Scarf Progress

Here's my progress since last night:


I'm enjoying it quite a bit. The yarn is perhaps a bit fuzzy for a newbie, but I'm being careful. Here is a close-up:


Looks pretty good. I did discover a mistake, which actually reminded me of the biggest mistake I made in it's last incarnation: I purled wrong-side rows when I ought to have knitted them. In the previous case, this was along the sides, creating a stockinette stitch, which rolls, instead of the necessary garter stitch. I'm glad I did figure that out, so I can do the main part of the scarf correctly. In this case, I'm a little ticked at myself, but I'm going to leave it. It's not ugly, or even noticeable, if you don't know, and it will be OK as long as I make both ends the same.

One other thing I did was to add one repeat to the rows, to make the scarf a bit wider. This caused to have to do actual math because the number of decreases changed.. But wait--I found this cool site that did the math for me. But I do need to learn to do the math someday.

Now I'm ready to start the body of the scarf.

I've Been Working on Stuff, Really

I've been working so that I'd have something finished to show for all my work. And I do! First, though, the unfinished: I didn't do the December Tatted Heart, and I won't. I started and the directions just made no sense to me, and I wasn't sure I had enough thread anyway, so I decided not to waste any more time and effort on it. The tatting group has another challenge--jewelry--and I'm deciding if I want to do that.

But I did finish my first quilt! It took over a year and I wrote about the process here, here, and here. Now it's hanging on a wall:


And here is a bit of the back:


I'm so proud of it and I have a couple more lined up.

I also finished the projects from the red tote. I had finished GameBoy's in May. Here is JazzBoy's:

I may have already posted that, but I couldn't find it. You may remember that also in the red tote were DH's ornaments from 2007 and 2008. They're the ones with the checkerboard backs that were too small. Well, they are nicely finished now:




With dark green backs that fit:


Now, for what I've been working on: I decided to knit Nancy's Bush's scarf "Peacock Tail and Leaf Scarf" from her book Knitted Lace of Estonia. It's been a lot of fun. First, I learned a new cast-on, the knitted method:


The yarn I used was Wildfoote Luxury Sock Yarn in Gunsmoke. I'm really in a grey mood these days.



I got this far with one skein:

But I decided I was kind of unhappy. First, the yarn was the wrong weight. I thought I could live with this, but with the other problems I had, I couldn't. Second, I had started off reading the chart wrong--I started at the bottom left instead of right. I actually did this twice. Third, I had made several counting mistakes--not super-noticeable, but annoying nevertheless. So I ordered more yarn and set this aside.

I thought in the meantime, I could finish up the ornaments from 2009. (Also here, here, here, and here.) And maybe work on some flannel blankets I started some time ago:


After all, DH's friend in the Philippines had a baby a few months ago, and DH really needs to send a gift. But then-- I got my new yarn today! It's Classic Elite Silky Alpaca laceweight in Cloud Gray:


I cannot wait to get started! Oh, and I almost forgot to show the tote I'm using for this. It's a Maggi B tote I got for Christmas:


It's huge! And here's where I'm keeping my stitch markers and needle ends (it's from Nordic Needle):


It's tiny! Here they are together:


Now I'm off to cast on again.