a rabble of wool-ends

Well. The Rigatoni scarf is coming along nicely, but the ball of mini mochi that I'm halfway through now resembles not so much a ball but the results of the sudden introduction of the Flying Spaghetti Monster to the Shinkansen. Tangled, tangled mess, sans meatballs. I've got a great deal of it wound onto my niddynoddy, and the Boo is going to help me untangle the rest of it. It's frustrating because the scarf itself is coming along so nicely, and it's being just the kind of I-can-knit-this-while-sleeping project that helps as a pain management fiddlement in class.

The Boo took me to the kinda snooty, definitely overpriced but close and open and oooo they have pretties yarn store in Napa and ordered me to get yarn enough for a new Rigatoni. After a lot of back and forth, I finally picked 3 skeins of Rowan Tapestry in "Whirlpool", soft oceanic blues and greys. I cast on last night and worked up a few inches, adding beads to every selvedge stitch, but the soft pearly beads I was using just completely vanished into the yarn. So, I frogged it, and I'll take the cast-on scarf to the bead store to find something that will work with this. I really want the beads on the selvedges to both highlight the whirly twirly awesomeness of the pattern and to stiffen the edges a bit. So. Bead store. Yeah.

In other news, the Janel Laidman sock books of ultimate glory got here today, completely surprising me since they only shipped out yesterday. The Boo and I spent a happy morning squeeing over the various pretties, and she has found a handful of things that she'd like me to knit for her. I'm absolutely desperate to knit for her, and I couldn't be happier, or more daunted, with the patterns she's chosen. However, unlike me, she has lovely slim legs, narrow feet, and shapely calves. Really, really fabulous legs, and so easy to knit for! Yay!

Tomorrow's my 40-somethingth birthday. It is, in fact, my very first 40-somethingth birthday, a reality to which I'm not yet accustomed. It seems that the upper digits are akin to higher altitudes: the further up I get, the harder it is to believe that I really hauled my ass this far along. I'm not complaining; it's certainly better than the alternative, but I am rather startled. Nonetheless, this has been a splendid day, despite it being technically the day before the b-day day, but I'm nine kinds of busy tomorrow, so celebrations ensued a tad early. Yay!

My Boo is an enthusiastic enabler of my knitting habit, despite the fact that she neither benefits from it in the form of knitted niceties for herself nor does she understand the appeal of twiddling with sticks, strings, and occasional beads. As evidence of her awesomeness, I offer the fact that she has taken to letting me chose a new knitting class and outfitting me with the necessaries for same for major gift-related holidays. I've learned how to knit toe-up socks and beaded lace, and this time I signed up for a color workshop that promised an opportunity to learn Fair Isle, intarsia, slip-stitch, "and more!".

I've tried my hand at stranded colorwork before, and had some tension and entanglement issues. I think I'm hampered because I don't know how to knit and purl continental-style. I've seen stranded knitters working with two different colors, one held in each hand. That's some seriously Batman-level cool shit there. So, I've been super-excited about this class. I ran around for hours today looking for cheap, non-fugly, 100% wool to take to the class. I finally found a sale at the local(ish) Beverly's on Kertzer Rejuvenation and picked up a skein each of white, grey, blue, black and red. I also found a skein of Red Heart (dude, I know, blech, right? but wait!) Pomp-a-doodle in candy floss pink, which is basically a bunch of pompoms onna string.

From Trollwife @ Ravelry

My flash washed the color out a bit, but still. POMPOMS ONNA STRING!!! How awesome is that?

Sadly, the class was canceled because I was the only one to sign up. That "and more!" will forever remain a mystery to me. I refunded my class fees for store credit and bought a couple of books I've been getting my grubby little eyeprints all over for well over a year: Susanna E. Lewis's Knitting Lace: A Workshop with Patterns and Projects and Evelyn A. Clark's Knitting Lace Triangles. They are both much more technical in nature than the usual "follow this pattern to make this design" lace books I've seen, delving a bit more deeply into the structure of lace and how to design your own patterns. I'm veryvery happy with them both so far.

Oh, and! Pat at Village Knitters, my very favoritest LYS, taught me how to use the swift and ball winder to deal with the skeined Malabrigo baby merino lace, averting a near catastrophe in the process. She was very gracious about it, in her usual brusque Midwestern way, despite the fact that it's Not Usually Done for one to bring yarn purchased at LYS A for winding at LYS B. Tacky trollwife was tacky. *fail* She was nice about though, especially considering that another customer was admiring the Malabrigo. I know that some people have had a hard time with Pat's forthrightness, but I find her refreshing and kind of adorable, like a grumpy puppy who you just want to scritch behind the ears. She's also a great teacher and a fantastic knitter. I got to eavesdrop a bit on the stitch&bitch in session as I wound... and wound... and wound... some 940 yard of lace. My Wintertide™ wish list has an umbrella swift and ball winder at the very tippy top of it! I wonder if I can get a winder that will count yards as it zooms along? That'd be awfully useful for some of the unlabeled and handspun stuff I've got tucked away, and y'know, easier than wrapping and weighing and doing the math.

Originally posted by neo_prodigy at Spirit Day

This is the dead-easy drop-stitch Spirit Day scarf I knocked out in Lion Brand's purple Homespun:

From Drop Box

Here's a closer look at the dropped stitches:

From Drop Box

The yarn looks much more blue than purple in the twilight. Maybe I'll try retaking the pictures tomorrow.