just can’t get enough.

As is probably obvious to anyone who has read this blog for awhile (or who knows me well in real life), once I’ve found something I like, I tend to…well, I tend to obsess a bit. I mean, look at me and yoked sweaters! But this post isn’t about yoked sweaters (though there is a yoked sweater in the mix). No, it’s about a few other things that I just can’t get enough of right now.

One of these things is garter rib:

(Still working on the ribbing on Tangled Yoke). Oh, how I love it. It’s so squishy and beautiful to look at. I want to use it on everything. And in fact, I sort of plan to do so…as I mentioned here awhile ago, the sweater I’m knitting for a friend for a quilt-sweater swap is going to be heavily garter-rib based. Expect to see some swatches soon! I am sort of ridiculously excited about the prospect of designing and knitting a sweater with lots of garter rib in it. Especially since that sweater is going to be knit from Cascade 220, which is a yarn I’ve grown to love quite a bit.

On that note, I also just can’t get enough of the Silky Wool I’m using for Tangled Yoke. I just love the feel of this yarn. It’s got a sort of dry hand, and knits into this deliciously snuggly fabric that almost feels like a well-worn towel (but I mean that in the best possible way, if that makes any sense). The combination of the slightly uneven yarn and the tweediness adds a really nice depth to the fabric. I just love it. So much so that I’ve cast on for something else in it, too:

I’ve joined the ranks of half the knit-blogging world, and have cast on for Ysolda’s Ishbel pattern. I’ve had 3 skeins of natural-colored Silky Wool in my stash for at least 4 years now, and decided that a lovely little shawl would be the best way to use them up. I’m knitting the shawl as a gift for someone, but I’m not saying who, at least not just yet! In any case, this brings me to yet another thing I can’t seem to get enough of: lace.

It used to be the case that whenever I finished a sock, I had to cast on another sock, because I just didn’t feel right without a sock on the needles. These days, I just can’t get that excited about socks (I’m sure the urge to knit them will come back, someday). But the second I have a piece of lace off my needles, I feel the need to replace it with a new one. I didn’t even wait an entire day after finishing my mom’s scarf to cast on for this new bit of lace. Lace is pretty much as good as socks for me on the portability front; it fits in the same little bag I used to use to carry my sock-in-progress around with me, at least until it gets too big. And since I’m a big fan of the sorts of lace scarves and shawls that have a lot of stockinette in them, they’re just as simple to knit on the go as socks, too. I had two no-shows during my tutoring hours at the Writing Center this morning, so I got some good knitting done on the plain section of Ishbel while I waited in vain for my students to show up.

One last thing I can’t get enough of: time! I’m so, so busy right now, with end of the semester/grading stuff, research stuff, planning my reading list for my comprehensive-exams stuff, Symphony stuff, tutoring stuff…it just doesn’t end! And I’m starting to get a bit run down and exhausted from it all, and need to be careful about getting enough rest so that I don’t totally crash. So I’ve been struggling a bit to find the time to write up the Stripes! pattern. I promise I’m still working on it, but my goal of having it ready to go by the end of April is just not going to be met. And that’s ok. I’ve got a few people lined up to test-knit it for me once I’m finished writing it (thanks for your patience!), and my awesome friend Kris helped me turn my hand-drawn schematics into nice graphics, so all that’s left is for me to finish the writing/photographing. We’ll see.