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!

Over the last year and a half that I have been dyeing for my Etsy shop, Grape Goddess is still my favorite colorway. I just dyed a pound of Grape Goddess in superwash merino/tencel for a special order (12/6/08 eta:  These are no longer needed for a special order so I’m adding them to the shop this evening.) and I just could not help but take practically a million photos of it.

As I was thinking of “recessionista” ideas this morning, I thought it would be fun to “show-off” the entertainment value of spinning as a hobby. Let’s say you bought a 4 ounce braid of roving for $15.00. Depending upon how you spin it, it may take more or less time, but let’s say you are spinning for a pair of socks. Then let’s say you are spinning a 3 ply yarn. That is quite of bit of spinning and then with plying that could really take quite a few evenings – perhaps 1 to 2 weeks worth if you are working diligently. Then you have to choose a sock pattern and do a little swatching – maybe 1 evening. Depending on how fast you knit and how complicated your sock pattern is, the knitting could take from 1 week to 2 months. There it is –$15 dollars of spinning material covers 1 to 2 months of evening entertainment. Now — let’s compare that to one night at the movies – $9.50 for a ticket plus $5.00 for popcorn and $3.00 for a soda (and you don’t even get warm feet after you are done)… OK, so I know what you are thinking – what about that spinning equipment and well, yeah, if you get a wheel, that could take a long time to amortize but if you get a pretty one, it could count as decorative furniture and of course, there are always drop spindles…

This afternoon, I’m off to do some shopping with Agent K — there are some basic things that we need to get. I really need new sneakers for the gym that we joined. I’ve used my current sneakers for yard work and deck staining. Everyone else there seems to have clean sneakers and I don’t want to be kicked out. I think I wrote about this on Facebook, but haven’t mentioned it here yet. I actually took my first spinning class — like the exercise kind! I didn’t think I would ever do that but Agent K wanted to try it. I’m not sure yet if I like it. There were a few things that happened that don’t happen when you spin yarn. First there was sweat and we were in public. Then the next day – let’s just say there were some sore bits that I wasn’t so thrilled about. (also there was no yarn to photograph when we were done!) K wants to go again, and I think maybe practice will help. There was some coordination and left/right stuff that I will need to practice. Well, I have to run to get K to bring her to the orthodontist before our fun evening can begin. I’m sure I will write more about the gym next week… Leaving you with a gratuitous kitten photo and have a great day!