Sweater knitting has come to a temporary halt in favor of more appropriate projects for overworked, tired student types. Not only has sweater knitting (or any other remotely complicated knitting for that matter) stopped, I've temporarily removed purling from my knitting altogether. It's just straight knitting knitting knitting on two new, big, mindless projects.
I received 6 beautiful skeins of unspun Icelandic wool from Sigga when she visited a few weeks ago. I've never knit with this stuff before and have always wanted to. It's beautiful and the wooliest stuff I've knit with in a long time... not the type of thing you're dying to rub passionately against your neck, but amazingly warm and even more amazingly light.
The new acquisition inspired me to start a project I've wanted to undertake for a while: EZ's (genius) Pi Shawl. Pure mindless bliss. Stockinette in the round with very little shaping (only 6 increase rows in the whole number). I like the look of the simple Pi Shawls that utilize concentric rings of yarn overs. Liz shows some really gorgeous ones in the lace episode of Knitting Workshop, which I've been known to watch (obsessively) from time to time.
Never satisfied with only one EZ project, I also have something in the works to satisfy my garter needs, and to downsize my stash (although as it turns out, I'll need to acquire more yarn to finish this project).
I'm knitting a big, beefy winter blanket on US 13's, following Elizabeth's pattern in The Opinionated Knitter. Her pattern calls for Sheepsdown, knitting at 2 sts per inch, and while I have dreams of an entire blanket made out of that stuff, I'm using what I have and knitting up a bevy of Cascade EcoWool. My gauge is 3 sts per inch, so I've modified the pattern a bit to compensate for that. The most important information, I guess, is that I'll never have more than 36 stitches on the needle at one time. You can't get much more mindless than that. This thing is gonna be warm, squishy ... and HUGE.
I've been spinning to, but I'll save that for another post (I gotta stretch out my material!)
I hope you are all well and enjoying the chill we deserve after that long, dreadful summer. My apologies if you've e-mailed lately and haven't gotten a response - I'm doing my best but don't think I've ever been this behind in my inbox.
Happy knitting!
