V-A-C-A- tee eye oh en

This vacation would be a lot better for knitting if we weren't having record high heat indices and a chance at death every time we drive somewhere in the black, humid, un-air-conditioned car. *sigh*. But I've done some great stuff while I've been here--went swimming in a lake, saw lots of family members, caught the movie Brave, ate delicious foods, did a boat ride on the river, etc. Tomorrow I go to my favorite farmer's market with my mum and get a little bit of peaceful time to myself. 

The problem (aside from the crazy heat) is that this is supposed to be a working vacation, and getting myself riled up to do work when I have the chance to see people I love whom I only encounter twice a year.... well, let's just say it can be challenging.

But today I am writing. Writing about the type of science I'd like to do, and hopefully making calculations to go with it. Busy, busy.

If I weren't writing I'd be working on my Summer Solstice Mystery Shawl KAL, though I only have three rows of the latest clue remaining. I'm working it up in Mountain Colors Bearfoot in the Thunderstorm colorway. I only have one ball, and it is vacation yarn from my trip to New Mexico, so I am hoping it will last through the KAL, since I can't precisely get more with ease.

My LYS has Bearfoot, but not in the right colorway. (Theirs is on sale, though. now that I've knitted with this and it turns out to be so delightful, perhaps I should go stock up). Thunderstorm is--well that picture certainly does it no justice. It's a dark purply grey shot through with bright sky blue and spring green, an occasional snippet of grey or dark purple in there as well. Normally I would consider this to be highly variegated and not appropriate for a shawl at all (unless you like variegated shawls. I don't. Not usually. Hitchhker/sideways garter stitch shawls aside). I chose it for this KAL because 1) it had 400 yards and I needed 420 but it was possible to scale the pattern down and removing one repeat dropped the yarn requirements to 400 yards, so, perfect. and 2) because I figured Wendy has been on a sideways knit shawl kick, so this would probably be a garter stitch sideways shawl with a little bit of lace on the edge. When I saw that it was supposed to be crescent shaped I jumped to the conclusion that the KAL would definitely be a sideways shawl.

well, I was wrong. It's bottom up, with a ~250 st cast on (bleh) and I won't know if I have enough yarn until I finish (as opposed to halfway). Good thing it's such a cute pattern and I'm liking the nupps that much. I started with 5 stitch nupps but began to worry about running out of yarn so I dropped to the 3 stitch nupps a few rows in. They look pretty cute nestled among the YOs and double decreases. Also 3 stitch nupps appear to be significantly easier to make (though further experimentation needed to verify this result; it's possible 5 stitch nupps are perfectly easy to make once a threshold of practice has been reached).

But I must abandon this shawl, three two and a half rows from its current conclusion, and get back to explaining why CO 3-2 is the perfect line to do the science I want.