Urm...

Okay.

Not a whole lot to see here, but I know it's been over a week since I last posted, and a new post was probably overdue. That said, not a whole lot has been happening here in Insanity Central, so I'm not quite sure what to tell you that's not going to have you moshing your keyboard, falling asleep with boredom, or praying I somehow manage to impale myself on a 14" 2.75mm needle.

(Does it bother anyone else that needles still mix metric and imperial like that? Anyone? Or am I just being anally-retentively nit-picky again?).

I digress. (I do that a lot). Back to the boredom.

Right. I did not call this post "Progress Report #2", as may have been expected, because there is precious little visual evidence of any progress. I know I've been knitting. I've also been frogging. And casting on new projects (as WIPdown 2012 sneaks closer to premature death). But there's not a whole lot worthy of a blog-post, or the label 'progress'.

Also, I think my lack of posting may also be because I've been feeling a little bit guilty.

Last Wednesday I was a bold girl. Remember the massive stash I was telling you about? Well, I added to it. And not just a little, either. The fact I've plans for everything I bought, and some was to add to specific stashes to finish items I didn't have enough yarn for, only makes me feel a weensy bit better. Possibly because I have almost 36 years of experience that tells me that, spectacularly good as I am at planning, I've a tendency to fall down at the follow-through phase. We're talking an extra kilometre of yarn here, minimum. I have no self-control. Which at this stage in life (and given that I'm planning on quitting smoking at some stage in the next few days) is kinda worrying.

Anyhoo, back to the knitting... yeah, the knitting, let's ignore ALL mention the crazy girl may just have made regarding recent additions to stash she swore blind she wasn't going to add to this year and we're not even out of feckin' January yet.

This week, I cast on my Echo Flower shawl (with stash yarn! STASH YARN!). I've been meaning to cast this one on for a while. I've a habit of knitting multiples of things once I find a pattern I like, so wanted something different and simple that would still challenge me. This successfully wrecks my head does both.

It is a beautiful pattern. I was all happy when I saw it was only an 8-row, 12-stitch repeat, cuz that would make it all memorizeable and quick to knit and stuff. And it is predominantly a very very easy knit. Except for the rows where you've to make the flowers. Which are taking me forever as the shawl increases in size.

You have to knit 2 tog tbl, then without dropping those stitches off the needle, make nine stitches more. Then a double decrease of sssk (yes, three 's's) immediately after, when your sitches are so tight they're starting to groove your Harmonys. Strangely, when you get into the body of the shawl, it becomes knit 3 tog, no mention of back loop, and it's WAY easier (possibly because there's more stitches either side, so more wiggle room, more 'give').

See Exhibit A below:

Okay, so you can't really see it. But trust me, close up it's pretty. And so worth it. They're just a little fiddly, and not what I'm used to. And I've a few wonky flowers in there. Like the one where I made 11 stitches instead of 9 (how the hell do you do that, when it's already so tricky just to make the 9 stitches required?). I panicked, and worked 'k2tog, k2tog' on the last four. When I obviously should have done ssk, ssk, given the direction they're slanting (God no, I wasn't ripping back! Ha!).

Then there's the one where I only made 7 stitches (much more understandable) - simply fixed by a M1 after the first and before the last on the next knit row. I know there's another one I screwed up too, but I can't remember it, or what I did to it. I'm sure it'll all become clear when I'm blocking it! At this stage, the multiple nupps required for the border hold no fear for me, even though in over 6 years of knitting I've gone out of my way to avoid them.

So to sum up - beautiful pattern. Simple idea, fiddly to work. Rows 2-8, TV knitting. Row 1, not so much. Tricksy flowerses. Tricksy.

ETA: Big shout-out to UnderMeOxter, who basically guilt-tripped me into doing this post when I had planned to be otherwise knitting. Thanks a bunch. :oP
(ah no, you're grand really, I'd been kinda procrastinating on doing this all day. You were just the kick up the arse I needed!). :o)