The Forth Skein

 This afternoon I hit the magical 4th skein of yarn in the 4 color fade shawl.  I did not even notice when I went over the Russian join.  Which was very surprising to me.  We were returning from a day trip to Scottsdale. Of course John was driving, I would never knit while driving. It just feels so unsafe, like a very distracted driver. I was exhausted when it was time to add the join. I always add the Russian join a few yards before I need to.  I like the yarn to rest and settle into place. We were going down I-10 going the speed limit of 75 mph. We were on a straight stretch of freeway.  I got my tool kit out and managed to make a pretty decent join considering I was not at a table. This is definitely not a beginner move.  

Each row is now taking about 30 minutes to complete. The shawl bottom is in excess of 50 inches. The only question I have is will it be ready by Thursday for the Old Pueblo Knitting Guild Fashion Show. Now I did tell my husband that I would model it even if it was not finished. Even if I had the yarn on my spinner yarn holder, minus the bottom of the butler part of course. If you want a yarn spinner like mine, Grandma’s Spinning Wheel in Tucson  carries them. I think I will have about 2 to 3 hours to knit tomorrow, which should be another 4 to 6 rows.  I am so bad at the math figuring out how far the yarn will actually go that I will be playing yarn chicken with this shawl.  

You will notice that I keep my Lantern Moon tightening tool and dropped stitch tool in the center of my yarn spinner. This is so that they are always ready when I need them. You can also see all the colors of the fade. 

Rock On

 Several years ago my favorite purse had a run in with a black gel pen and lost. This is what the stain looked like after a full bottle of ink remover and multiple washing by hand. I even scrubbed the detergent into the spot. As you can see the stain got smaller but did not go away completely.

So I thought about it for a while.  Pins just did not seem big enough or practical for the bottom of my purse.  So I thought about making a design with buttons. Then I came across a button someone had sent me a few years back saying that I would come up with the perfect use for such an odd shaped button made of stone.  I have forgotten the name of the rock.  

The button was just the right shape to cover the remainder of the ink stain.  The light color of the stone matches the material in the main part of the purse perfectly.  

My finished repair looks good and saved my favorite purse.  I wish I would have thought of the button solution before I spent the day scrubbing the stain out. Or better yet a few years ago.  The only thing I would have done differently is to use a small embroidery hoop to hold all of the layers of material even.  That way the material would not have bunched up inside on the purse lining.  By the way I will no longer put gel pens in my purse.  

Catch me if you can..

 I did house work, laundry and paperwork. I managed to get 2 loads of laundry completed from start to finish all by myself, my taller half was at work. I actually got my heart rate up enough to get 20 minutes of exercise without leaving the house. I fell asleep after all that work. Forgetting that I had a teleconference call.  Oops. 

Then I decided instead of playing games on my tablet, I would knit and binge watch some television.  After dinner I continued to binge watch television and knit until my thumb was sore.  Then it was rubbing Tiger Balm on the thumb until it stopped hurting.  While binge watching television until bedtime.

By the way I got two days worth of knitting done on my 4 color fade shawl completed this afternoon and evening. All by skipping games on my pad.  I think now that I am doing a tiny bit better, maybe this should be my new routine. It might help with my stash reduction efforts. Of course on top of the three days that I continue my cardio rehab routine at the gym.  

Color Number 3

I started the third color in my fade shawl today.  The first and second colors had very little difference in the contrast.  Color number 3 took a big leap.  You will notice that I am putting the darker colors lower in the design. They will not show the dirt as much.  

It is taking me about a week to do each color change.  So the shawl will be ready on time.  

A very busy day

 Today was a very busy day around here.  I was not as efficient as I had hoped to be.  That being said it was a day of multiples of 4 as in 4 loads of laundry completed. 4 bags of recycling left the house. Four large piles of paper work dispatched.  Then to shake things up the 2 naps I took when I was too tired to move. Then 4 rows of knitting tonight, including going back 4 rows to pick up a dropped stitch. After the repair it was impossible to tell where I dropped the stitch.

With all that I accomplished today, I am still not done.  Hopefully I will finish the rest of today’s work tomorrow. I really want to finish the 4 color fade shawl this coming week. With the longer rows I am going through the second skein faster than the first skein.  

With tomorrow being an early and busy day, I need to get to sleep early tonight.  

A busy day.

 Today was a short attention span day.  I was doing chores by 5 minute or less increments with the exception of Sprouts and Bookman’s.  I got enough trade credit for another pair of socks for my charity project. The only chore that I really did not enjoy was finding a poisonous spider in the bathroom. You know the kind that from a distance looks like a ladybug that I would let outdoors. However on closer inspection it had a red bulging back. I did not even scream, just said oh dam and got a piece of toilet. It was nasty to kill but even worse to clean up.  I do admit that tomorrow I will have to get the cleaning supplies out to finish the clean up. 

I have made it through the first color change in my 4 color fade shawl.  I had just changed out the cord to a longer one on my interchangeable knitting needles from the 30 inch to the 37 inch and added the tip. The knitting needle tip just kept spinning in place. So my decision tomorrow will be do I use the 50 inch cord which I will be there soon or start piecing  and smaller cords together? I will sleep on that one. I have let the maker know, I will see what happens.  I am hoping for a replacement.  

Almost Time…

 It’s almost time for the color change on my 4 color fade shawl. There’s more slightly darker pink and less very light pink in skein number 2.  Since the shawl has 6 increases every other row the next section will not have as many rows as color number 1.  

It is also almost time to add an extension onto the ChaiGoo’s. I will only add a 16 inch extension since I don’t want the knitting needles to get too unwieldy.  Of course if the shawl needs another extension, I will switch to one long cord by knitting the shawl onto the longer cord.  

Below is a picture of my work in progress on my very over crowded couch. Which By the way has a number of other work in progress projects.