~Yarn Along: Almost There....

~ It's another week- but, it's not just any week, it's the last week of school for us! Yay!!! Actually, it's the last week of our curriculum, and then we take a little break for a week or two and start to have some summer learning fun. We stay busy with various camps and other projects, but since I have such "routine" littles, it helps tremendously if we maintain that element of structure year round, even if it becomes more about "fun learning" or even "unschooling" activities in summer. My just-about-done-with-first grader!!!! is still enjoying reading The Cricket in Times Square with me. He is enjoying this one so much that I am so happy I got it for him. He looks forward to reading time and that is always good in  my book! I pre-ordered Wendy Bernard's new book, "The Knitting All Around Stitch Dictionary" and it arrived yesterday. I'm really enjoy working my way through this one and already have a ton of ideas. So glad I went ahead and bought this one.
My "For the Love of Spiders Shawl" is almost there as well. I was able to get in about an hour of knitting on it over the week-end, while waiting for various swatches to dry and working on some different grading options for my upcoming designs. I just have a few more rows of the edging to complete and then it will be off for a soak and block. I'm slightly disappointed, though, I ran out of the Yellow Color with 2 repeats of the "Spider" slip-stitch pattern left. I did do a gauge swatch- and blocked it, and measured it very carefully (I am a designer, after all, that does like to "practice what I preach" and since I know how many issues can come up because of "wonky gauge", I did swatch for this!) I feel that being 2 repeats short, at gauge is more than just a small error though. I'm kicking myself for not weighing the skeins before I wound them up now, because I really don't know why I am so short on this. The yarn was super tangly (is that really a word?) when I wound it, which makes me want to get rid of the extra skein of "Barn" that I snagged because I couldn't decide which color I want to knit. One of my biggest fears in putting out a pattern is that a knitter will run short of run, in a significant way, and this to me IS  a significant way! I've never had an issue with the LittleSkein.com kits before, so I wonder if it is either a design flaw, or that the yarn skein was short that amount of yarn (which does happen, sadly). I'm kind of happy that this design is very close to being done, but at the same time feeling a little irritated that my shawl "isn't right". When I'm not designing, I kind of am a stickler for things being "just right" I like to just follow the directions and not have to plan things out.....and so running out of yarn well before that's supposed to happen was just a minor pet peeve of mine! I don't mind a heart-thrilling game of yarn chicken, but this is not entertaining.
Well, I better run along, I've got some more grading to do, and I'm working on a pretty neat construction for a new piece that I am super excited about and can't wait to share with you. I did finish up the Stars&Stripes KAL sample over the weekend, so I'll be sharing more information about the KAL with you all soon.
(And I'm going to be picking the winners for the KAL Friday, and I'm going to be picking a newsletter subscriber for the awesome Tink! yarn by Friday as well. so make sure you are signed up!)

What are you knitting and reading? Don't forget to link up with Ginny's Blog. And if you have a frustrating or funny story about running short of yarn, would you share in the comments? I'd love to hear about it, and it would be great to know it isn't just me!

~Jessica