Progress?

Today is one of the first days that feels like winter this year. Snow is falling and the temperature here in Rockport is a chilly 18°. I just wanted to share my progress on Fiadh, and my spinning, and tell you about using up leftover bits of laceweight yarn.

I decided to let Compton hibernate, as Fiadh is a beast in every way. It's big and heavy and I usually only  get about 4 rows a day knit because of all the cables (and it's big... and heavy.) It's size and heaviness isn't really the sweater's fault though; it is huge because of the size of me, and because of the way it is knit: all in one piece, seamlessly.

So although it's a beast right now, I will be glad not to have to sew all those seams to finish it. Actually, I don't mind sewing seams and finishing a sweater, but I think it's kind of cool to see how Marie Greene does it all without sewing any seams.

I was dismayed when this happened, but it is a sign of heavy sweater + little cables on a circular needle:

Luckily I have a *few* extra needles. Ahem.

The bit of green there is where the pocket goes. Very exciting!  Also, I am knitting Fiadh using no cable needles. Knitting cables without a cable needles is both faster (when it works) 80% of the time,  and slower (when you try a cable 2805335 times, swearing, and give up and use a cable needle) 20% of the time. 

I took a week off spinning but today I picked it up again. I just finished a second bobbin and got ready for the third bobbin. Then I'll have to dig out the rest of the fiber and separate it into thirds and finish filling the bobbins.

I'm eagerly awaiting what the three ply will look like; I am anticipating  it to be bulky (or at least Aran weight) and very squishy. I want to make mittens and hats out of it.

Finally, I am using evening TV knitting time knitting a scarf/wrap/stole thing using up my laceweight scraps. I took a size 4/3.50mm circular needle and cast on about 200-ish stitches (204 actually) and started knitting in the round. Then I added another color and started to knit helically to avoid having a jog at the beginning of the round. 

I started out with tan merino/silk which I had quite a bit of, and pink wool. Then I switched to aqua blue just last night when I ran out of pink. This is how far I've gotten in about a month, about 18 or 20 inches -- laceweight takes a bit of time to get anywhere. After the blue runs out, I'll have to go excavating to find my bag of laceweight bits to see what colors will be next. I figure I'll knit until I get to around six feet (or put it into hibernation til I get more bits of laceweight yarn). If I have enough bits, I'm guessing it'll take me until spring. Or, in Tom Baker's Dr. Who style, I could knit all year and have a 17 foot scarf. Wild!