Spring Hasn't Quite Sprung

I said it wouldn't take me long to get Countess Cathleen done once the knotworks were underway. It's not quite done yet, but I'm over halfway through the knotworks now :) Here's the photo I put on Insta yesterday:

I love how it's coming together :) And only 25 rows to go!

Of course this means I'm going to have to turn to writing the pattern soon. Which I confess isn't always my favorite part of designing. But if I don't write it then I can't see how it looks when other knitters knit their own, and that is one of my favorite parts of designing. As with any thing, there are fun and not-so-fun aspects. So, I'll be pattern writing pretty soon, followed by tech-editing, and then test/beta knitting. I'll have more news on that as I get closer to having the pattern ready. The test will definitely be held on Yarnpond again. So if you're interested, stay tuned this spring.

Speaking of audience, I was checking the stats here recently and noticed I'm getting a lot of interest from Singapore and Hong Kong the last while. Hello, and welcome *waves* :) I'm not sure if it's my knitting or Irish Dance content that's bringing you to visit me but I'm happy to have you along for my adventures :) And hello to anyone else who's new, or not. The more the merrier, in both knitting and dancing :)

In Irish Dancing news: CLRG Worlds start in Glasgow tomorrow!! Squeeeee! I'll be following coverage via Instagram all this coming week. Best wishes to all the dancers!!

My next knitting adventure should be underway in a few weeks! I've narrowed down the bead choices for Cherish the Ladies, and will be casting on in April. With sport-weight wool, I'm going with 6/0 seed beads, and I've learned of a few Canadian sources for them that are very reasonable in both prices and shipping. I'll let you know how I get on once I've got them. I confess it's totally down to color at this point; not surprisingly at all *insert cry-laughing emoji here*. I think my love of color is fairly well documented ;)

That reminds me! I started a new personal project recently, and I'm using a lot of color for it. Some of you may remember that I knit a Harvest cardigan (pattern by Tin Can Knits; link to their site🔗) a couple of years ago. I love it, and wear it around the house quite a bit but... quite honestly, I messed up the size choice. It doesn't like to stay on and I can't close it because when your full-chest measurement is 47 inches, knitting the size with a finished measurement of 47 inches is not a good choice for a cardigan you plan to wear over light tops (usually a tank top but sometimes a tee if it's a little chillier) *facepalm* As I said, totally my goof up.

So I decided to knit a new one in a much more practical size. And I decided that I wanted a colorful sweater. Like all the colors. No, seriously. All the colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, dark blue/indigo, purple, pink, and black. 9 colors. And I toyed with rainbow order stripes, and maybe using the Fibonacci sequence for the number of rows, but then I got a much more... random idea.

Are you familiar with "shiny math rocks", aka role-playing game dice, aka D n' D dice? I just happen to have acquired a set of these lovely items last fall. And you may remember I knit a particularly epic scarf by the lovely designer, Aetherfang (aka Tania Richter) that involved rolling rpg dice to decide which chart in the adventure to knit. What would happen if I used my D10 for the color, and say the D8 to decide the number of ridges to knit? (If you're not familiar with the Harvest cardigan pattern, the front bands are knit in garter stitch while you knit the body in stockinette) Well, I can show you the first bit:

Fun, isn't it? I love it, And it's all been decided by dice rolls, which is very fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants knitting. I'm having a lot of fun with it :) Almost as much fun as I had using a random number generator to place the beads as I knit Romi Hill's Celaeno shawl. Hmm, there's an idea...

For those of you thinking 'Wait. She's using a D10 and only has 9 colors...?'  I have the colors numbered 1-9 according to good old Roy G. Biv with pink = 8, and black = 9. If I roll D10=10 I use the next color in the sequence. Say the last stripe I knit is orange (aka color 2), and I roll D10=10 for the next stripe, that stripe is then yellow (aka color 3). If I roll the same color number back to back, I re-roll the D10; it doesn't matter if the same number of ridges comes up in a row so the D8 doesn't need re-rolling ever.

