All Together Now

Ping pong comes to mind when I think about how my knitting went this week.  First, I knit on my poncho, then my turtleneck sweater, then a random scarf, then thoughts about starting up some socks and last knitting my mom's sweater.  By finally focusing on a project I managed to make some visible progress.  My mom's Blaithin now has both sleeves attached to the body and lays waiting for the colorwork yoke section to commence.  Whew!  The plain stockinette section is complete at last.  I'm excited to start on the colorwork and use a few tips I have learned since knitting my mom's last Blaithin sweater whose stranded knitting was rather tight.  The tips I'm gong to try are as follows:  knit the piece inside out, go up a needle size and stretch out the stitches in between changing colors.  Now that I know what to look for I think I can catch early if I'm getting the right tension in the strands and make adjustments accordingly (at least I hope so.)  Do any of you more experienced with stranded knitting have any other advice?  Above you can see the colors I will be using:  apple green for the flower stems, bright teal and the main body color for the flower petals and dark navy for the background. 

This was also a week with a few new purchases.  Seems funny to buy things before going to a Wool Festival, but each of the above items was love at first sight, which doesn't happen that often for me.  The sock yarn is a rich mix of navy blues from Leading Man Fiber Arts called Dames at Sea.  This will be the first skein of immensely practical sock yarn that I've ever bought.  Usually, I get sucked in by fabulous color combinations that don't exactly combine with my wardrobe.  Next, are some stitch markers made by Lantern Moon (who also made the flower stitch markers seen in the first photo) of little crocheted squirrels and acorns.  I like soft stitch markers for my main beginning of row marker and these were too cute to pass up.  Last, is my favorite of the three.  A Star Trek large wedge project bag.  It has the original Enterprise on one side and the Next Generation Enterprise on the other.  I've been a Star Trek fan since I was four watching the original show with my Dad and older brother.  We even had dolls of all the main characters and the Enterprise Bridge to reenact the show as well as acting out our own stories.  So, I completely flipped when I saw this on Stitched by Jeesalu's website and had to get it. 

That about wraps up this week's Year of Projects Update.  With both my turtleneck sweater and my mom's Blaithin on the list I'm feeling pretty good about myself even if I did start out rather scattered brained.  Check out the other YOP contributors by clicking here.  Have a awesome week everyone!