Bits and Pieces

Chaos is finally at its end.  Last week was my last week of classes for the term (my university is on trimesters, so I still have one whole term to go) and I am almost finished up with my finals.  I can't wait to finally breathe again!  By noon tomorrow I will be a free man... for a week.  You better believe I'm going to be as lazy and unproductive as I can possibly be during that time.

Although I have been busy studying and writing papers and such, I have been able to squeeze some fiber stuff into my days as well (because we all know that the equation: life + stress - yarn = well, we won't even go there).  I finished spinning my first single for my next yarn.

I'm trying to spin a lot thicker this time around, and as you can tell, this single is noticeably bigger than my last 2-ply was, which I think is fantastic.  I'm really excited to see how this one turns out.  Because I have been spinning thicker, the colors are more concentrated (because they don't get pulled apart as much due to drafting) and I think the plied yarn will look a lot different than the lace one I made.

I also finished a project!  I know, that's something that never seems to happen around here (partly because I didn't blog about the last one I made.  Sorry.  It wasn't worth it, and I haven't taken pictures.)  This little knit is something that I had cast-on as a project to take with me when I went on my knitting retreat.  A few days before I left, I panicked because I didn't have any projects on the needles besides the lace shawl, and that doesn't really make for social knitting, and so I grabbed some yarn that was in my stash and cast-on for a small, quick project.

Pattern:  Good Luck Cowl

Yarn: Plymouth Happy Feet, less than one skein

Needles: US 5

Time: Started February 23, Finished March 17

Well, so much for a quick knit.  I didn't work on this during the retreat, and because of the craziness of school, this little cowl took almost a month to complete.  It wasn't at all difficult, but for some reason I never really wanted to work on it.  Honestly, and I know this is going to sound really weird, but I think it's because I was magic looping it.  I can't explain why that would have an effect, but something about doing lace with magic loop didn't click for me.  Good thing there were only ten repeats of the pattern!  Also, I seem to have photographed mine upside down, but I think it looks happier that way.  :)

I found it a bit ironic that I knit this in green and it's called the Good Luck Cowl and I finished it on St. Patrick's Day in the middle of finals week while taking a break from studying.  Let's hope it really did give me luck.  I'll be shipping this one down to Atlanta to a friend (along with Porom - it's still sitting around my room) and maybe the luck will spread.

I was a little bit upset by how little yarn this used.  Weird right?  I had two skeins of this yarn in my stash and really kind of wanted to be able to use them both up, but this cowl would not have it.  It didn't even use up one - below are the remains.  I'm going to have to find something (eventually) to use up what I have left of this, now that I've eaten away half of the yardage.

I am at about 99.5% itch factor in terms of wanting to cast-on for a new project, but I really can't let myself do that because I need to get working on the shawl for my LYS and Spring Break is the perfect time to do it.  I was hoping to spend the next couple of days (because I will be done with finals, but still on campus) working on it, but I recently learned I have to move (again!) and will therefore be spending my time packing up and moving.  Oh, and I promise I will get back to all the comments from my last post soon now that I have the time to do so.  Happy knitting!