Between my very colorful Harvest cardi, and getting through the final rows of my Countess Cathleen (740 stitches per row at this point), that's all my knitting time lately. I did a bit of swatching for Cherish the Ladies this week, just to confirm the needle size I had recorded in my design notebook. All systems are a go, as soon as I have the beads in hand :)

What's on your needles this Spring, fiber friends? We're still getting flurries here on the Island, so we'll see if Spring actually reaches us before June this year lol! I have a feeling I'll be getting a lot of wear out of both my cloak and my cardigan when they're finished! 

That's it from me for now!

Yours in yarn, and dice rolls,

Síle

That Was Unforseen

February was a heck of a month.

Remember how I popped in to show you I'd started the knotworks on my Countess Cathleen cloak?

Yeah, I jumped the starting whistle a wee bit. Turns out, I didn't have enough wool to finish the knotworks where I'd positioned them. And the cloak wasn't where I'd hoped it would be lengthwise either, so...

I frogged back to the row before I started the knotworks (again), started knitting again, adding to the background. And very quietly ordered 4 more hanks of wool.

(Aside: I ordered the wool at 3:45am on a Thursday. Around 8 hours later I had an email saying my order was at the post office, and it was ready for pickup at my local post office on Monday. I can't tell you how absolutely blown away by the service from Cast On! Cast Off! in Triton🔗 (link to their website; they have 5 exclusive colorways of Briggs & Little Heritage!) Of course, it helps they and I are on the same island. But seriously I wasn't even expecting my order to be into the mail that quickly!)

With the new hanks in hand, and a lovely (insert eyeroll here) snow storm happening outside, I charted out the knotworks, and the bottom borders (with transitions for all 3 sizes!).  Happy dance! 

I'm only 3 rows from the (please let this be the final) knotwork starts :) Granted, the rows are over 600 stitches in length so it's taking a bit to get them done. But once the knotworks are started my progress will pick up.

I'm an odd creature in that easy knitting, like say stockinette in the round, takes me foreeeeeevvvveeerrr. But stick a complex cable or lace pattern in the midst of it and I'll have it done lickety split! If you're at all familiar with online knitting magazine, Knitty🔗 (link to the wonderful webzine), and their delightful rating system, I have a tanktop from one of the previous iterations of their shop that says "piquant" on it for a reason. My former knit night pals can laughingly tell you about the time we held a knit-a-long for the Pinwheel sweater (was on the now defunct Elann.com), and everyone finished, except me because I got bored of all the stockinette in the round and started other projects instead of finishing it *insert cry-laughing emoji here*. I digress.

Speaking of snow, that dump we got in February melted down fairly quickly. And then we received another 54cm (roughly 21 inches) this past Thursday through Saturday morning. Guess who tried to shovel out the household for the second time in around 3 weeks. And guess who is hurting a lot, and unable to sleep despite the taking of medications meant to calm muscles and pain signals. Someone writing a blogpost much earlier than she normally does, perchance? See, I figured you'd put the clues together ;)

My recent internet rabbithole has been looking for sources of large quantities of 6/0 beads for Cherish the Ladies, and a few other designs that aren't quite far enough along to put on my cast-on list just yet. Admittedly, I don't have yarn for any of them. Kind of slows things down a bit lol. And yes, other designers probably have yarn before they start a design. Seems logical, right? While I routinely employ logic in all kinds of situations, designing isn't always one of them. We've established I do things my own way, even when it makes no logical sense, right? Oh good. I was afraid no one noticed ;)

The furry members of the household have figured out I'm awake, so I must give them attention. You'd think no one ever pets Jakey and Silver by how they get on...

That reminds me! You need to see the photo of Jakey from Saturday night. I had the cloak out to knit some after the hockey game, and... well see for yourself:

The furry nephew wasn't pleased that I asked him to get off my cloak. And with that expression on his floofy little face, I decided to work on something else completely. He's a benevolent little tyrant of two things: 100% wool (in hanks, balls or already knit up), and my lap if one of his sisters gets up with me. Sil has learned to sit on the arm of the couch next to me to avoid him pushing her off my lap. He's quite the character, our Jakey.

