verbal foliage

I'm really quite obsessed with knitting at the moment. Yes, I've been a keen knitter for a few years now, even an enthusiastic knitter but at the moment I really am obsessed. All I want to do is knit, and log it all into ravelry. Perhaps it's a way of bringing a bit of control and order to these chaotic times.

So, let me share recent knitting activity with you here too:

• I knit on the way to and from Las Vegas, on the airplane. This is very exciting for an Australian knitter because you can't take knitting needles past security at Australian airports.
• I'm doing quite well sticking to my 'knit list' approach. I've actually got two practical knits on the go at the moment but only because I was swapping between available needles and patterns while we were away. Even just the mental discipline of the approach is working for me so far.
• I finished the first of my two 'thank-you foliage' projects. I'll wait until they're both finished before writing/showing more.
• I have discovered that lace knitting is a quick and demanding addiction. I cannot get enough of the swallowtail shawl but I really do need to sit and knit a repeat in one go which requires some good blocks of time. And time is something I can never get enough of. But that's ok because I can still think about all the lace knitting that I'm going to do next. My project knitting queue (both mental and literal) is filling up with yarn overs and knit two togethers. I'm so excited!

In this vein I have been shopping for laceweight yarn - thrift shopping, of course. The selection of woollens at the thrift stores in Las Vegas was pretty poor. Quite a lot of cotton knits, way too much acrylic, but no cotton/wool/silk blends or anything like that. I always trawl the 'sweater' aisles at the thrift stores, even though I do have more woollens and more yarn than I need. But always looking for ... something. Anyway, sweater aisles in LV were a dud but I did go and have a quick rummage through the dresses and look what I found:


Eighty-five per cent alpaca, fifteen per cent wool, light/dark brown but with flecks of red and blue in there as well - exactly what I had in mind. I'm pretty confident that it will unravel to laceweight and the best part - it's a dress, a long sleeve full-length dress (awful really, don't visualise too closely) so there will definitely be enough yarn. That's always my worry with recycling yarn, I'm never quite sure that there will be enough until that last stitch is cast off and that anxiety can be enough to discourage me from getting on with the knitting, witness the baby ballerina top.

This post is a bit of a ramble. So many thoughts to get out at once. These past few days, I've missed blogging.