It is still traveling. I do believe it may be done in Omaha, and it may be ready to send to DC.

Sparkeespud, the fourth person to work on the traveling scarf, is done with her portion. I dropped by via bike (in the rain) yesterday to pick up the scarf with hopes to hand off the scarf to the next victim tonight. We certainly have a bit of a purple theme going on!

Now, I am aware I’ve been slacking in the blog post department lately, but I have a decent excuse. My mom is in town, and really by the time I commute home by bike, I just want to spend a little time with her and Bug. I haven’t got a lot of content to post anyhow, thought there are certainly some new Julie Wardrobe items to show off.

One very bright and colorful sock. One, while the second one needs to get done in a week. Yes, I’ve started the second one.

I spent a good long time not understanding how this project was constructed at all. It is fantastic to realize that after all that worry, it is finally beginning to take shape. I am starting to understand what is going on, and this makes my knitting far more confident. Not only confident, but inspired. Instead of dreading working on it, I am eager to see it come together now. Yes, there is still a long way to go and so little time to apply toward it, but the time I spend on it is far less stressful.

The third participant in the traveling scarf , our friend Tina,  has completed her section and handed it off to the fourth participant. It is great fun to watch it all come together. The third yarn used is Mountain Colors Twizzle.

This is going to be one crazy looking well traveled scarf.

Still not looking like much of anything at all. Except for green tweedy yarn knit up into….well….who knows what?

To be honest, I cannot understand this pattern at all. I am knitting, I am following instructions, but I don’t understand why I am doing what I am asked to do. So, this project is a leap of faith. Blind faith. I mean, a scrap intarisa panel? I  have no clue….

I finished my portion of the traveling scarf today, and so now it goes on to the next local gal who is willing to knit on it. I used malabrigo worsted for my portion, and did a sugar cubes pattern, a seed stitch, and then a moss stitch which was sadly, rather poorly executed. However, I think it still looks pretty good and I am eager to see how it shapes up as it works its way around this city.

Sorry to leave you hanging like that….but something exciting arrived in the mail yesterday. One of our Sporum members has a friend whose teen daughter was involved in a terrible accident, the result of which was losing a leg. It sounds like this young woman has an amazing outlook on life, and we were asked if we could participate in a special project for her. So, yesterday I found the beginning of a scarf in my mailbox from New Orleans. I get to add my portion in a different color yarn, and send it on to the next participant. A traveling scarf for an amazing young woman. I know that by the time this scarf is done it will have been here, Canada, and Georgia. Perhaps there will be more stops as well.

I’ve got my yarn picked out, and am eager to get it done. Hopefully it will only take a day so I can move it on to the next gal in this area quickly!

You are all lucky I started something new, because at the rate the Girasole is going, it will be a long time until I have anything worth showing! I’ve doubled all the stitches again, and now it is just a slog. Or rather, an exercise in patience and meditation. Yes, that is a much better way to think of it.

Thankfully, I have yet another commission knit to work on, something odd and off the wall again. It starts with a tweedy green yarn….

So, I’ve managed to complete quite a few of my pay it forward 2012 projects so far. Sadly, my ability to get them into the mail seems to be a bit lacking. However, I do plan to fix that shortly. After the sample shawl was complete I decided I could squeeze in one more pay it forward project before the yarn comes in for my next commission project. (Really, is that all I do these days? Feels like it!) My friend Sandy gave me some yarn recently, she was moving and we all know how that causes us to truly evaluate what yarn we have in our possession. There was this interesting ball of jojoland rhythm, and I couldn’t resist knitting it up to see what it looked like. I’ve used jojoland’s harmony and melody before, but never their worsted weight option. I was not surprised when it looked more like handspun yarn than anything else, but I was surprised at the predominance of yellow in it.

The pattern is The Guy Next Door cowl, which really looks more like a neck gaiter to me. Since it is not for a guy, I decided to add yarn overs to it for a lacier look, though I don’t know that it really looks lacy. This project was an awfully quick knit. I started it on a Monday evening, worked on it mostly during my work breaks, and was done by Wednesday excluding the blocking. This leaves only 6 more pay it forward projects for 2012.