Another week is already almost half over and I have yet to get back to the blog. This seems to be par for the course these days. I had a really wonderful teacher training weekend this time around. We spend our Friday classes working on asana and I’m really enjoying the refinement and exploration of the poses. This Saturday we began our 40 day sadhana with a community sadhana at 6am. It was an interesting experience and I was really shocked at how many people (between 30-40 I think) showed up to join myself and my fellow trainees as we began. So until Dec. 23rd I’ll be getting up at 5am every morning to do my work. I usually get up at 6am for work so you’d think that one more hour wouldn’t be a big deal, but it kind of is! But as my teacher reminded us when we began “There are too many people suffering in this world to slack off.”

It isn’t all yoga all the time at Chez Zarzuela though. My thoughts and my needles have already been working on the holiday knitting. My list this year is fairly ambitious for the amount of time I have to work on things these days. I’m trying to find a balance of projects that will suit the recipients while keeping my interest. The first of these projects is actually already off the needles!

Swallowtail

Pattern: Swallowtail by Evelyn A. Clark
Yarn: Tess Designer yarns super socks and baby, 1 skein
Needles: US 5
Knit: 10.20-10.29.09
Mods: I left out two rows of the last lace chart so I wouldn’t run out of yarn.

This project was knit for a coworker who has been particularly sweet to me this year. She was so kind and supportive during and after my surgery that I really wanted to make something for her to say “Thank you” as much as “Happy Holidays”. She’s of asian decent, so I thought the color would be appropriate to honor her culture as well.

Do y’all like my “blocking board”?! It’s nice to have an extra bed around the house for a variety of reasons. My blocking wires were hiding on me when I went to block this so I had to use pins alone, but I think it worked out ok.

Oddly enough, this project is a bit of a triumph for me. I had tried to knit this quite a while ago (Oct. of 2006 apparently. Thank you blog archive!) but I just couldn’t get my head around the start of the thing and gave it up. I can’t even remember what the problem was, but this time around it was really a piece of cake. Perhaps I’ve grown as a knitter? One can only hope. I am also very proud to say that I have nupped and survived!

Honestly, the nupps weren’t that bad. I think I had a good combination of tools though because my harmony needles have nice points and this yarn has some stretch to it. They weren’t the easiest thing to do but it was definitely possible with a little extra concentration.

HWJF saw this blocking and commented on how pretty it was. I took that as a great compliment. I hope my coworker will feel the same. I plan to give it to her sometime after Thanksgiving.

For now, it’s on to other holiday projects, some of which I can share with you and some of which I can’t. Come back tomorrow though for another edition of Thankful Thursday!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 10:05 am and is filed under Finished Objects 2009, Swallowtail Shawl. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.