Wednesday Again???? Good Grief...

I really do have this kickass post full of FOs percolating...slowly...I got a big list, and I keep plugging away on the draft.  Yesterday, I wanted to post this for "Ten Things I Like About Spring":

Yup, pink sparkly toenails to celebrate spring!  However, there are some things less liked about spring.  Like thunderstorms...and doggies who are afraid of said thunderstorms.  Doggies who woke me up at 2:15am yesterday morning to get me to take him down to the living room, turn on the lights and the stereo so he wouldn't have to see or hear the storms.  Ya know what?  It's a little hard to come up with a snappy blog post on 2 hours sleep.  LOL!  So...here we are, back at Wednesday!  Woo hoo, bring on the WIPs!!

I knocked off a couple more repeats on Evenstar tonight.  That means I'm now at only, ONLY 18 repeats to go!  Then I have to figure out how to graft the edges...then I have to find a BIG place to block this baby...should be interesting.  I'll post a picture once I'm there.  You really don't want to see any more pictures of my wrinkly lace.

I also worked on Clapotis this week.  I'm almost to the halfway point.  Yippeeee!

Pattern:  Echo Flower Shawl
Yarn:  Wolles Yarn Creations Color Changing Cotton in Lights 2
Needles:  #9
Date Started:  March 18, 2011
Progress:  40%
Last year, I knit the Luna Moth Shawl in the Rainbow colorway of this yarn and had a blast with it, so I just didn't think it would be officially spring without casting on a new Color Changing Cotton shawl.  I chose Echo Flower because one of the women in my knitting group made a gorgeous one (in red silk with beads...to die for!), and I thought the echo-y flowers would look quite lovely in this yarn.

The pattern calls for #4 - #7 needles.  I cast on with #7s and worked about 30 rows.  I hated the results. This cotton has a wonderful soft drape with the right size needles.  I used #6 for Luna Moth, but that pattern didn't have nupps or the big, awkward 2into9 and 3into9 increases.  My fabric felt heavy and stiff.  I contemplated using a different yarn but first decided to bump up the needle size to #9s and see what happened.  You can see the results above.  The increases aren't bulky.  I haven't come to the dreaded nupps yet, but I'm optimistic about them.  The shawl feels all soft and fluffy...awesome!

Just before I stopped working on this yesterday, I came to the beginning of the first color change - always a WooHoo moment with this yarn.

Pattern:  Ruffled Edge Wrap
Yarn:  Rowan Felted Tweed DK in Watery
Needles:  #8
Date Started:  February 17, 2011
Progress:  25%
Chugging along on my knitting group project.  I love the yarn, and the pattern is a lot of fun...and it's easy to knit while eating and talking which is a MUST for knitting group. 

Pattern: Hearts Abound Socks
Yarn:  Knit Picks Essential Kettle Dyed  in Wine (Discontinued)
Needles:  #1
Date Started:  March 5, 2011
Progress:  10%
Isn't that gorgeous yarn?  It's been hard to restrain myself from working on these while my pesky knuckle mends.  Not that it's totally mended, but I figured, hey, what could 8 or 9 rows here and there hurt?  So, this morning, I finished off the toe and worked a couple rows of the instep...and lived to tell the tale.  ;-)  I can't wait to have enough of this done to show you the darling pattern!

The knuckle?  Well...it's still there.  I've started weight training again, and I'm confident the problem isn't a carpal tunnel thing.  Wrist curls would kill me if it were, and I'm easily curling five pounds right now.  My theory...and it's a crazy one...is that my hand is complaining from too much knitting because it doesn't move enough.  So...I decided to make playing my instruments a priority again.  A half hour of knitting...a half hour of rest then a half hour of fiddling...or playing guitar or piano.  And I found a copy of my hand exercises from my heavier fiddling days and have started working on them.  Knit on, knit on!!