoe box zips closed so it is the perfect protection for precious yarns.

Shoe Storage Box

Yarn Storage Box

Yarn Labels

Sorted Out

Voila

My finished socks from last month - I finally took a picture.

I received a very nice set of stitch markers from StephCat for helping out with the group page on Ravelry.

Spooky

I was looking for a blogger who has knit the Glenesk, using a google search. I did not want to go through a bunch of Ravelry forum posts to find the link again. I found several posts about the Glenesk Sweater out in the wild, including my previous ones. I clicked on Jade Starmore's entry at Virtual Yarns.com, realizing that I did not read the description when ordering my kit. A really creepy coincidence - the Glenesk was a small ship which now resides on Gress Beach. I did not know that when I wrote my Mayday entry, and the fact that so much of my sweater has been knit while watching The Deadliest Catch is a bit weird. Dharmfey would get a kick out of the cosmic connection I think.

Speaking of Dharmafey, congrats on the major shout out from David Reidy on his Sticks and Strings podcast. I agree, your yarn is awesome. Sorry to hear your Socks In The City podcast is coming to an end though.

New Tools, Um Toys ?!?

My new Woolly Board came. I have not opened it yet - which I need to do to check all of the bits and pieces. When I flip through my fair isle books and look at finished projects online they look so impressive when blocking on a Woolly Board. I have a sweater rack and have used it to dry store bought sweaters. It takes FOREVER for them to dry. I plan on using my Woolly Board for more than just blocking. I bought a shoe storage unit from Harriet Carters to store my Starmore Yarns. Right now I have the yarns in ziplocs and sorted into project tote bags. The shoe storage unit has a cardboard frame with separators that fits into a zippered plastic cube. I will set that up and transfer everything over this weekend.

I finished the 40th row of the first 44 row section of the Glenesk Cardigan. There are a total of 116 rows in this first section. The 44 row pattern is knit twice, then just the first 28 rows are knit. I am not reading ahead any further in the instructions just now. This pattern is written a little differently than I am used to - it is backwards to patterns I have knit before. The most important instruction is usually the last sentence instead of at the beginning of the paragraph. After ripping out a lot of knitting I am finally getting the swing of how the instructions flow. The pictures on the pattern card and Virtual Yarns site do not compare to the real thing. You have to see this yarn in person to appreciate the colors. The yarn feels coarse when working with it but the fabric is so soft. I don't really get that. When winding up the balls I worried that I would go through all of this work and end up with a scratchy sweater I would not want to wear. But instead the larger the bodies grows the softer the overall fabric feels.

No other WIPS are getting any attention, I had a feeling this was going to happen. That is why I tried so hard to finish the Sipalu and Aguona bags before casting this sweater on at the beginning of April. As I have said before, there just is not enough knitting time!!!

I need a new Audiobook to listen to. I have gone through almost my entire library, the few titles I have left are read by narrators that grate on my nerves right now. Sometimes those sample excerpts aren't really helfpful. I try to listen to all of the readers before buying. OR, I could try listening to one of my Kindle2 books. What's cool about the Kindle2 is that if you get tired of listening to the book being read by the female/male voice you can switch. I have several books on there now ready to go.

Quick WIP Pics

Mayday Mayday Mayday

Happy May Day. Also, a sad Mayday. Thanks to Crazy Aunt Purl I am a fan of the Deadliest Catch on the Discovery Channel. Sadly a fishing vessel, the Katamai went down and only 4 of the 10 crew members survived. My thoughts and prayers go out to the families and the survivors.

A few thoughts on the Glenesk Sweater. I have changed colors three times now and it is amazing how the colors blend. You can barely tell the background is progressively getting lighter as the foreground colors get darker. I love this sweater. The pattern is simple and moves very quickly. I am now on row 12 of the body. There is enough fabric to get some pictures this weekend YAY! I bow to the wisdom of the experienced knitters in the Ravelry Groups Stranded Knitting and Starmore Junkies. They are constantly trying to convince us newbies that it is not as hard and as complicated as it looks to knit fair isle. They are RIGHT. I am so glad I did not put it off any longer. Although I thoroughly enjoyed the Knit Picks Sipalu and Aguona bags, they were a good practice for stranding and carrying yarns. But this sweater is the real deal. If I can manage to put the sweater down for a few hours this weekend I want to finish the back panel of Sipalu Bag 3, and another 5 rows on the Aguona bag. I added another 7 rows to the laptop bag and have 12 left before reaching the border. I need some Finished Objects, so I will probably force myself to bench Glenesk this weekend and knock those out.