Pasha and imminent yarn

Because the large box of yarn from Canada isn't here yet, I started Pasha a couple of days ago to keep me occupied as a transportable project. Juli's barter cardi currently has 4 balls of yarn attached to a sleeve in progress and that sucker isn't going anywhere. Pasha, upon completion, will be a companion to a child's Lopi style sweater -- with penguins -- that a friend of mine is working up for the Poodle Auction. (Yes, that is the beginning of the auction item log on my Flickr site.) I need to get more pictures added to the auction photo log, but the pictures I've taken with my boss's new digital camera are alas, still in the camera.

Pasha is quite a neat little pattern, as this is the first project I've ever done with short row shaping. If you've never tried it before, it's a small easy bit of knitting and when you're done, you'll have a cute penguin for yourself or to give away to someone that needs a little Antarctic love. So far I have finished the back/beak portion and will be casting on for the belly tonight. And of course I'll have to try and beg some stuffing off of someone at knitting tonight. It would be cute to do a smaller version, perhaps in gray angora with black accents for a penguin chick, eh?

And because I already have a large stash of yarn, and more is about to arrive (hopefully tomorrow), I must buy more, right? I'll be stopping by Bev's tonight. But to be fair to myself and others, I'll only buy enough yarn for a hat or three and see what's left after the actual yarn sale at the end of the month. Then I may allow myself to buy more if there remains something appropriate. I've got to get some more yarn storage.

Branching Out is all wrapped up

Last night I bound off and blocked my Branching Out scarf. My first knit along is complete! Once I had finished with it, the scarf looked was twisted and puckered, but the miracles of blocking set it straight. The leaf pattern looks quite nice in the spring green with bits of gold shot through it... almost something I might consider wearing. Now that the scarf is done I can concentrate on Juli's barter cardi until the very large box of Lopi comes in from Canada. One by one, things are falling into place.

Auction site secured

Today I was finally able to catch up with our library director and get her permission to use VIMS library space for the auction to benefit Bev's poodles. Whew! I was getting worried that I would have to sell items out of my office or out on the street. Another step in the right direction: yesterday I spent $170 on yarn at Handknitting.com, about half of which is going to be used to knit auction sweaters. The other half is for me to knit sweaters for myself. I love Lopi, and it was cheap. I couldn't help myself. The total order amount (2 of my friends helped out, too) was almost $300. No more credit card spending for me for a while.

Another happy knitting note: I'm almost done with the Branching Out scarf. We've been doing some major and unexpected renovations on the house, so that's slowed things down a lot, but I'm within one (possibly two) repeats of the lace pattern before I can finish off the scarf. By then, my giant Lopi order should be here from Canada. Oh boy.

Fiber, fiber everywhere...

...nor any thread to knit! Well, that's not quite true, but I realized I'm going to have to put some limitations on myself if I'm going to get my part of the auction knitting done. I've thought and thought and this is what I've narrowed it down to: I'd like to have 2 big ticket items, such as adult sized sweaters, and the fastest ones to knit are Lopi. There are some lovely cabled/aran sweater patterns in my library, but I could probably only finish one (this using the yarn available to me through Bev -- though there's some very nice merino). A shawl would be great (from my point of view), but this item can be knit later and perhaps raffled at our LYS at any point during the year. So tomorrow night at my knitting group, I will break out my Lopi books and get votes for the top two sweaters (and colors to use!), and Thursday I will place an order for said yarn. If I can do a sweater a month, I'll be done in time for the auction. Whew!

As it is, I'm having a hard time finding time to work on the Branching Out scarf because of the ongoing house projects. The original color we picked for the stairway was too much, so it was back to Home Depot to choose another color. That's thrown off the initial color scheme for the rest of the house, so we're headed back to the drawing board. I'm going to have to pester some of my interior decorator type friends to help out with this one. House construction aside, I hope to have the scarf done in a day or two. Wishful thinking? Perhaps.

Gearing up for the winter auction

It was wonderful to get back to my knitting group last night, and I was able to catch up on some of the events that have happened while I was gone. One of our members, Bev, came into a large quantity of yarn and the overall goal is to use it to make money for her poodles. Right now, she's in the sorting stage and once that's done, we knitters will descend upon her house and decimate the stocks. Or at least I'm sure that's what her family is hoping will happen so they can have the use of their living room back! This may be a windfall opportunity, as I intend to use some of this yarn to make auction items. Whatever is left, Bev will sell on Ebay.

So, right. What's this auction then? A couple of years ago, I had an auction at my place of employment to benefit our local animal shelter. Two adult Lopi sweaters sold for a little over $300 total. I would like to increase the number of items available at the auction, and this time all the proceeds will go to the Jasmine Charitable Trust, a.k.a. "Bev's Poodles." I have knit a few items myself, and I hope to recruit the help of others in the group to get a great selection of auction items made up. Once I finish Branching Out, I will be able to get to work on a sweater or shawl as a big ticket item. There will probably be just about enough time between now and the end of November for me to knit a large item and still get some work done on the house, and maybe even make sure that some of my intended Christmas presents get knit. Otherwise, everyone on my list will be getting soap or a very belated present.

And with all the talking I did last night, I only knit about 4 rows on my scarf. I need to get busy.