You would think I would know me by now being that I’ve 4 whole decades on me, but no, sometimes it takes a while for me to catch on.  I thought I could live with a certain little mistake in my Damson shawl. I knew it was there and continued to knit on.  6 rows later, at 300 stitches per row, I had to rip.  So for the last 3 days I’ve been ripping and tinking and now I think I’m finally back to my error and moving forward once again.

I’m knitting Damson by Ysolda.  I think this may actually be my first shawl (or a least a can’t think of another at the moment).  I’m knitting it  in Grape Goddess.  Grape Goddess is my favorite late summer color – I can’t resist its purples, greens, and golds for the goldenrods and purple asters.  I think it may even smell of  ripening grapes.

Here are some quick project details:

Pattern:  Damson by Ysolda which I purchased and downloaded from Ravelry

Yarn:  Superwash BFL in Grape Goddess by Spincerely yours

Needles:  Size 5 Addi Turbos – the pattern calls for size 6, but I liked the look of the stitches at size 5

Thoughts: This pattern is very well written. I like the detail given to how many stitches you should have on your needles on any particular row.  Mine seemed to be a bit off from time to time, but after restarting once, I continued on.  This is very addictive knitting and does make for good travel.

More thoughts:  And the cleverness! The cast on for this shawl is so incredibly clever! There is no seam at all!  I forgot to take a close-up of the beginning so I’ll have to save that for the next post, but I’m in awe!

I’m through with the garter section and it is in the lace section where I made my big mistake.  I forgot to do one decrease.  I thought, “oh, no big deal, no one will notice” and I knit on. And on. And on.  And then I couldn’t take it any more and ripped out.  Didn’t rip out far enough so had to tink back. Dropped a few stitches so had to pick them up and now three days later I’m knitting on again. Phew…

Well, as I haven’t been seen around these woods of my blog lately, I suppose I should give some quicky updates. Here goes:

Weather: September weather has been awesome!  Must give it its due.  Good job September, you rock!

Reading: Just finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and have started on Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah.  They are both for book clubs. Both book clubs are meeting on Monday, Sept. 21.  Since one of them is meeting at my house, I think that is the one I will go to.

School: All the girls are back at school and they all have way too much homework. We have finally finished going to all the open houses and maybe we will be able to breath again.

Fall Sports:  Agent K made the varsity field hockey team and scored a goal in her first game!  Between field hockey, school, and all her clubs, haven’t seen her too much lately.  I did clean her room the other day, but I will withhold all info on the *interesting* specimens found wherein.  Agent B is running cross country for the first time and is sticking to it even though I believe her feelings  toward it are less than love-filled.  Agent J is not playing fall softball as there were not enough girls for a team, but instead she is taking an art class that she loves, so all is well. (And we can rejoice that our weekends are sports free!)

Etsy shop: I’m busy trying to find new ways to promote my Etsy shop. I’m starting a mailing list (you can see my sidebar for info on how to join) and I’m starting a Facebook Fan page.  I’m still debating on starting a Ravelry group.  I’m not sure how many different things I can maintain and I have to admit to being less than stellar at keeping up with bulletin boards and always figuring out the best things to write without wanting to go back and delete.

Gardening: My flower gardens are starting to perk up with the return of the sunshine, but it was just a little too little, a little too late for the veggies this year.

Nature: It felt like last summer there was always something new and unusual in my yard to blog about. Not so much this year. I have not even seen a turtle.  Haven’t seen any snakes either, but that is way good.  Not too many butterflies and no interesting metamorphosis stories to tell.  We did have a great crop of very friendly and personable hummingbirds this year.  They have all moved on now. I think the one at my feeder this morning was a traveler from a distant land as he just didn’t look familiar to me.

This weekend: Tomorrow I have to work at the library, but after a long week away from my dye dungeon studio, I hope to get back down to it on Sunday morning.  I have lots of wonderful special requests to brew up for you!

Oh my goodness, yes, I have a finished project! Socks even!

Here’s the scoop:

Pattern: Kai-Mei

From: Sock Innovation by Cookie A

Yarn: Spincerely yours, 80% superwash merino/20% bamboo in Narcissus

Needles: Size 1 double points

I started these socks on our vacation to Vermont this summer. I grabbed a pattern, some yarn, some needles and started knitting on the car ride up on Sunday.  It was probably sheer luck that it all worked out.  I finished the first sock in 4 days:

Here she is on our car ride back through Brattleboro after visiting King Arthur Flour, Quechee Gorge, and a couple of other touristy places.  That was a Thursday. I cast on for the next sock, and I have been knitting on it for quite a while, but what took 4 days on vacation, took 4 weeks at home.  Sigh…

Anyway – I love these socks. I love the pattern. It was easy to follow and I didn’t notice any errors (and I didn’t even look it up on Ravelry or anywhere beforehand).  The lace pattern is fun.  I love gathering up all the yarn-overs on round 7 and purling them together.  I also liked that it was just a strip of lace and therefore not overwhelming for my limited ability to concentrate in the summer.  My mom thinks I should enter these in a the fair, but I do have a couple of places in there were the stitches are bit uneven so I’m not sure they are good enough for the fair. I also have another pair that I can enter and only one can go. Perhaps I need to run a poll to see which pair to send?

I also started a new project this week. It is supposed to be for my car ride to Lake George next weekend (with Agent J’s Girl Scout troop), but it is a terribly easy and fun pattern to knit so I am going to have to control myself until Saturday!  More details to follow!

Hope you are all having a great Labor Day weekend.  The weather is pretty good here.  It has been overall sunny though it is not sunny at the moment.  No rain though!  I think this is the first time this summer that I have HAD to go out to water anything that wasn’t under cover.  Things are starting to grow even.  Well, things did grow this summer like weeds and grass and shrubs, but the flowers? Not so much. But now my marigolds are perking up and things are just starting to look a bit nicer–at least the things that are left, that is.  Sunshine is amazing stuff.