I'm a Joiner

When it comes to knitting, I am such a joiner. Right now, I am participating in five -alongs of one type or another:

10 Shawls in 2010: A group trying to knit 10 shawls during the year. I have three completed (bending the rules a bit, I'll admit) and three on the needles, so I'm behind at the halfway point. But I'm almost done with grad school, so hopefully my record will improve.







Tour de Fleece: A Spin-along during the time frame of the Tour de France, which is July 3 to 25 this year. I've completed a skein of two-ply and have three singles ready for my first ever three-ply. I'm hoping to get a gradient spin in, but I suspect I won't have enough time to finish it by the deadline.



3-ply Challenge: The Snobby Spinners group on Ravelry is doing a three-ply challenge, and I'm spinning my first three ply (standard, not Navaho ply) for it. I have the singles ready and hope to ply tonight. This is part of Tour de Fleece too.

Sundara Summer Lace: The Sundara Yarn Love Group on Ravelry is have a lace knit-and-crochet-along. I started a new lace shawl, one of the 10 shawls in 2010, but I'm working more on other shawl projects right now.

Stashdown: Trying to knit up more of my stash than I am adding to it, with support from the The Yarn Snobs group on Ravelry. I joined this effort in April. On a yardage basis, I was just barely was successful in the second quarter of the year, but only because of several destashes. This quarter, I'm not doing great so far - I've fallen in love with hand-dyed fiber for spinning, and I think I'm about to rip out about 500 yards in a shawl in progress to redo the color striping.

And it's worth noting that my last post was about my efforts for the Ravelmpics/Knitting Olympics.

Above all, what I've really done is join Ravelry. And by doing so, I've found the online knitting presence I was looking for when I started this blog. I show my WIPs and FOs off there. I've made friends and found community - even some knitters I know in real life are on Rav too!

The timing of joining Rav coincided fairly closely with starting grad school, which meant my knitting blog suffered doubly. And now that I am almost done with grad school (I'm in my last quarter, yo), I've been thinking about how I want to spend my time, and the answer is definitely less time in front of a screen. So I am considering ending my knitting blog, as many others have done, either accidentally or on purpose. If there is any feedback, please do leave it, otherwise find me on Ravelry. And my free patterns are there too.

CO: Juno Regina

The Sundara Love Group on Ravelry (where I spend far too much time) is hosting a Lace-along, also being called a Knit-and-crochet-along, or KACAL (pronounced cackle). I decided to take advantage of the community support to give knitting with Silk Lace a try.



Pattern: Juno Regina by Miriam Felton
Yarn: Sundara Silk Lace in Black over Fuchsia
Needles: Addi Lace Turbos in US size 3 / 3.25 mm
On Ravelry

I swatched both US size 4 and US size 3 needles. I thought the 3s were just a bit tighter and neater while still allowing for a light, lacy fabric. I've found the silk lace a challenge to knit with - so tiny, so little give - but am getting the hang of it and love to stroke the fabric I've created so far.



I've already made a couple of mods. First, I'm knitting a garter stitch border rather than a seed stitch one. The seed stitch was way too fiddly with silk lace! Second, since I want a wider stole (as opposed to a scarf), I've knit six repeats of Chart 2 rather than four. This is giving me an extra four lace diamonds in width. I'm now at the point where the diamond pattern starts moving inward and columns of yarnovers start appearing from the outside in.



This is my first Miriam Felton design. I have several of her shawls in my queue and am very excited to finally be knitting one!