It's going to be EPIC

Eagleman 70.3 is behind me.

To make a long story short, I felt great on the swim, fine on the bike, and the run was a brutal slog through the sixth level of hell.  Even with temperatures relatively mild in the low 80s, the sun beating down on me for 13 miles was a killer.  And although helpful, it ain’t much fun trying to run with cups of ice bouncing around in your sports bra.  In the end, I crossed the finish line after 6 hrs, 10 min, and 50 sec of swim, bike, run, which was 41 minutes faster than 2012, so no complaints.  I think Mike and I are pretty much done with Eagleman though.  There are only so many times you can fork over money to race in misery before you start to come to your senses.

And now looming ahead is only the big bad of Ironman Mont Tremblant. Nine very short weeks away.  I am both super excited and scared out of my mind.  I've come a really long way in the last five months but there's still pretty far to go before I'll be ready to try to cover 140.6 miles.  Distance starting building this week, and 73 miles on the bike and 16.5 of running will take a pretty big chunk out of the weekend.  Vacuuming, laundry, walking dogs, and spending an hour tonight making stuffed cabbage (yeah, weird impulse for June cooking, no explanation) and there is little time left to relax with knitting.

So, in honor of big epic undertakings (and the fact that I've barely worked on any knitting in the past week), I decided it was finally time to update my progress on the handspun afghan. To give some background, I started this project in 2011. Over the years, I bought 15 4oz braids of blue faced leicester fiber, spun a worsted 2-ply yarn, and knit each skein into a log cabin square.  Sometime last year I finished knitting the last square.

I was so excited about finishing the squares that I shoved them in a drawer and didn't think about them for months.  In March, I finally dug them out, bought black yarn, and started knitting.  A couple months and a whole lotta garter stitch later:

All the squares are assembled.  Only the outer borders are left.  I'm so close and yet there is still a good bit of knitting to go.  Knitting that I have no intention of touching for months.  The blanket weighs a metric crapton and there is no way I'm going to sit with the whole thing on my lap to knit the borders until there is frost outside.  Since it's not even summer yet, that's going to be awhile.  Thank goodness I have hours of bike training to keep me busy.  To be continued...maybe in October...  

Work-in-Progress Wednesday: Square #9

And WIPW returns!  It's amazing what I can keep up with when you take endurance training out of the mix.

I haven't posted anything about the epic handspun afghan in awhile and since I actually have been chipping away on it, I thought it was time for the squares to make a reappearance.

Progress to date:  8 squares

And today's WIP:  square #9

Only a few more rows to go thanks to an hour wait at the podiatrist this morning. I think this is my favorite square yet, although I also think I've said that about every square I've knit.  But I really really mean it this time.  No, really.

The fiber is superwash BFL dyed by Woolen Mill St. Yarns.  I admit the major factor that pushed me to buy this braid was the colorway name: "The Shire" (yep, total Lord of the Rings nerd here--and you guys thought all I watch/read is vampire crap).  Cute name aside, I was thrilled when it arrived.  I love the color variation, and the fiber was fluffy and soft, and I adored spinning it.  I actually had a bit of a hard time convincing myself to wind up the squishy skein.  

But I'm glad I did since now I have a soft squishy blanket square.  I think I've settled on a 15 square afghan, so in theory, I only have 6 squares to go.  I'm having serious doubts about the colors though (Who me? Stressing over color?  But that never happens).  Since I am buying fiber as I go for this project, I never devised a clear color plan except to use relatively monochromatic fiber for each square and to have some variation.  I really didn't think through what I meant by "variation", and I'm not sure I like the mix that I have right now.

The earthy-tone squares seem to stick out to me.  I'm not stressing over it yet, but I can definitely see getting to 15 squares and feeling like I need to replace a few because of the color issue.  I've already put aside some  of the finished skeins that I originally intended to use for the afghan.

Like this one.  Just seemed too bright.  Although with the current green one in there, maybe not?

And this one.  I adore how this skein came out, but I'm thinking too earthy.

Sigh.  Color, you remain my nemesis.

Visit Tami's for more WIPW!

The Handspun Exception, Part II

Since I learned to knit about five years ago, I’ve finished sweaters, socks, scarves, hats, mittens, shawls, slippers, toys, and a baby blanket.  I have not, however, managed to finish an afghan despite starting several.  Afghan attempt one was to knit a square a month in 2009 to make a patchwork afghan.  To date, I’ve only finished four squares.  This first afghan project was derailed when in April of 2009, I fell victim to the craze over Shelly Kang’s mitered sock yarn afghan.  I expected the sock yarn blanket would be a three to five year project.  Over two and half years later, and I’m less than a quarter finished.  I will have to pick up the pace significantly to make the five year goal.  I seriously doubt that will happen though as my attention is now only on afghan attempt three—the epic handspun afghan. 

I wrote about my handspun afghan dream several months ago when I was struggling with color challenges.  I heeded my advice, and my next two fiber purchases were much more subdued colors.

Both braids are blue-faced leicester (BFL) dyed by Miss Babs.  The first braid I spun on my spindle before I had my wheel, and after plying, I had a nice light worsted weight yarn in soft colors.  Definite potential for afghan yarn.  My only hesitation was that the BFL fiber was not superwash, and really, did I want to contemplate handwashing an afghan?  While I may come to regret this decision later, I ignored my reservations and started knitting.  A few days later, I had square one of my handspun afghan.

Add to square one, a spinning wheel, another fiber purchase from Miss Babs, and a few months of spinning and knitting time:

I think the blanket will eventually have 15 or 16 squares (each is over 12 inches long/wide), so I’m at least a quarter finished with the squares.  Knitting blanket squares is the other handspun knitting exception that is taking away from Operation Conquer the WIPs, and thus, square five is well underway. 

So lately I’ve been knitting handspun cowls, a hat, and a blanket square, and not one stitch on the Angostura vest.  Operation Conquer clearly has success written all over it.