It’s a gorgeous weekend here, at least for early November (we could have had snow by now), and I may need to go out for a walk in a bit. Today looks like yesterday did


maybe a little cloudier, though warmer.
But I thought I’d first show you that I have been knitting, during my blog quietness (this being due mostly to work, and a bit of travel).
This isn’t everything by any means, of course!
But: currently I am on a shawl kick, having begun the lovely 22 Leaves Shawlette (Ravelry link) for an acquaintance who recently lost her mother:

(who said prayer shawls have to be boring knitting? By the way, the yarn is Sanguine Gryphon’s Skinny Bugga! in Cowkiller colorway (it’s an insect…).)
and also a shawl of my own design with my usual addiction, Twisted yarn.

The yarn is Arial yarn base (a fine superwash merino 2-ply) in Angst Evolution colorway, with coordinating yarns Drama (blue) and Mope (brown) (the original colorway was named by a preteen….). I will continue the 2-row stripes for a while more until I run out of the slow color-change yarn — seen better here:

and then I will add a knitted-on edging in blue.
Finished shawls since I last showed you knitting, are two shawls that went off to new owners:
The first, a special birthday present for a friend celebrating a special birthday: someone who likes warm colors but also wears a lot of black.

(this is me, not Kathe, but I did see her wearing it, and looking stunning!)

This is a modified version of the Annis shawl from knitty. I modified for the yarn weight and yardage I had, and also left out the nupps (not because of anti-nupp prejudice, but because the nupps would have changed the rate of color change on those rows, which I did not want). The yarn is Twisted Kabam! in the Ember colorway, one of my favorites.
Overall view:

Lastly, a shawl for a friend going through even more of a life-changing and stressful time than a ‘special’ birthday: yes, more of my Twisted yarn (it is my special yarn for special people. Including myself, I guess.) For Lisa, the Tsarina of Tsocks:
A soft hug shawl in merino-silk Muse, in Lagoon colorway: also one of my very favorites.

Here in close-up, and here on the recipient, who graciously took modeled pictures (since I had none) and let me use them.

This is modified slightly from the very cool Bermuda Scarf pattern by Ilga Leja. It is suitable for any yarn weight; for my vision of this yarn (hills rather than waves), I took out the scalloped edges of the original and free-formed a bit. (But you should see it in a self-striping or faster color-change yarn, too, in the original form; follow the link to check it out.)
I got to see both Lisa and Kathe, plus another knitting friend, Nancy, during a recent trip to New York City!

Here, my photo from the plane on approach, showing you the gorgeous pre-hurricane weather we had.
Would you believe that I’d never been? At least, I’d never gotten to stay there: I’d only been through the city on my way elsewhere (and stopped at Kathe’s place for a couple hours once en route). I had a big meeting there in early September, and delightfully enough, my husband could join me for a couple days around his birthday, and Kathe and her husband put us up the day after my meeting ended.
Before that, I got to walk around Manhattan with Kathe, and eat sushi with my knitterly friends.

(I didn’t ask K about putting her on the blog, so I shall restrain myself from posting her picture…especially the post-sake pictures. Which I instigated, truth be told.)
Lisa gave me some gorgeous handspun to play with, and I promptly started….a shawl.

(Ooops, the title should be five shawls, I guess! I barely started this one, though, which is Anjou, and then goofed up on the plane so put it aside. It’s beauteous, though: the fiber is Spunky Eclectic merino/silk, in the Rhubarb colorway. (But as dyed on the silk and spun up by Lisa, it reminds me of apple blossoms.)
I could tell you oh, so much more about my wonderful trip to New York, but that would be several posts in itself, so I will stop and finish up with one more FO.
I knit on this in New York, as I have been off and on since this spring….and finally subsequently finished socks for my mother, in another Twisted colorway, Vintage (also in Kabam!, a great sock yarn, being a superwash merino/bamboo/nylon blend).

Pattern is Circle Socks (Ravelry link), a free pattern by Anne Campbell. These are very fun, and a great pattern for self-striping yarn!

Proof of two socks. No Second Sock Syndrome this time.
(Not entirely coincidentally, Anne is a talented knitter closely related to the talented dyer of the sock yarn! As in, her mother. The apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree!)
Whew! I am sure that’s not all I’ve knit since I last posted knitting, but it’s what comes to mind. Enough for one post, anyway!