As promised: a knitting post.

Knitting, they say, is a great stress reliever. They often say this just before throwing their current work in progress across the room in frustration, but anyway.

Since we last chatted about knitting back in October, I've been flying through projects like the hounds of Hell were after me. I'm not sure why. I think it's partly because I've had weaving on my mind since taking that two-day workshop in November and would like to get the loom out again -- but I had several knitting projects queued up, with patterns and yarn purchased, that I wanted to finish first. Too, the queued projects all use wool yarns, and I'd like to finish them all in time to wear them before the weather gets warm again.

First up: a cardigan. The pattern is called Old Growth and it's in the Tin Can Knits pattern book that I bought in Colorado last summer. I loved the design as soon as I saw it -- the button bands are offset from the center front, which allows for a tree-shaped lace panel on the wider side. That panel, I knew, would not only look awesome, but would keep the boring torso portion of the sweater from being too tedious to knit. I even found buttons with a nubbly surface that looks like tree bark. Here's how it turned out:

Next, I resurrected a shawl project called Sepia. I don't typically have many UFOs (UnFinished Objects) lying around -- I tend to start one project and stick at it 'til it's done. But this one I started and put aside. The pattern calls for increases along the center ridge of the triangle and at either end -- pretty standard stuff -- but in this case, the designer used backwards-loop cast-ons for the increases, which are super easy to do but I'm not nuts about them. To make matters worse, you're supposed to pay attention to the slant of the loop -- so you'd twist the loop one way for right-leaning stitches and the other way for left-leaning stitches.

I ripped out and started over a couple of times, trying different increases, but in the end I gave in and did what the pattern said to do. Mostly. I also gave myself permission to not stress about whether I'd done the correct slant for each cast-on stitch. I'm sure a fair number of the increases are slanting the wrong way, but it doesn't seem to matter much.

My third project was another sweater -- a pullover called the Pavement. You start at the top and knit down in stockinette, in the round, except for garter stitch at the collar, cuffs, and bottom edge. There were short rows in the collar back and for the shirt-tail hem, which kept things interesting. In all, it was a surprisingly quick knit -- partly because I was rushing to finish it and shorted the sleeve length by an inch or two. Ah well. It looks fine with a turtleneck underneath.

I might pull out the garter stitch and lengthen the sleeves someday -- but not right now, because I've moved on to my fourth and final queued project. It's another shawl, called the Level, and it's my third Nancy Whitman pattern -- she designed the Eden Prairie and the High Street shawls that I've enjoyed knitting and wearing. This one has her characteristic blocks of color, but this time they're narrow lines on a plain background, with a lovely wide border.

I'm not very far into it yet, as you can see.

Eventually I'll have three copper-colored stripes and three blue ones. It's been going pretty fast, but the rows get progressively longer. And then I get to knit the border. Let's see, it's the beginning of March...spring will be here in two and a half weeks... Hmm. Well, at least I got the sweaters done in time to wear this winter.

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These moments of knitted blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.

Revenge of the black yarn.

You may recall, in my last exciting post about knitting, that I ranted about black yarn. It's boring to knit with, I said. It's hard to see the stitches in low light, I said. (Especially when you have dark-colored needles like I do -- which I meant to say but forgot.) The next person who wants me to make something with black yarn is going to get dragged to a yarn shop and forced to pick another color, I said.

Clearly, the Goddess of Black Yarn heard me. And apparently, She has a sense of humor.

My current knitting project is a shawl called Eden Prairie. Here's what it looks like:

Pretty, huh? The designer, Nancy Whitman, said on her website that it's meant to mimic stained glass. I was drawn to it because of the Frank Lloyd Wright vibe it gives off: it has the clean lines of Prairie School architecture, and yeah, that stained-glass effect along the bottom edge.

So when I was looking through Ravelry for a pattern to use the two skeins of wool/bamboo blend sock yarn I'd bought on a whim, this one jumped out at me. I dug through my yarn stash and determined that the leftover yarn from my Celestarium shawl would look great with the new yarn, and I had plenty left for the diamonds. And at the Shenandoah Fiber Fest last fall, I picked up a skein of recycled black yarn for the borders.

About recycled yarn: Craft stores sometimes stock cheap yarn made of recycled acrylic, but that's not what I'm talking about. There are crafters out there who buy commercially-made sweaters at thrift stores and unravel them. They can then either reuse the yarn for their own projects, or wind it into a skein and sell it. (If you're interested in the process -- or if you think I'm making this up -- go here for directions.)

The yarn I bought was a wool/alpaca/cashmere blend. It's soft and very lovely. It's also, as I mentioned, black.

A knitting pattern gives you a list of stuff you need to make the project. If I had made the list for the Eden Prairie, I would have put colors A, B, and C first, and the border color (BC) last. But the designer listed them in the order you use them in the project: color A, color B, BC, and color C. Which makes sense if you know the pattern. For somebody who's coming to it for the first time, maybe not so much. Or maybe I just need to pay attention better. In any case, I read the last item on the list as needing 105 yards of yarn, so I bought a smallish skein (136 yards) of the recycled black. Turns out I needed 105 yards for the diamonds, and 175 yards of black. And of course, I didn't figure this out until I was well into the project. I soldiered on anyway, thinking that maybe I could stretch what I had to make it work.

So here's where I am. The shawl is done except for the top and bottom borders. I couldn't lay it out flat for the photo because the bottom edge is all grunched up on my longest circular needle. I need to knit six more rows along that bottom edge, then pick up stitches along the top edge and knit seven rows there. And that little bobble of black at the bottom left of the shawl is all I have left of my lovely recycled yarn.

The good news is that I was able to contact the seller. She has some of this yarn left and she promised to put it in the mail to me tomorrow. This is how I know the Goddess of Black Yarn doesn't really have it in for me; if She did, I'd have to use some other yarn to finish the project.

So the shawl will be done soon, and it will be gorgeous, and I take back everything I said about knitting with black yarn. I've changed my mind. It's awesome. Really.

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These moments of bloggy black yarniness have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell -- who just loves knitting with black yarn, honest.