Month in Review: April

April was a really busy month! Work was busy, and when I wasn’t at work, I was searching (successfully!) for a new place to live, come August. Doesn’t it seem strange to look in April for a place to live in August? Apparently, that’s just what you do here, what with all the college kids, I guess. But it’s all sorted, and in the midst of being crazy busy, I managed to get some knitting accomplished!

First off the needles this month was, well, half a pair of socks. I knit the first of my April socks in a weekend, the very first weekend of April. The second sock flew off the needles almost as quickly, but there was a good three-week gap in between the first and second socks. Once I realized that Marigold was a very portable, easy to memorize pattern and that I could knit one of them in about three days, I took a break from sock knitting to concentrate on some other projects. Miss that post? Marigold socks and zombie shoes, oh my!

I made up a shawl from scratch, using a gifted skein of yarn and apparently a limited ability to do algebra and knit at the same time.

I’ve also picked up my Elemental Boatneck and I’m about halfway through the body. Fourteen inches in linen stitch is still fairly mindless, but also not. And I got distracted by shawls and socks; this pattern could be moving much faster than it currently is. This weekend, I’m hoping to knock out the rest of the linen stitch and maybe make a good amount of headway on the lace neckline. With any luck, I can knock out the body before I leave on Wednesday and bang out a nice chunk of sleeve on an airplane.

I haven’t really blogged about this yet, but after my Made-Up Shawl, I felt the need to cast on for another shawl, one that would be much more mindless. Having seen some amazing Multnomah‘s on Ravelry, I cast on for that with a skein of Fresh from the Cauldron Silver Sock in the “Auld Lang Syne” colorway. That will probably be finished fairly soon.

Continuing with my goals:
The Random Number Generator has spoken, and May’s socks are going to be The Scent of Lavendar in Yarn Love’s Elizabeth Bennet sock yarn, “Awakening Earth” colorway.

And I did not procure any yarn at all in the month of April! No gifts, no random acts of kindness, no yarn of any kind came into my house to add to my stash, which means everything off the needles or currently in progress this month is TOTAL YARN LOSS. Awesome.

That said, I leave on Wednesday to head to Maryland Sheep and Wool (!!!) and as I said back in December, I’m allowed a free pass for that weekend. Well, “free pass” so long as it’s within my budget and whatnot. I don’t plan on going totally overboard, and I hope to have sometime to prioritize a “shopping list” before I leave.

Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to post photos of whatever I buy. Have to be held accountable somehow!