Who is that lovely lady with Sarah you ask?  It’s Jess! (yes, I do totally love the show The New Girl)

I had met Sarah while I was still in high school and loved her immediately.  It’s really hard not to, which I’m sure all of you already know.  After high school I ended up packing my bags and moving across the country and losing touch with just about everyone from home, including Sarah. I know, I know…. How could I?  Then there was this marvelous invention of Facebook where I was able to reconnect with Sarah.

About 4 years ago, I decided to give the midwest another try and moved to Wisconsin, and shortly after I bought a house in IL.  Deciding that I needed a hobby – desperately, and a way to meet new people, I signed up for my first knitting class in September.  Which I loved.  A lot.  It was a a beginner’s class, where we learned how to make a simple hat.  By the second class, I had scoured Youtube videos and figured out how to finish the hat on my own.  I promptly started another hat and stuck around for the remaining three weeks because I loved the atmosphere.

It’s also where I learned about Ravelry.  I had remembered seeing some knitting pictures on Sarah’s facebook page, so I stalked her both on facebook and on ravelry to let her know that I had started knitting and that I loved all of her projects up on Rav.  We quickly started chatting again – just like old times – and she’s been awesome helping me with any questions that I have about knitting.  She’s also responsible for getting me onto Plurk where now I spend my time chatting with all of Sarah’s knitting friends (yes, I’m talking about you) who are just as amazing as she is.

Sarah and I started chatting one night about her blog and she asked if I might be interested in posting with her.  Although it’s taken me awhile to get it in gear, I’ve finally managed this first post and hopefully I’ll do much better with posting in the future.

Along those lines – I should probably write about some of the knitting I’ve been doing.

I took my first color work class last week at Fiddlehead Yarns, where we worked on the En Blekksprut Beret by Kate Osborn, using the Fibre Company Canopy Fingering yarn – which was awesome.  I was a little nervous at first that my tension was a little too tight, but after blocking the hat smoothed out for me and I love it.  It was challenging to figure out the best way to hold the yarn to switch colors, and while I was trying at first to hold one in my left hand and one in my right… I ended up just throwing both from the right hand.  Seemed to go faster that way.  Here it is in all it’s glory!

so this shawlette kept catching my eye in the ravelry database…  i LOVED the detail and the scallop-y edges and i was sure that i needed to make it…  i kept working on the things i was working on for a while – and then my girl jen! was lookin’ for a new project.  she said this shawlette was in the running and it didn’t take me three seconds to turn it into our own little KAL (knitalong for you non-fiberphiles – where more than one knitter works on the same pattern or type of project at the same time).

i stash dove to find just the right yarn – - i skipped all the blues, ’cause i always do blue, i got it down to 5, then down to three…  and finally i selected blue moon fiber arts, socks that rock mediumweight, in sunstone.  i bought it almost four years ago at stitches midwest in chicago.

so i wound the yarn into a center pull ball, loaded the pdf pattern up on my kindle and packed it to start at the walleye game a few weeks ago.  i start perusing the pattern on my way down town (i wasn’t driving!) and realize that my skein is much less yardage than the pattern calls for.  i have a minor panic attack as i’d brought no other knitting!!  *GASP!!*

i texted frantically back and forth with my friend meghan who had just worked this shawlette recently and she suggested a way to save some yardage and said i’d likely be just fine with my skein…  i started and had this much done by the time we got home from the game (p.s. josh – look!  another shot of the ring ):

i basically raced right on through, i was so happy with the coloring and the yarn is one of my faves and i was using my fancy schmancy needles jon got me 2 Christmases ago and the whole thing was just a dream knit.    and then i went to bind off…

i could tell already i wasn’t going to make it so i backed out a row and finagled a way to still do a picot edge while binding off from the purl/wrong side of the work…  i got about a quarter of the way through the second half and ran out of yarn. 

luckily enough…  jen!, herself, my lovely little kal partner had a skein of this SAME yarn in her (VERY) meager stash.  haaaaahahaha  i say that out of love, she’s more of a buy what you need, knit what you have kind of knitter, where i’m just a yarn ho.  so the out of yarn discovery was made late on a thursday night, the request was made to jen! to borrow just a bit of her skein and she had it in the mail to me and on my doorstep by monday afternoon when i arrived home from work!!

so i got it finished and took a couple shots before blocking (very orange-y in the indoor/nighttime lighting):

even outdoors, the sun was setting so it was still orange-y:

but this is when the real magic happens…  here it is on the blocking board (along with some socks i knit my sister for Christmas that needed a little more give) after i soaked it, then rolled in a towel to get most of the wet out:

i pinned out each picot point, taking care to manipulate the fabric so that the scallops had nice rounded arcs…  my fingertips ached, but i was pretty happy with it…  i left it to dry overnight and today when i got home from work i took the pins out, tucked the few ends away and then threw it on….  and i am so VERY happy with this project i can’t stop grinning and looking at the pictures of it.  i can’t wait to plan an outfit around it, tomorrow morning!  hahaha

and that one handknit’s story – start to finish.  love it love it love it.