Listen to Your Yarn

Recently I bought my first laceweight yarn. I chose Knitpicks Shadow Tonal in Golden Glow. I was envisioning a bright yellow yarn like I'd seen on Ravelry but mine is more of a honeyish, marigold yellow. Still really pretty and nice but not quite the color I had in mind.
My initial thought, when I still thought it was bright yellow, was the Citron shawl, from the Winter '09 issue of Knitty. Well, first off, wrong color for citrus, secondly, do you realize there are literally over a THOUSAND STITCHES IN THAT SHAWL??!! That was just a whole heck of a lot of stitches for a novice shawl knitter like myself. That would be one of the reasons I like socks, only about 60 stitches to deal with.
Then I thought of my old favorite that I still haven't finished (can't, ran out of yarn) the Travelling Woman. The problem with that is that, technically that takes fingering, not lace. However, it can be done. I just didn't want to fiddle with that since I'd already started one and ran out of yarn.
I was gifted the Sakura lace scarf pattern for my birthday which is a lovely cherry blossom lace pattern. Still, not in my opinion, suitable for yellow. Pink or red perhaps.
Then I thought, well, screw the shawl or scarf, let's make mitts. I found a gorgeous pattern called Swan Maiden Mitts and it is even meant for KP Shadow! But, hey, back up here, my only coat is black. Well, black generally goes with everything but one of the reasons I didn't want a scarf is that I'm not fond of the yellow/black combo. Mitts would be the same problem. Sooo, back to the design board.
A shawl called Hibiscus gave me an idea, I'd design one myself using a pineapple as the focus! Well, I did that on paper. Then attempted to draw the design on graph paper. That didn't work out so well, plus I was worried about running out of yarn halfway thru the shawl.
After hunting around for a few weeks I found this - the Annis shawl, one of the "surprises" in the Spring & Summer issue of Knitty. It is absolutely perfect for this yarn, going to look like a slice 'o sunshine, great because it is always over 100 degrees now!

What I've been up to

You know, I write really great blog posts. I do, I really do. The problem is that I have a habit of writing them in my head and then by the time I get to the computer I have a million other things to do. So, I forget to actually write them. The main problem with that is that, well, no one can read them in my head!
In the meantime, I've been knitting socks. I made a plain vanilla pair out of 100purewool's Granada colorway - greens and yellow. Now I have two more pairs on the needles. Pineapple socks made out of Numma Numma's The Regular in Organic Greens. Very nice yarn and expensive I found out - I won mine in a lovely giveaway :) These are on hold indefinitely until I can get another set of Harmonys as I dropped my needle thru the floorboards of the Dairy Queen playground :( On the bright side, I found my brother's missing schoolbook and my reward will be another set of Harmonys. YAY ME!
I'm also using KnitPicks Stroll Multi in Meadow to Magic Loop socks. Magic loop is a new method for me but WOW is it so much faster then DPNs. I got my needle and yarn last Friday and am already almost done with the first sock! The pattern is of my own making, basically just ribbing and stockinette but a bit fancier then a plain vanilla sock. They're knit cuff down unlike the Pineapple socks.
I like toe up but since Magic Loop is new to me I thought I'd stick to what I knew best for a new method. Socks are like my new favorite project!
I also bought some lace yarn. Shadow Tonal in Golden Glow - don't be mislead by the pic on Knitpicks site, this yarn is not actually that bright and is more of a honey or marigold yellow. Still a really nice yarn tho! I am trying to design a shawl for it, just because I like to make up my own patterns :)