Alpakka

I seem to be deep into an alpaca phase. Last weekend I finished up the Lightweight pullover:

I've been wearing it almost nonstop since it finished blocking. It's a little tighter than I would have liked, but everyone says alpaca sags, so I knitted it tightly and am hoping that the yarn starts to relax with wear.

Since there was so much of the charcoal gray left, I started a sweater for E with the leftovers. It's the Gathering Stripes pullover from 100% Rain. Here's a WIP shot:

Even thought I'm knitting the size 10 (E is 7), I'm worried that it's going to be too small. I love the combination of charcoal gray and apple green, though.

I also finally figured out to do with all that laceweight alpaca yarn I bought when I first discovered the world of Ravelry back in the fall of 2008. After buying it, I quickly determined that I am not a fan of knitting lace. I can do it, but I don't really enjoy it and I don't really see myself wearing lace shawls. And the color I (rather inexplicably) bought, a rather intense medium blue, doesn't work on me at all in most cases. The yarn has languished for nearly four years, after having been tried out in a couple of projects that were rejected.

To my delight, I came across a pattern on Ravelry called the French Nautical Scarf (Ravelry link), which consists of endless rows of narrow stripes knitted in laceweight yarn on small needles. In other words, the perfect project for someone like me who likes mindless, but obsessive and endless knitting projects. The pattern calls for plain stockinette bordered with garter stitch, but I didn't love the look of that, so I decided to modify and knit the entire thing in 1x1 ribbing (the same principle as the Noro Stripe scarf). I found a skein of plain black alpaca/silk laceweight at Tjorven in Oslo for the contrasting color, and away I went:

This is one seriously addicting knitting project. E knew that I was ostensibly knitting a sweater for him, but he kept seeing me working on this and asking innocently how his sweater was coming along. Oops. I've managed to stash it away for the time being, and am saving it to work on when  I travel to Bergen next month. The sweater for E is fun too, just not quite as addictive as this scarf. It's going to be huge, fully 60 inches/150 cm long.

There's been a lot of ups and downs at work recently (I got a major rejection, but also got called in for a job interview), so I've been feeling very unsettled and unfocused. Yesterday I finally just threw in the towel and took a few hours off from research to go to IKEA to stock up on some things that will help me sort out my stuff. This house has almost no built in storage, and there just hasn't been anywhere to put things. We finally got wardrobes up for our clothes, but until yesterday mine was still missing a few shelves and doorknobs to open them with. Our huge laser printer was on the floor in my office/wardrobe gathering dust along with the piles of sweaters and the suitcase that didn't yet have spots in the wardrobe. Ugh. IKEA saved the day, and I found the perfect unit to store the printer, got my shelves and doorknobs, and am delighted with the improvements:

Obviously I'm still struggling with book and paper storage. I actually have enough bookshelf space in our spare bedroom, but much of that is filled with yarn at the moment. I've decided I need a separate unit for storing my yarn, and probably also a small bookcase for this room where I can temporarily store whatever books I'm using in my current project at any given time. I didn't want to just buy some random IKEA thing for the yarn though. I'm thinking it would be great to find some kind of antique cabinet with glass doors. I'd also like to get a better chair (this red one is literally falling apart), preferably something that I can paint green. Those things (especially the cabinet) may take some time to find, but at least now I have a plan, and a much more workable office space.