Remember that discontinued yarn thing?

Well as it turns out, I had just enough to finish what I was working on. And by just enough I mean that I had to fudge the stitch count and skip the edging and still only ended up with about half an inch left over. But that's all okay because I absolutely adore the product. Would anyone like to see?

Any guesses? This, my friends, is a Kindle cozy.

Taa daa!

This project was surpisingly simple. Some entrelac in the round, a litte bit of grafting, a couple of I-chord ties to keep everything together, and voi la! I really do love it, and it's about time that I do something nice for my Kindle. It's been all over the world with me. To the Virgin Islands, to Mexico, and now it's about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime with me. From Portland, to Los Angeles, to Japan (we've got a 14 hour layover in Tokyo, I'm pretty stoked), to Jakarta, to Bali, to East Timor. Reading my favorite series' on this little guy is the only thing that is going to keep me from absolutely losing my mind during all these flights. I deserves a nice home.

Alright, so that's what I've finished, but can anyone guess what I'm about to start?

That is a top-whorl drop spindle (hand made my mom and myself, go team!). Drop spindle as in spinning 101. Yup, it's time to make my own. Wish me luck!

You know the one thing I hate about discontinued yarn?

It's discontinued. I've been scouring the internet for the last forty minutes looking for just one skein of Noro Silk Garden in colorway 268 B. Do you know how much of it I have found? Exactly zero balls. They still make colorway 268 B in Noro Silk Garden Sock but that will not work for what I'm trying to accomplish.
Let me explain to you what has happened.
After the crushing disappointment of dismantling the Holden shawlette, I went to Youtube in order to drown my sorrows in a new technique. Entrelac. For those of you who do not know the way of the wool, entrelac is just a fancy complicated way of manipulating yarn to make it look like a bunch of wool strips woven together in pretty colors. When done properly, it looks like this: This is not mine! I wish I was this good, but alas, Google handed this to me. When entrelac is encorperated into other parts of knitting you can get really cool things like this vest (again, not mine):Or this hat (once more, not mine):
The point is, it is really beautiful and can be quite complex. And I taught myself it last week. I am now in the process of knitting a Kindle Cozy for my e-reader (in entrelac naturally) and I got a skein of Noro Silk Garden from the Yarn store thinking that it would be enough to finish the project. Not the case. Now I come to find that the yarn is discontinued. Curses to the fickle goddess of knitting! She says: "Oh, you think you have enough for this project? I think not!" And discontinues the line. If I didn't have a final in 15 minutes, I would spend all afternoon scouring the interwebs. I'll have to continue the search another time... Bah!

It's a sad, sad day.

Remember that lovely Holden Shawlette I was so I love with?

Had to frog the entire thing. I was working on it after the ASL conversation circle, I had one more row of stockinette to go before I started the beautiful lace boarder, and that's when I noticed. The whole thing was filled with mistakes. The first one I noticed was a dropped stitch that had somehow made it halfway down the entire thing before I noticed it. Then there was a boarder section where I had done five rows of stockinette where it should have been garter. Then there were a handful of stitches where I just must not have been paying attention to my gauge as I had some stitches that were twice as big as they were supposed to be. Any one of these mistakes by themselves, I could have fixed or lived with, but all together? No dice. I've been saving this wool for months. It did not survive a trip through the vacuum cleaner for me to do just any old lazy project. It's 10% cashmere for Pete's sake! I will make this shawlette as close to perfect as I possibly can without making myself go mad. Even if I have to frog it a million times.
I need a break for now though, as the sight of those empty needles still hurts a bit. The wound is just too fresh. I'm going to console myself with some online yarn "shopping". I say "shopping" because the last time I checked I'm still a college student who can't afford most of it. I hope your ventures are going better than mine.

P.S. The yarn I've been using for Holden (if you're interested, as it is really top notch stuff) is Pagewood Farm Hand Dyed Sock Yarn. Colorway: Fabulous Fall. They have a cute little website too, pagewoodfarm.com. I think you can buy stuff online, but I haven't quite figured out how yet...

Finally pictures!

But not the ones I promised you... I'm a fickle knitter, I can't be held accountable for this when all the different yarns are so pretty. Forgive me.
So updates on what I've been knitting: On the needles right now I have the Latvian mittens, the Timor shawl, an Elizabeth Zimmerman Pi shawl, and a Holden Shawlette. I'm not counting the projects that I haven't worked on in more than three months because at this point I just consider those projects lost.
The mittens are, unfortunately, boring me. I haven't worked on them in a few weeks because the color work is driving me bonkers. I absolutely hate weaving in ends and it seems that these mittens are only ends. Every repeat of the pattern I flip the darned thing inside out and then darn the darned thing! I sit for 20 minutes and curse while I wind bits of yarn through other bits of yarn. I can't do it. So the mitten is sitting on the kitchen table. I may or may not get back to it.
The Timor shawl is just sitting on the floor of my living room because I'm terribly bored by the pattern. The yarn is incredibly charming and soft with a wonderful colorway, but the pattern is dull enough to push me into the arms of another shawl. I'm sure I'll finish it eventually. Maybe.
The Elizabeth Zimmerman Pi shawl is wonderful. I am so in love with it that I want to knit on it always. One problem with it is that I ran out of wool. It's about half finished and I really want to continue but this wool is something that I fished out of the stash. Something without a ball band or any indication from where it came. I took a trip to the knitting store but they don't have it, so I took a trip to the other knitting store and they don't have it either. I have no idea how to find another ball of it, I am worried that it will never be finished.
The Holden Shawlette is where my affections now lay. I'm using this pattern: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/holden-shawlette and I absolutely love it. I'm using a hand-spun, hand-dyed wool that I picked up months ago. It is quite literally the nicest yarn I have ever bought. It's laceweight, 80% merino, 10% cashmere, 10% nylon. Just a bit bouncy and wicked soft. I've been saving it for the perfect project and I think I've finally found it. It's in a colorway called Fabulous Fall and it is truly beautiful. Want proof?

The picture doesn't begin to do it justice but it's the best I can give you for now. What you can't see in the photo is that there is green and mauve mixed in with the orange and red. Up close it looks like all the leaves of fall have been scooped up and worked into this colorway. You want a close up you say?

I'm only working in stockinette and garter right now, but after I've increased to the appropriate amount of stitches, I will begin the lacework! I'm both nervous and excited for that because I haven't really looked at the lace chart yet, so I don't know what kind of techniques I'll be needing to do. I would hate to knit half a shawlette only to discover that I don't have the proper skill level to finish it!
And before you lose all hope for me ever finishing a project, I have finished one. It's another simple little shawlette for my little sister who has a birthday coming up. Very simple pattern, finished it in just a few hours. It's blocking now but once it's finished I'll try and take pictures of it.
Happy knitting everyone!

In my defence.

I have been sick. That's why I haven't posted anything in a good long while. I've also been trying to prepare for this Timor trip. Any way we fly it, we'll be in the air for at least one excruciatingly long flight and you may not know this, but I detest flying. I detest it so much that sometimes knitting doesn't even help (*gasp*). All I can do sometimes is grip the armrests like they're the only thing holding me in the plane and clench my teeth so hard that I feel they might actually shatter. This is not the best way to hold yourself on a plane as I find that panic tends to spread from one passenger to the other. Anyway, so I'm on a mission to collect all kinds of things that will keep me distracted for the duration of said flight from hell. Any recommendations for good books that I should have on the Kindle before we take off?
I super SUPER promise I'll have pictures next time I post. A knitting blog without pictures is like a cake without frosting. Just not quite right.

P.S. I'm knitting a Pi shawl now! Don't judge me...