Two WIPs: Only One Requires a Brain

The “little grey cells” have been letting me down lately. My counting skills have degenerated to those of ancient humans, which had only three numbers: one, two, and more than two.

I got started with the giant ball of yarn from my last post, which is the Corvid species of BMFA Raven series in BFL Sport. I originally bought the yarn to knit Audrey in Unst (it is the yarn called for in the pattern), and when I opened the box, I thought, “This is NOT sport weight.” It isn’t. The label says 4-5 spi on US 8 needles. That’s worsted! Ravelry calls it DK and the BMFA lists it as “variable.” Yes, well, not good for Audrey, but wonderful for Frost Diamonds by Stefanie Japel from the Winter ’09 Knitty.
I cast on, knit chart A, started chart B, and then I lost my ability to count. Row 3 of Chart B took me an HOUR. I think I’ve fixed it. I’ll count tomorrow. I don’t know what happened.
Today, in the 10 min of sun we got between waves of downpours, I got this photo. You can actually see the greens and purples in the yarn. It might be a good thing that the lace pattern is hard to discern.

So to keep from having to twiddle my thumbs, I did some stash busting, and started a Josephine Shawl with some SWTC Karaoke yarn. It’s all garter, people. Just one little YO one stitch in along one side.

The YOs form the hypotenuse of the right triangle (the needle cable is in the lower right leg stitches), so the stripes are at an unusual angle for a triangular shawl. I only have 4 skeins (436 yd), so we’ll see how big this gets. But I can safely say, it will be big enough to wear in some way, and that yarn will be out of my stash.
I’m keeping this project in a new bag my brother gave me for Christmas. He does a lot of photography, so he took this photo of my family’s cat, Katrina, and used a photo transfer to put it on the bag. Isn’t it a cute bag! Thanks, Bunky! You’re my only favorite brother!

Now if only Katrina wouldn’t hiss at me when we visit. Since I got her two of her most favorite (after food) things in life–liberty to roam the entire house at night and a combing with a fine tooth comb to decrease hairballs everyday–you would think she would purr and be friendly. But, no, just hissing, just for me. Perhaps her little grey cells are out of order too.