yellowcosmo – Her Ginkgo Collection with the contrasting color stems really drew me in and I can imagine the stole done up in a variety of color combos.  And that differently-shaped leaf is a breath of fresh air.

Anna Dalvi – The strong lines in her Fields of Malachite shawl from Ancient Egypt in Lace and Color uses twisted stitches and symmetry to make a striking shape.   At almost 100 accessory designs she’s impressively prolific.  How is it that I’ve never heard of Anna?

What about you?  Any new-to-you designers?  Or designers that fly under the radar that deserve a little more attention?

I’ll catch you on the purl side.

I’m loving Moyen but I need a little variety.

I’ve decided to attempt to make two sweaters for Rhinebeck.  After a lot of browsing and project stalking on Ravelry, I’ve decided to make Sugar Maple by Carina Spencer.

I picked Sugar Maple because:

• it’s striking with its use of the Evolutions yarn
• it’s a simple knit – a great foil for Moyen when I want a break
• even though it’s simple, I’ll still feel like I’m wearing something special on the fairgrounds

I’ve decided to get it in the Paramour colorway.  The design is done up in their Tasty base – a fingering weight MCN.  Twisted Fiber Arts offers coordinating skeins as well, so I’m going to order a bit less than I think I’ll need so I can finish the top with the black shade.  There’s a 2-week wait  so I still have a couple weeks before I can cast on.

I do have a mod planned – you knew I’d have a mod planned, right?  I’m going to knit the bottom straight instead of the V.  This silhouette is better for my shape – confirmed by reading Fit to Flatter.  I love that book.  It confirms why I like – or don’t like – certain shapes on my body.  It’s freeing to know there’s a reason why I like the things I like.

So, back to the Rhinebeck planning.  I have 2 sweaters planned, but I’m not stopping there.  Go big or go home, right?  I’m also going to do a wrap that I can wear on the fairgrounds.  I think I’ve picked the wrap but I’ll share more of the details of that one next week.

I’ll catch you on the purl side.

Google is shutting down Google Reader on July 1st.  Many of you use Google Reader.  I know this because almost 90% of my RSS requests come from Google Feedfetcher.

That means 90% of you will lose track of all your RSS feeds 5 days from now.  If you haven’t found an alternative – or, like me, you’ve procrastinated finding an alternative – I’ll share my pick with you all.

It’s feedly.

Here are just a few of the awesome features from feedly:

1. One-click migration from Google Reader.  No muss, no fuss.  Just give them access and the feeds get slurped in.
2. Choice of views – look at a list of titles, cards (show 3 posts per row, with images and a short excerpt), or my fave, magazine view (pictured above).
3. Recommendations for other blogs like this.
4. They designed an open API.  This may be Greek to some of you but stick with me.  This is important to us because it tells us that Feedly is investing in the service.  They’re not planning to shut down any time soon (take that, Google).
5. They have an iOS and an Android app.

You can read the full list of enhancements on their blog post – Summary of the last 100 days.

Even if you aren’t convinced that feedly is for you, you’ve got 5 days to make a decision.  Feedly made it easy.  It took me all of 30 seconds to log in and migrate.  Give it a try – you have nothing to lose (well, ok, 30 seconds).

(I hope) I’ll catch you on the purl side.

Without intending it, I have 2 pairs of stripey socks OTN now.

On the left, a pair of jogless stripes in Twisted Fiber Art yarn in the Roy G Biv gradation in 60% merino, 30% bamboo, 10% nylon.  I’m striping it with some dark purple Shelridge Farms becuase the Twisted Fiber Art hanks are a little light on yardage.

On the right, the start of a pair of Broadripples in Knit Picks Felici in the Provence colorway.  I got this yarn at least 4 years ago so the colorway is no longer available – but lots of great color combos are.  The yarn is soft but still feels durable.  The dye job isn’t quite perfect – sometimes I find a bare spot of yarn between the two colors, other times I find a speckle of errant dye mid-row.  But for the price these are both forgivable.

This is the first time I’ve actually knit socks during Socktober in quite a while.  My goal is to get at least one pair done.  I also have a third pair in progress – a simple ribbed pair in Trekking for Paul.    Between the three pairs I should really be able to finish off two. So one feels totally doable.

Famous last words, I know.

