How many months later?

I've enjoyed this shawl all summer, but just now had time to take and post pics.

The yarn is Jupiter Moon, the pattern is Never Not Knitting and, of course, I found it on Ravelry.

To see it as a work in progress, click here.

Jupiter Moon's skeins are EXTREMELY generous, so I had enough cormo left over to make fingerless mitts. They are about a day from completion and will get posted in the next week or so. Promise!

Twins separated at birth?

MK Carroll and I "met" through Ravelry and have been messaging each other about how uncannily similar our dogs look. They're the same age, too. This is Toaster. Her ridiculously cute puppies (yes, plural!) can be seen here.

The End of MagKnits

I've been debating what to say about this. I'm sad to see the magazine go. I'm grateful to Kerrie for publishing my first pattern. I HATE that the whole thing had to be tainted by all these problems.

I'm extremely grateful to everyone on Ravelry who has offered words of support. Extra grateful to Knotions for agreeing to give the pattern a second home on its site.

To think getting published in MagKnits was the impetus for starting this blog. Sigh.

One of the 5,286 reasons I LOVE Ravelry

But who's counting?

A woman I met at a comic convention in Portland found me through Ravelry. (We were both hunched over our needles while manning the tables of our significant others.)

Browsing through her queue, I found the pattern for this hat by MK Caroll. It was love at first sight!

Scarf Season Part 2

Still trudging along on Dad's scarf. I've been working on this for almost two months and I am BARELY halfway done. Yikes! I wanted to make a spring sweater using these needles, but I don't think that will be happening. Good thing Christmas is still 9 months away!

Now that I'm on Ravelry, I've been reading about other people's experiences with this pattern. A lot of them found it tedious as well. Part of me wishes I knew that before I began, but I'm not sure reading about the frustrations of others would have deterred me from taking a stab at this -- my ego usually thinks I am not susceptible to the same issues as mere mortals!

What's worse, is I'm not even sure if this going to look good when it's done. I used a different yarn and the herringbone pattern is barely visible in it. Also, one row of stitches looks completely funky and I have NO idea why. When I look at them closely, they appear to all be slipped and knitted correctly, but for some reason that particular row looks like a run in a pair of panty hose. Ugh! Other ravelers say blocking does wonders for this pattern. I've always skipped blocking, but I'll give it a try this time. After all the hours I've invested in this, I've got to somehow find a way to make it look presentable!

The slow progress of this project has totally gotten me down. To get a sense of accomplishment, I decided set it aside for a while and start a scarf for my Dad's wife, Barb,. It's knitted with Misti Alpaca, on 9's instead of 10's to create a denser, warmer scarf. Rob says it looks like television static. After I got done being mad at him for that, I decided he was right. Hopefully, Barb will like it. I asked my Dad for her favorite colors and he thought she'd like a mix of grays. Then again, I asked my Dad for color advice. That may have been mistake number one!

Ravelry

At WonderCon, two people asked me if I'm on Ravelry. I had no idea what they were talking about. Tonight, I was at my favorite LYS and someone else mentioned Ravelry. I decided to check it out and now that I know what it is, I can't wait to get my invitation! Judging by the numbers posted on the site, it will be at least a week before I can log in and start enjoying it.

If you are equally as clueless as me, you can check out Ravelry here.