happy christmas!

Happy Christmas, all! Here's hoping that everyone's holiday is going well.

As for me, I'm enjoying a rather lazy Christmas Day with Jason's family. Mmm, Christmas.

I'm also still knitting Onerva. But really, who didn't see that one coming? I've only got another two or three repeats left. I don't really know for sure, since I'm just knitting until I run out of yarn, and I'm terrible at estimating amounts. I'm optimistic about having it done by next week. Then just blocking and it's done!

In other happy news, I got in my yarn order yesterday! Mmmm, Cascade Dolce is just as soft and pretty as the name implies. Nine skeins of it looks like it might not be enough. I know that it's MORE than enough, because the suggested yarn is 109 yards per 50 grams, and the Dolce has the exact same yardage to grams ratio. And because I'm paranoid I ordered a whole extra skein more than what I need. I'm going to worry about it until I actually start knitting and I see that it's not using up as much yarn as I fear it will. I wish I were better at judging amounts.

Anyhow, I couldn't resist balling up one of the skeins last night, and mmmm, so soft! I'm going to knit on Onerva today, and tomorrow I'll let myself play with the Dolce a bit. Because, believe it or not, I'm actually going to swatch for this thing. And I mean actually swatch, not the half-assed swatching I normally do. Exciting!

For now, back to knitting for me.

I've been bad

I know I have. I am a bad, bad blogger. I suck. I know.

But! I offer you pretty pretty pictures in return for your forgiveness! Dane shawl is bound off, blocked, and already happy in its new home with Rina. I'm in love with it. I really want to knit another one. For myself. Which I would keep for me and wear all the time. Mmmm, love.



I also finally took pictures of other FOs I'd been meaning to photograph for a while now. My Silk Garden Kerchief, for instance. I'm really happy with how it came out. It's very warm, and I've been wearing it pretty often. I was slightly less than thrilled with how the colors came out, but it's since grown on me...


Then there's my Envy. This was half-finished for a while, but I finally got off my lazy ass and sewed the buttons on it so it's actually, ya know, wearable. I'm pretty happy with this as well. It's a pretty color that looks nice against my grey coat.


And this is my latest FO, which I am so so so happy with. It's for my friend Jon. It's a little big on me, but fits him well, and was very well-received. He put it on right away and went around showing everyone. He's been wearing it all week, which makes me feel all warm-and-fuzzy inside. Nothing like knitting something for someone and having them really appreciate it. Makes me want to knit tons of things for everyone! But I'm too lazy for that, really...


In other news, I'm still knitting Onerva. And still putting off finishing J-L's hat. (hence the blogging! nothing like a good lengthy picture-filled post to put off knitting something I don't want to knit!)

I'm also planning more projects. Yep. I know. Heard it already.

I'm in love with Quadrat from the latest issue of Knitty. Mmmm, boxy cabled sweater. AND I found the perfect yarn for it. I was planning on using Cascade 220 for it, but I stumbled across Cascade Dolce on sale for mega-cheap. Wool/alpaca/silk blend at half off? Don't mind if I do! I ordered it in Silver. Smallest size is for a 33" chest, so I'll be knitting it at a smaller gauge to take off an extra inch or so. I went ahead and ordered more yarn than I'd need for knitting the pattern as-is though, since the reason the Silver is on sale is that it's discontinued. That does make me a bit nervous, but hopefully it'll only serve to motivate me to knit this sucker straight off. That way if something goes horribly, terribly wrong (as it is wont to do) I'll still be able to get my paws on more yarn in that color. Hopefully.

Also in the works are plans for cabled socks, and a hat for Jason. He really liked the one I made for Jon, so he'll be getting one as well. In alpaca. Mostly because I want an excuse to play with alpaca. Also because I love him.

Mmmm, alpaca...

NaKniSweMo: Day 30

So. Here we are at the very end of November. Remember that sweater I was going to knit? Yeah, didn't happen. I haven't even cast on for it. Hell, I haven't even swatched for it.

Yes, I know. I totally fail. Are we really all that surprised? Nope!

I imagine there must be some sort of hell for people like me.

On the plus side, I finished my Dane Shawl for Rina. I'm somewhat less than halfway through an Onerva for Sarah. J-L's hat is mostly finished. I've been dragging my feet on that because Intarsia is the devil and I would almost rather knit with redhot metal rods than knit Intarsia. I'm going to force myself to sit down and finish it once and for all when I get back to Pittsburgh. We'll see.

Let's talk about happy things! Let's talk about Onerva!

Ever since I saw the gorgeous one made by the infamous RandomCyn, I've had a minor obsession with it. She made hers with Malabrigo sock in the colorway Persia. What a coincidence! thought I, I've got some Malabrigo sock in the colorway Solis sitting in my stash right now! Because, hell, if I'm going to be a copycat I might as well go all the way!

I've done somewhere between a third and a half of this sucker, and my obsession has only grown. I want to make more of these things. I want to make one for me, and for my mother, and my cats, and the postman... I want to go to the LYS and buy out all the Malabrigo sock and knit this for the rest of my life! The pattern is just interesting enough to keep it from getting boring, but easy enough that I can knit while watching a movie and not have to rip back. And pairing it with Solis? Best idea I ever had! The deep green with just the barest touches of lighter green and blues makes me think of vines on a trellis. I love how it's coming out.

I'm so much in love that, aside from a few hours' urge to knit fingerless gloves, I've been completely faithful to this project thus far. Of course, it helps that I've been in Tampa for the week and it's the only project I brought with me. I considered doing my usual ordeal of taking extra yarns and extra patterns and extra needles. Then I stopped, and I thought about it for a minute. I knit slow as fuck. If I'm able to knit this whole damn thing in a week? Hell, I deserve to go to the Tampa LYS and buy more yarn and patterns and needles!! Of course, I didn't come anywhere close to that...

