Breaking the Silence

So, yeah, I didn't blog in a very long time. The quietude of the blog is a pulsating symptom of the unquietude of my life. Not much knitting time at all, and the very lack of time meant that any free knitting time was spent actually knitting, rather than blogging. And then I found that the longer I hadn't posted, the harder it was to break the silence and start posting again. So this weekend heralds the Return of Blogging. So it seems.



First off, I'm posting a better picture of the new yarn that arrived this weekend from the Loopy Ewe. I have been making progress on my Jeanie, and I was starting to panic that the wrap wouldn't be long enough. I decided to order another skein. Now, I ordered it knowing full well that it wouldn't likely be the same dye lot and could easily not match. I ordered it fully accepting this possibility. And when the yarn arrived, even though I didn't have the wrap nearby to check, I immediately knew that the yarn wouldn't match at all. It doesn't even look like the same colourway. Oh well. Now I will be forced to knit something else with this divinely soft and lofty merino. Woe is me.



I also have decided to use smooshy to make a pair of knee-highs. I didn't think one skein would be enough for knee-highs, so I ordered another skein of Ruby Red. Again, I knew the colourways might not be compatible, but in this case, I had no attachment to them matching. The new skein is, indeed, a little lighter, with more colour variation. I'm okay with this. I'm confident they'll be fantastic as socks, even if it's obvious they aren't identical.



I've been knitting diligently on Jeanie. At the moment, this is my primary project. I am yearning to cast on the abovementioned ruby red knee-highs, but I will not. I have a deadline on Jeanie, and I really have to finish her up. She's at 49 inches right now. The pattern says to knit to 66 inches before starting the edging. While the progress I've been making has seemed minuscule, I can finally say I'm approaching the end.



This weekend I worked on the lower edging. This lower edge has been parked on a knitpicks cable from my interchangeable needles kit. I had a very difficult time getting the edging right, because the stitches didn't quite line up with the stitch columns. Have you ever noticed that? I've noticed it in situations where I'm working on mittens, and have taken out the waste yarn holding the place for the thumb. The upper edge, especially if the mitten is in pattern, is awkwardly not aligned with the stitches. This was the problem I had with the lower edging. For a column of 8 stitches, I had 7 live stitches to edge. Awkward, yes? I finally just ploughed forward. I don't know if the edge is adequately pretty. I hope so. I also hope blocking makes Jeanie blocky.