Knitting in London.

I'm in London for the semester, and I absolutely brought more yarn than I probably ought to've with me. I got my knitting needles onto the plane without any questions being asked, as always, but getting them on the flight home will probably be more of a problem, if not an impossibility, because I hear Heathrow is very strict about them. Anyways, on the plane I started the least wispy wisp ever, which some bulky turquoise mohair. I think it's probably the wrong yarn for the design, and even though I cast on 8 stitches fewer than it called for, I think it's still too wide. I'll probably frog it and either make another wisp with fewer stitches, or another pattern altogether. I was thinking a cables scarf might be nice.
I've also joined a mitten a month along on ravelry, but I'm planning on making fingerless mitts instead of real mittens. My navy cabled armwarmers are January.

However, I was impatient, so I started on February already. I brought three half balls of leftovers with me for these, and I'm gonna see if I have enough yarn. I'm starting with a pair of Fetchings in the yarn leftover from the beehive hat. If it looks like I'm not gonna have enough to finish the mitts, I'll just convert it into a bright yellow cabled sleeve for my camera. I've also learned how to cable in back without a cable needle. Now I just need to learn to reverse it for the other mitt. I've been just leaving this out on my desk and knitting a round or two at a time, when I'm waiting for little stuff, and I really like having a project like that.
And then there's everyone's lovely Mrs. Darcy. It felt so good to pick her up again last night. I love how this yarn looks knit up, especially in the twisted rib. I'm changing the numbers around to fit my arms, which are much fatter than those of the girl who designed it, so hopefully it will come out right. Set in sleeves still kind of scare me, even though the article in Interweave Knits really helped clear it up.
I think one of these days I'm gonna head out to I Knit London, or another yarn store around here, and see what it's like and how different it is. I'd really like to meet some British knitters and maybe join a knitting group for while I'm here, but I don't know if I'm gonna have time for it. Our schedule at RADA is intense. We put up three plays in twelve weeks, which is freakishly quick, especially considering there's a presentation before that of monologues and sonnets and stuff, so each play gets something like three weeks spent on it. I've been wearing my Fourteen all the time, and it's perfect for the weather here.

Now all I need is a hat, so I might put down Mrs. Darcy for a while and make myself another charcoal Foliage, just like the one I lost.

A trip to Door County earns a trip to the yarn store.

Visiting my grandparents is always a challenge because my mother gets exceptionally irritable whenever we do. This time, we had to spend an hour and a half fixing the ice dams in our gutter before we could leave, and on the ride up, I needed to be the one to talk to the repairpeople on the phone. But once the journey was underway, it was an extremely nice trip.

I spent most of the ride up finishing Grandpa's "Christmas" scarf.

Grandma absolutely loved hers.

As soon as I gave it to her, she put it on and went to show it off to the other ladies in her nursing home. It was so cute, everytime we'd get home, she'd take it off and very carefully lay it out on the back of her chair so everyone would see it when they came in to her room.


On the way home, I made a Calorimetry headband, out of the leftover Berroco Foliage from my first attempt at Grandpa's scarf. I don't love it, but it made the trip home much more enjoyable.


And, because I was so lovely on the trip and helping Mom with the ice dams, I got quadruple bonus points, which translated into a trip to the yarns store, where I got tons of gorgeous, gorgeous yarn.

I have six skeins of Lamb's Pride Worsted in Mulberry and three black velvet buttons for the Mrs. Darcy Cardigan, a skein of absolutely stunning Malabrigo Arabella for a Fourteen neckwarmer, some sparkly Kidsilk Night for an Ice Queen Cowl and five skeins of wonderfully soft, creamy Malabrigo Worsted, which will turn into some sort of hat and scarf, I just haven't decided what yet. I am so unbelievably excited to make things with this stuff. And as a bonus I got a new pair of size 5 double pointed needles. Yay! The Knitting Tree has totally become my favorite yarn store. At Lakeside, the ladies always look at me like I don't know what I doing just because I'm not 65, but at the Knitting Tree, everyone's been lovely.