OK, so I’m up and running on WordPress – finally!  I started the migration almost 2 years ago to the day.  But, I got hung up configuring permalinks to be the same as my old Movable Type ones, and I gave up.  Although I love technology, when given a choice between troubleshooting something that already works versus knitting – knitting won.

But with the long weekend coming up I decided to give it another try.  I opened up a ticket with my hosting provider – LivingDot – and whaddya know.  Someone answered my ticket who knew how to fix my issue.  Woot!

So I’m finally on WordPress.

• I have an HTML editor that works properly.
• I have sidenav items for my recent FOs and tutorials.
• I have an archives page that makes sense.
• And if I want to update any of it – I make one change and everything updates.
• I have an easier way to manage comment spam.
• While I was at it I updated my blog roll.  I hadn’t really updated it in several years, so you’ll probably see some new blogs.  Check them out!  They all give me great inspiration and motivation.

OK, enough of that distraction.  Now back to the knitting.

ps – let me know if you find anything funky

• Reservoir Mitts – I’ve been wanting to make a pair of entrelac mitts. Allyson Dykhuizen (the designer) did it better than I ever would have with clever details and fun construction. I WILL be making these.
• Wellington Mitts – This may be that colorwork project I’ve been seeking. Plus each mitt uses a different stitch pattern. No second sock mitt syndrome.
• Doe River Mittens – Just-enough bobbles and twisted stitches create a feminine mitten with a bit of tailored elegance.

• turn a stitch pattern on the bias and make it a scarf
• rework an embossed leaf pattern onto a pair of mittens
• take delicate ribbing from the cuff of a sweater and use it on a cowl
• use a complex cable from an aran sweater in a wide, wrappy scarf

I think I’m going to start a bunch of pinterest boards to keep track of the inspiration. I don’t think Rav faves are quite right because it’d be hard to remember what element I liked and what I thought it would be good for.
Sock yarn scrap projects have been taunting me – sock yarn blankets and hexapuffs just kill me! And then Andi blogged about her scrap yarn and highlighted a bunch of other people’s projects. The variety of colors is so inspiring.
Back in December I was considering knitting a pair of Blender socks. This pair did me in! If I wore those socks they’d make me happy all day long.
So I pulled together some of my leftovers and came up with this selection. I think there are too many shades for one pair of blenders, but maybe I could do a cool-toned pair and a warm-toned pair. I think I’ve only finished one pair of socks this year so I need to do at least a couple more.

And lest you think it’s all daydreaming an no knitting around here, I did get another wedge done on my Wingspan.

It’s going to be veeeery close for me to squeeze in an eighth wedge, but if I can only do 7 I’ll be ok. And on the bright side it will let me get to some new project knitting a bit sooner. Sweet Dreams from last week’s post is high on my list. So are some new socks . But first I need to finish Wingspan. I hate knitting this yarn (but love how it looks knitted up) so I’m afraid to start anything else before it’s done. Because we all know I’ll never get back to finishing it otherwise.

• Stamina – it’s so hard for me to stay committed enough to finish the whole top.
• Weight loss – this past week I hit the 50 pound mark, and I still have around 20 pounds to go. Which size do I choose to knit?
• Silhouette and style – Being short and busty, it’s so hard to know what will look good on me without trying it on. Not very practical when you’re selecting the next pattern to knit.

So I decided this past week to just admit it – garment knitting just isn’t for me. At least not for now. And I’m OK with that. At least for now
It freed me to buy some fun accessory yarns this past weekend and to look at some great new accessory patterns
Aren’t these gorgeous? They can be knitted in either fingering or laceweight. With or without beads. Suitable for merinos or blended with silk, bamboo or tencel. Lots of options. I can’t wait to dive in to one of these!
But first I need to finish my Wingspan. I’m done with 5 of the 8 repeats (the pic below only shows 4). It’s a fun, portable project and the yarn has been working up beautifully. I think I’ll get a lot of wear out of it in the fall.

So here are my project plans:

• Finish Wingspan
• Finish the Mother’s Day gift (no pics on my blog until I’m done but you can take a peek on Ravelry if you’re curious)
• Start a shawl (maybe one of the ones above)
• Start a sock

The whole list feels reasonable! Fun, even. I’m so happy to take garments off my knitting plate! I even have a few plans for things I’ve never done before – colorwork (I’ve played with it but never finished a project), a true laceweight project (I did a very simple laceweight shawl but I want to do something more substantial), and maybe even something with beads.
Knitting fun – who knew?