I’ve been favorited (for the first time)!

I've finished knitting up my Provence Broken Rib Tank- and yes, this now means that I have yet another item to seam up before I can call it finished. I think I'm going to wait until Dead Week (the week between the end of finals and graduation) and schedule a Seaming Day. Look how pretty it looks, though, even unseamed!

I noticed that someone favorite my project for this on Ravelry. It's my first Rav project to be favorite! I'm inordinately excited about that.

I love the way the ribbing looks. Here's a closeup:

I'm on the toe of my first Cables and Ribs sock. It's looking nice so far, although I have the feeling I'm going to get Second Sock Syndrome with this pair.

I've also started working on the Thira halter from Knitty Summer 2008. I'm about four inches into it here. I'm knitting it up in the Elann Esprit that I got with my last mail package. It's interesting to work with- very stretchy!

Closeup:

Technology Crisis!

I've been dealing with a bit of a crisis- my computer has seemed on the verge of dying for awhile, so for the past month or so, I've been saving everything to a flash drive rather than to my hard drive. Guess what died last night? I'll give you a hint- it was not the computer….

Anyway, I've been a bit remiss with posting the progress I've been making with the yarn I received the other day, so on to the updates (I've been doing a lot of knitting to distress from the flash drive thing).

I changed my mind about the sock pattern- I've been working on Cookie A.'s BFF sock pattern, instead. As they're for me instead of a BFF, I'm calling them my Cables and Ribs socks.

I love the way this pattern is working up. Look at those cables! I love cables- they look so complicated and fancy!

The Provence Broken Rib Tank is also coming along nicely. I'm almost to the point where I can start the sleeve shaping for the back. I'd be there already, except that I messed up a stitch and had to rip back.

Easter Flowers for Mom

Every year for as long as I can remember, my mother has assembled wonderful Easter baskets full of goodies for me and for my brother. She's also always put together a little something for my father. But throughout my childhood, no one ever did a basket for her. I realized this last year, and put together a nice Easter basket for her, overflowing with goodies. However, she thought it was a bit excessive- she doesn't eat that much sweet stuff; she prefers a little at a time. So this year, I decided to do something a little different. I knit the Bloem pattern in some leftover yarns (Lion Brand Wool Ease and Patons Classic Wool) and stuck them in a vase with a few dark chocolate kisses at the bottom. I hope she likes it!

Discovery Day

Every year, the school has "Discovery Days" in which students who have been accepted can come and check out the school. However, they don't bother making accommodations to decrease the problems this causes for actual students who already go here. We're late for classes, because we can't get past huge tour groups blocking the sidewalk. Traffic sucks. We've even been asked not to eat in the dining hall, because it will be full of prospective students. If you're going to make me buy a meal plan, the least you can do is let me use it!

However, today wasn't all bad- I got an exciting package! My order from Elann.com arrived! I can't wait to dive into all of the yarny goodness!

I was really impressed with the company. I placed my order Sunday evening, and it shipped out on Monday. It arrived in the mail today. That's really fast service! The shipping was a little expensive ($10.20), but that's because Elann is a Canadian company and that's international shipping. Their prices are so low that it's still cheaper to buy from them, even with the shipping.

I was also impressed by the packaging. The yarn was in a plastic bag to avoid water damage (you never know what can happen with the post office!) Everything arrived intact. It even arrived at the right address! (Companies seem to have a tendency to confuse my shipping and billing addresses).

I ordered the Elann Luna in Caramel. It's destined to be a Provence Broken Rib Tank. The Elann Esprit is in African Violet, and will be the Thira Halter. I think the sock yarn will be Spring Cable Socks. I've already swatched for the Provence (the swatch is drying- it shrank with washing, rather than grew- I couldn't believe it!). I need to decide whether to cast on for the socks or the tank first. Also, apparently my spell checker doesn't like the word "swatched." It is too a word!

Tatania Pieces

These are the pieces for my Tatania sweater. I keep wanting to spell that as "Titania," like in A Midsummer Night's Dream. I can't help but wonder if that's what the designer had in mind, and just got her Shakespeare references wrong.

The yarn is Ella Rae Classic, which I got on sale at Webs. I'm fairly pleased with the way it knit up; the colors are a lot of fun and the color changes are short enough that it doesn't really do any weird pooling. Having the red in there is nice because it mitigates the purple and pink a little bit; it's not just Barbie colors. My only complaint with the yarn is that it has some little bleached spots in some places where the color changed.

The pattern drove me nuts when I got to the shoulder shaping. It was supposed to tell me to increase at the shoulder, but the pattern said decrease. I could not figure out what I had done wrong until I went through the Ravelry project gallery and found someone put the correction in her project notes. I think I'll put it in the pattern notes, too, so that the next knitter might find it a bit more easily.

My biggest complaint is the way the horizontal ribbing scrunches up. This isn't evident in the pattern's model, because the woman is standing with her hands strategically placed to block the problem from view. I'm going to block the heck out of it and hope that helps it somewhat, although I'm not expecting 100% success. I also think that I may sew some seam binding or something slightly thick along the inside of the front at the bottom of the ribbing, so that at least the stockinette in the bottom of the first horizontal won't roll.

Speaking of finishing, I have a bit of a confession to make. I've never actually seamed a garment. I tried once and gave up, deciding to instead use a sewing machine to sew up the sweater vest I made for my grandfather. However, this sweater is supposed to be so fitted that I don't want the bulkier seams I think I might get from a machine, so I think I may need to do this one the traditional way. Unfortunately, there is only about a month until the end of the semester, so I have papers exams galore to look forward to. I don't have time to sit down and figure out seaming. The only reason I have time for knitting is because I can do it little bits at a time, and because I justify it as a method of distressing. The seaming is more likely to cause stress, rather than alleviate it. I think this one may get stored until I have more time on my hands to figure it out. *Sigh* By the time I get this finished, it will be too warm to wear it…but at least I'll have a reason to look forward to next winter! Hopefully I'll actually get around to seaming it before then…