Thursday, April 7, 2011

Spring Madness

As the spring semester has picked up speed, I'm barely keeping my head above water as I try to juggle everything at once. Two classes means two big papers, plus finishing my final thesis draft as I near graduation and studying for comprehensive exams, the big kahuna of the Master's Degree. I'll be graduating and walking in May, but because my thesis paper is taking awhile to finish I won't be taking my exams till the second week of September. Helps alleviate a little of the stress, but not a lot as papers and Ballet are taking up a lot of time.
To combat this, I have a lot of stress-knitting going on. I finished a pair of mittlets for a friend which really helped put me in the spring spirit!
Pattern: Cupcake Mittlets by shantha rose, available for free as a Ravelry download.
Yarn: Sidar Snuggly Baby Bamboo DK weight- 1 skein and a little bit into the 2nd.
Needles: Size 3, as suggested
Time: March 31-April 6, though truthfully I knit one mittlet per day and left the thumbs till the 6th, which I got done in about a half hour. Really fast, fun knit!
Modifications: I used Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-off for the tops of the mitts and the thumbs, to make sure they were nice and stretchy. Worked beautifully with the bamboo yarn. Pretty sure that's my go-to bind off now for almost everything...
Best Part: Probably how fast they knit up, with really soft and light yarn. Put me in a spring mood!
Worst Part: There really was none. The yarn split occasionally on the purls, but that was it.
Other than those, I've been working on my pretty turquoise spring shawl, which looks less like a shawl and more like an amoeba right now.
I have to admit, I don't know if it's because this is my first shawl, or because it's a lace shawl and I have issues with lace, but I'm having a really rough time with the pattern. I do exactly what it asks, then end up with wrong stitch count all over the place. At first I tried to fix it every time, but I was literally knitting two rows and ripping one. Not great for the morale. I finally gave up, figuring if I stayed in the ballpark and kept the pattern where it was supposed to be, then it was fine. I'll worry more about exact stitch count when I get to having to do the border.
Right?
It's almost near the end, and I'm excited to get it off the needles and block it.
I'm going to use the excuse that it's my first lace shawl if it really looks bad...
Besides, I want this one to be a warm up for other pretty things.... :)

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