Yarn Everywhere!

Last week a friend that was staying with me went home for a bit and accidentally brought my computer’s power cord with him. I was left, for about a week, with many empty hours. I had nothing to do but knit, listen to music, and read. I did the first two all the time for a few days and made great progress on the Swallowtail Shawl. But I usually watch various television shows on my computer while knitting, and music was not as entertaining. And my wrists started to hurt from way too many of the infamous “nupps” in too few hours.

The pain sounded like it was telling me that I was about to develop a repetitive motion injury (no thanks to the friend of mine who laughed at me for knitting enough to hurt myself), so I cooled it for a while. That, along with a weekend full of packing and moving to a new room, is why I don’t have a finished Swallowtail Shawl to show. Here’s what it looks like now:

I have a feeling that this shawl is going to be huge - much larger than it’s supposed to be, anyway. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to spread it out and see what it looks like, as my longest circ is only 36″. The ability to do that is the force pushing me toward castoff right now. Only a few rows left! I have no idea where I’m going to block this. I have no idea how bamboo yarn reponds to blocking. I have no idea when I (or anyone else) will wear a large, pale green, not-warm shawl. Whatever! It’s fun to knit, and got me through my weird lace situation: I really like a lot of lace patterns, but every time I try to knit with laceweight something just doesn’t work. I can do it, the result is okay, but I don’t really enjoy it. I always feel like I have to be ridiculously careful with the yarn. Maybe I’ll get over it. I’d like to.

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On another note, I got this sock yarn from the Destash blog.

The darker skein on the right is Lana Grossa Meilenweit Mega Boots Stretch, which I’ve used before. I bought both of these in a weak moment fueled by finals-induced stress, and now that I have this one I half-regret the purchase - I like the yarn, but Mega Boots Stretch comes in so many colorways that I love, and this isn’t one of them. I should have held out. Oh, well. The skein on the left, Gedifra Happy Strumpf Mouliné, is Mystery Yarn. It is either so old or so foreign that I couldn’t find a single mention of it anywhere on the internet. I really liked the colors, and was intruiged. This one I do not regret at all.

Those skeins will have to stew for a while, though. My next two pairs of socks will be Birthday Socks for my parents, for which neither of these are suitable. My mother doesn’t like to wear blue, and I don’t think my father would want socks in any non-neutral color. I’m planning way, way ahead, as both my parents and I are born in late October. Aren’t I responsible?