Recent Finished Objects - 9 year old Kate is like sooooo totally happy

I knit a lot, so when I don't post, it's probably because I'm being a complete internet slackhead. Meaning, I'm spending way too much time on Ravelry and Pinterest and not nearly enough time actually writing things. So let's fix that shall we?

I've been really shawl crazy lately, but I've also kind of started branching out into other lines of knitting. Right now it's about 94 degrees at 9 pm here in Lexington, KY, so I thought it would be a good idea to make a sweater. Well, I may have it finished by December. We'll see.

It's made with this yarn that I found on yardsellr.com (I try all kinds of different strange ways to save money on yarn), of which I bought a ton thinking I'd make it into a sweater. It's always nice when things work out the way you planned. So anyway, it's not commercial yarn, so I added it to my Rav Stash as unknown Peruvian Wool. It's a raspberry kind of color, and it's more or less worsted weight, but get this, it's singles! I had no idea til I pulled it out of its plastic wrap and started swatching. Lots of people hate singles because they cannot by definition be "balanced" and make your knitting tilt slightly. I'm not too stressed about this though, because I am not a fashion designer and I like my hand knits to look like I hand knit them. Call me crazy.

The yarn is actually very nice for a sweater. Singles tend to be kind of puffy, and the wool is very soft. So it's making quite the nice winter wear. I'm using some linen Nashua Handknits Summer Garden to do two-row stripes every so often just to give it a little visual interest. My red hair doesn't always go well with pinky-purple colors, so I'm trying to mix it up a bit and cross my fingers that I don't look like bubblegum on fire.

So I've given you all this information about this sweater, and I don't have any pictures yet. It's a raglan top-down construction (pattern linky!) that I'm kind of modifying, but I haven't gotten very far yet. Here's why.

SHAWLS!! I've finished so many shawls lately. I take crappy pictures. My friend Kaytee is the photographer, not I, and many of these pictures are in-progress blocking photos. So please, don't judge me. Okay, disclosure finished.

First up - this is the Geometria test knit shawlette for ZaraZ:

Then I made another Pembroke Wrap. I like how quickly the bulky yarn knits up, and it'll make a nice winter fireside shawl.

Finally, I finished the Skywalker Shawl by Laura Nelkin. It went very quickly for me because I did it in conjunction with her class on the Craftsy website. I bought a couple of these classes months back, and I finally sat down and decided to go through one. I really ended up liking the pattern for the Skywalker Shawl (which looks so respectable when done in a solid or semi-solid color), and I was pleasantly surprised that the yarn I chose didn't compete too terribly much with the pattern. This yarn, by the way, is EPIC. I can't imagine a single soul in the world who would actually want to wear this monstrosity, but I love it nonetheless. I call it, Lisa Frank: Jedi Master.

I just got it off the needles and blocking today. Here's a close up of the nausea-inducing glory that is this shawl:

It is awesome.

Now for something non-shawltastic and awesome in a completely different way: I made shoes! Hellz yeah I did. They're just for me though, so paws off.

Cha-freakin-pow. They're crocheted out of hemp. The pattern is Strappy Sandals from the summer 2012 issue of Interweave Crochet. I love my Interweave subscriptions, yes I do :)

So there you have it folks. I actually do have some update-worthy FOs, if I ever get off Ravelry long enough to tell you about them. And on that bombshell, it's time to say goodnight!