Finished!

The second edition of the Victorian Christmas stocking is finished! After the replacement yarn arrived 1 1/2 weeks ago, I worked tirelessly to try and finish it up before Thanksgiving - with a few weeks to spare! Tomorrow it gets dropped in a mailbox and I will await a very surprised Mom. (I don't think she really believed me last year when I said it would be finished before this Christmas. In fact, she didn't even know I had started making it.)

Now for the eye candy: [Ravelry entry here]

Finished!

The stocking was finished up on Sunday night and wet blocked last night. Yay!

Details [Ravelry]:
Pattern: Victorian Christmas Stocking by Donna Kay
Needles: Size 0 and 2
Yarn: Elann.com Baby Lace Merino in Cream and Navy
Started: March 20, 2008
Finished: April 20, 2008

Overall, it was a fairly enjoyable project and even the stockinette I complained about moved quickly when you're working a few rows here and there on the subway to and from work. I left out the beads on this one, but may go back and add some small swarovski crystals here and there. Even though the size of the project isn't large, it's probably one of the most labor intensive projects I've worked on: small needles + fairisle kinda does that to a knitter.

Now to put me truely to the test - how fast can I finish stocking #2? Considering I cast on for the Swallowtail shawl right away, probably not very fast....

Patience

Patience is something I have a lot of apparently. In the last post, I was gushing about how much I love fair isle. Well, it changed a little when I got to chart 2. I managed to push myself last week and finish up 2 repeats. The good news is, I thought I had 5 more to go, but it turns out I only have 3. That's not so bad I suppose! Next goal: the heel! Gotta have goals to keep it going! It's looking so pretty though, I guess I just need to take a step back and remember, "one row at a time."

The only thing that could put a temporary stop to the project is my extra ball of white yarn for the mini dress is on it's way. I really want to finish that up before it gets too warm to wear it this season.

Guess Who Dropped In.....

to the Spiders on Friday? None other than the code monkey and mama rav themselves! Jess and Casey were visiting Maya and Steve in NYC and they decided to swing by The Point for a visit.

They even came bearing gifts, a few previews of some goodies that I think will be in the shop soon! The Bob pin is the best!

some stickers and pins

After writing my last post, I realized I could not ignore the yarn for the Christmas stockings any longer. I made the lamest gauge swatches ever (about 1" x 3") and the gauge was close enough to the pattern. I only felt I needed a quick check to make sure it didn't come out more like a Christmas sock than a stocking! The only change I had to make was to double the yarn since it was a little thin.

I worked on it all weekend and finished chart 1 already. I'm really enjoying it so far and I had forgotten how much I like working on fair isle projects. I'm just dreading when I have to go back to the size 0's and plain old stockinette stitch!