Well, fiber friends, I think I've been at this long enough *yawn*. Maybe I can get a bit of sleep in, on this rainy Tuesday morning. I hope your projects are all coming along nicely. Pop a comment below to let me know what your current project(s) is/are.

Yours in yarn, and an ever stiffening back,

Síle

Thoughts and Ruminations on a Cloudy Friday

Things are pretty quiet around Knit Dance Repeat Designs right now. The test/beta knit for the Four Hand Reel is humming along nicely. One of the brilliant knitters has finished her tote, and a couple of the others are nearly there. It's so cool to see my design come to life in someone else's color and fiber choices! 

I've been working on Countess Cathleen fairly monogamously this month. Unfortunately I'm in the midst of a moss stitch sea when it doesn't seem like the work is growing despite checking off completed rows on the chart. I know all of a sudden it'll magically appear to have grown, but this part is a bit like sleeve island right now. Not the worst thing in world but I'm trying to make sure I don't overshoot the point that the knotwork motifs make their entrance. I'm *really* looking forward to seeing them in situe.

One thing about knitting in a bit of an auto mode, it leaves my mind free to wander, and wonder about new ideas. And that's resulted in two new design ideas in the past week! I'm still fleshing out my notes, but both designs will definitely involve beads. One might need to have the beads prestrung to get the effect I'm envisioning, while the other will work better using the crochet hook method of placing each bead separately. I confess: I like the individually placed methods better. I feel the bead being on two legs of a stitch is more secure than prestringing. Going by how many popular designs are knit using prestrung beads, my fear is probably quite a bit unfounded. 

I may as well spill the tea, and tell you these will be two shawls, although one will have the option to be a scarf or a stole-type wrap. These are also quite bit down on the list currently though so things could change by the time they get to my needles, and then out to you! With 20 some designs in various states of planning, ie. samples not on the needles yet, *any* of them could be very different once they go through my process. 

Speaking of the design process, I watched a really neat episode of "The Thread - A Knitting Podcast" on Youtube last week. Nicole went through her process, and the sort of 5 main questions she answers when she's plotting and planning a design. Like my designs, hers have a distinct niche inspiration so I found it super interesting how she goes about things, and how it compares and contrasts with my own process. If you haven't checked out "The Thread", give it a watch. You might enjoy it too. I find Nicole very fun and personable. You can also find her on Instagram as @thecommonthread; her stories are often very funny, and her enthusiasm is catching.

I think that's about it from here. There's rain in the forecast for the next few days so that will be an excellent excuse to craft away the weekend. Sistwerp and I are re-watching Supernatural from the beginning (again lol; we're nearing the end of season 1 now) which is so good for me from a getting rows done standpoint. Having something to watch on the tv keeps me from picking up my phone, and scrolling away several hours when I could've/should've made progress on a project. I've been unengaged with actually posting anything the last year or so. I've really struggled with it, and I have no idea why. I still take photos, I just don't post them anywhere. Might text them to Mum or someone else but... yeah. But I'll get engaged in scrolling, especially Insta, and oh, look! It's 4 hours later, and I really need to get supper going! lol

The mind is a nebulous, and mysterious thing isn't it?

I think I'll work some granny squares for my Aria Blanket (pattern by Lucy @Attic24) while I continue to ponder this, that, and everything else in between. This is one of my personal projects, and I'm only 17 squares away from finishing it! Ok, 17 squares plus the wide border. Anyway, it's getting closer to finished. Yay! That'll be one less personal project on the go, and one step closer to a more manageable work projects/personal project: ratio. I digress!! Lol So much for closing this post, right? rotflmao

Ok, this time I'm really closing this post. 

I hope your yarn projects are happily coming along. Are you close to finishing any large ones? Are you clearing your needles and hooks of warm weather projects in anticipation of the coming cooler temps? I'd love to hear what you've got on the go, and what comes next in your yarn adventures.

Thanks for reading along, fiber friends!

Yours in yarn and too many ruminations ;)

Síle