Progress!

Due to a hilarious (well, maybe not "hilarious," but it's either that or "frustrating," so I'll take the former) series of events, both of our guest beds have been unusable for ... six months or so? Maybe only four. Whatever, long enough that I haven't been able to block anything sizeable for a very long time.

All that has changed now, and I've now got both guest beds functional again. Come visit! But probably not in the winter, as there's no heat in this room, and I want to rent out the one that has a radiator. But meanwhile, I can block things again!

This is the long-languishing lizard ridge. Soon, friends, I will be able to sew together those long strips and add the border (I'm just going to do a garter stitch border, not crochet the silly scalloppy one in the pattern) and then it will be done! This is a very exciting thing, you know. Warm is good, up here in Vermont. Particularly in guest bedrooms that don't have heat.

Lizard Ridge Update #4

Or, "I'm getting really creative with these blog post titles, aren't I?"

Been a little while, huh? Thanks for those of you who've prodded me to get back to blogging. First there was Easter, which is kind of a big deal. And then there was recovery from Easter (known as "May" to most of you). And then I had a bicycling accident in mid-May, just as I was getting back in the saddle, pun intended. (My first ride of the year! It was going to be a seven-miler! Instead, it was a four-miler, a head-over-handlebars flight, and a trip to the ER!) (I'm okay, just had lots of big bruises, but I went to the doc to get checked just in case.) And now I'm recovered for real.

And I had a spare Saturday, because I'm not preaching tomorrow, and it's a rainy day. Would have gone to the WWKIP gathering in City Hall Park today, but between some work-work I had to catch up on and the rain, I decided that I would just K-BIP (Knit-Blog in Public) instead.

So! Without further ado...


It's the Lizard Ridge blanket. The knitting is all finished. I have to block it and seam it, then do the edging. I bought a nice light gray, much to the dismay of my good old Finnish friend who has just learned about this blog. I think it will make all the colors stand out equally -- my fear with the forest green is that it will bring out the dark patches, especially the greens, but the light bits will get lost and the reds will look out of place. But the gray will offset all the colors nicely.

The blocking is on hold for the moment -- meaning that the entire project is on hold -- because we are in the process of fixing up one of our upstairs bedrooms at the moment. That means that (1) all the stuff from Bedroom A is now in Bedrooms B and C, and both spare beds are covered in the stuff from Bedroom A, and (2) there is a ton of plaster dust up there and I don't want it to get all over my lovely handiwork. So blocking will have to wait until that room is painted and cleaned, so that both the stuff and the dust are in their proper places, and I get at least one spare bed back.

But you have some idea of what Lizard Ridge is going to look like now. And that's fun. Happy Hiatus-is-over!

Lizard Ridge Update #3

Here's another progress shot of Lizard Ridge. SOOOO CLOSE!!!!! 3 strips done, one more well on its way.

I'm starting to think about what color to use as a border. The downside of using as many different skeins of Kureyon as I could get is that there's not one single color that makes the most sense for a border. But it definitely needs a solid-color border to ground it. I'm kind of thinking that a dark green would be good -- there's a surprisingly large amount of green in this blanket -- but I could also see arguments for a medium-aqua. Or a medium/light gray, not so heavy?

Thoughts? Suggestions? Is there another color I should be considering? Help me, loyal readers! You're my only hope!

Lizard Ridge is SO COOL!

Okay, seriously? I knew that the Lizard Ridge blanket was going to be cool. But I had no way to conceive of how it was all going to come together. It's way awesome.

This progress shot is at about 40%, I'd say. There are five skeins of Kureyon per strip, and the ones shown in this photo are #3 and #4 on the second strip. Instead of knitting blocks of a single skein and then seaming them together (hello, I hate seaming, we know this about me), I'm just knitting with two skeins at a time and seeing what happens, until skein #5. That one gets doubled onto itself.

Anyway, it's super-cool, and constant discovery of the "what's the next stripe going to look like?" has me totally engaged and knitting like a madwoman. So much fun!

Also, there's been more travel lately, and it was very easy to throw the two starter skeins in my carry-on and cast on in the plane. Who knew a blanket could be good travel knitting? But it was. For a 3-day jaunt to Cleveland last week, it was just right.


Doc likes the blanket, too. He can't wait to see how it turns out.


(And yes, I'm doing the garter ridges modification. I knew you would ask.)

Not Just Any Baby Gift

When your really awesome knitting friend -- the one who got you back into knitting in the first place -- the one who reminded you of everything about knitting that your mom taught you when you were eight and you had since forgotten -- the one who would teach you how to do new knitting techniques while you were both waiting backstage before the choir concert -- the one whose now-defunct knitting blog first inspired your own still-going knitting blog -- the one who still, 10+ years after it all started, insists that you take turns flying across the country just so you can knit together every four months or so -- when that knitting friend gets pregnant, what the heck do you knit her?

Not just any baby gift.

You go to Northeast Fiber Arts. You buy 20 skeins of Debbie Bliss Rialto DK (you hope you can return whatever you don't use, but it turns out you can't return it after 30 days, and you've picked a project that you will spend more than 30 days doing, if only because you are a pastor and you were dumb enough to buy the yarn before Christmas and then leave it sitting in a bag for a month before casting on in the first place). You grab your Mason-Dixon Knitting book (the first one). And you cast on for the Moderne Baby Blanket. For this particular knitting friend, you will Log-Cabin your little heart out.

And then you make yourself write a blog post about it so that you are forced to block the darn thing and put it in the actual mail.

I can't wait to welcome you to the world, Baby Knitting Queen! I love you already!

Startitis Strikes Again

Someday, this orderly-yet-haphazard collection of Kureyon is going to be the Lizard Ridge Blanket.

As of this writing, I've got 10% done. That's two skeins of 20. My hands already hurt.

(It may be the new Harmony Options needles that are making my hands hurt. I'm in denial, though, as Husband gave them to me for Christmas. To be fair, I picked them out in the first place. Also: they're PRETTY.)

Anyway, this is the order of how I'm going to knit these skeins. The finished product is, miraculously, not going to look anything like this photo. That is the amazing thing about Noro. I swear, those people are geniuses.