So, no pictures in this post, which I know sucks. I'll post again once I get back to Pittsburgh.

NaKniSweMo: Day 2-3

I didn't do any knitting yesterday. It was glorious.

I haven't done any knitting today either, but I have done some planning! I sketched out a rough idea for my sweater, and I plan on winding the hanks of yarn I've got for it. Then I will swatch (omfg yes i actually plan to swatch!) and come up with a more solid pattern idea.

I've finished the final repeat on my Dane Shawl, and it still seems a bit smaller than I thought it'd turn out. I'm debating whether I should just knit the edging and hope it blooms when I block it, or if I should go for another repeat. I think I've got enough yarn to go for a second repeat. Maybe. It'd be close. So, yeah, not really sure what to do. I'm leaning toward stringing a lifeline in on the last purl row of this repeat (omfg lifeline who are you and what have you done with biteyfish??) that way if I do come up short on yarn I won't want to scream and throw things and yank my hair out when I rip back. Yeah? Yeah?

But tonight will mostly be winding up my beautiful soft oh-so-pettable sweater yarn. Mmmm, yarn. It'll give me something to do while I watch V (which I am super-excited about!) And that counts as doing something for NaKniSweMo, right? Because really, two days without doing a darned thing for it is bad enough.

NaKniSweMo: Day 1

So, today I didn't start. Big surprise there, yeah, I know. Today I wrote a page and a half. A rather good page and a half. Maybe I should have gone with NaNoWriMo anyhow...

But no, I've committed. I need to commit. I will knit a sweater.

I don't have a pattern for my sweater yet. I do, however, have yarn for it. A while ago I bought enough yarn to make a Thermal. Then I actually bothered to look at the pattern. The waffle pattern on it involves a lot of k2, p2-ing. I hate ribbing. Hate it with a passion. Knit an entire sweater with ribbing, in fingering weight yarn no less! I would go crazy. Absolutely certifiably crazy. So I need a new pattern.

Rather than do the logical thing and hop on over to Ravelry and search for sweaters that would work well with that yarn, I decided to make up my own sweater. I've only knit two sweaters, one of which I probably have to frog because it completely doesn't fit right, and I've never written a pattern for anything before. Really, what can go wrong?

Anyhow, I spent the evening working on my Dane Shawl. I'd really like to get this done well before Christmas because last minute gift knitting sucks. It's gotten a lot bigger, yay!


It's coming out smaller than the pattern suggests it should, so I'm putting in an extra pattern repeat. I'm nearly done with that, then just have to do the edging. It still seems rather small, and I have a surprisingly large amount of yarn left over, so I'm pretty much just crossing my fingers and hoping that it grows a lot when I block the everloving fuck out of it. We'll see.

I also really need to knit up J-L's hat. I've had the yarn for it for quite some time now, and he's coming up to visit the second weekend of November. It's bulky yarn, so it should go fast. Fingers crossed on that.

Then, yes THEN, I will start my sweater. Um. Yes. I suck. I know.

ah, November...

November is an exciting month for me. The weather's just starting to turn, Thanksgiving's fast approaching and we all know that Christmas and New Year's Eve are right behind it. November has always been the Thursday of fall -- you're past the halfway point and it's almost the weekend! I love it.

A couple of very exciting things also take place in November: NaNoWriMo, and NaKniSweMo.

I had all of October to prepare for this, but on the few occasions I actually thought about it in more than just passing, I was sidetracked by a glorious mental picture of me sitting down on November 30th, putting the last touches on my shiny new novel while wearing my pretty new sweater. Hopelessly unrealistic, yes, I know.

Now it's November 1st and I've actually sat down and thought about it in more than just passing, and I've faced the harsh reality that there's no way in hell I'm going to be able to do both. And thus I have a choice. Knit a sweater, or write a novel? Both appeal equally much to me, and I have done an equal lack of planning for both of them. I fretted for a while, then it hit me that no matter which I chose, I'm probably not going to finish it by November 30th. That took some of the pressure off, but didn't make it any easier to choose.

My darling husband actually made the choice easy for me. While I was wibbling and waffling back and forth about it, he said to me, "Whichever one you do, you're not going to finish it in a month." (yes, he knows me so well!) "...so you should knit the sweater. See, if you do the book, you're going to have a half-finished book that you'll probably never look at again. But if you do the sweater, you're going to have a half-finished sweater that you're going to want to wear, and it may take you until February, but you'll probably end up finishing it."

In the face of such logic, I chose to do NaKniSweMo. Clearly.

Oy, I really need to be better about posting in this thing.

I haven't really been doing anything. WWM09 worked out a lot better than I thought it would. I only cast on one new project in the entire month of July, go me! Finished my River Tam vest, though it still needs blocking and to have the ends woven in. Not much other progress to report.

Started on my Starry Night Kerchief, which I'm in love with. Yards and yards of deliciously mindless garter stitch. Mmmm, mindless. Also going to start a cropped sweater, once I make gauge for it. Yes, my other Sesame Sweater is still in pieces. No, I'm probably not going to be motivated to actually finish it until it gets cool enough to wear it.

Woo.

WIP Wrestle Mania!!

So I'm jumping in on the WIP Wrestle Mania event on Ravelry. It might be nice to have some motivation to finish up old projects that have been lying around unfinished for waaaay too long. God knows I need it. And since this is only for the month of July, maybe I'll actually finish it! Unlike the ill-fated knitalongs I've tried to do.

Anyhow, I rounded up all my old WIPs and entered them into random.org, and the list they came up with is this:

1. binary scarf
2. ocean waves afghan
   
3. simple socks
   
4. beholder
5. granny afghan
6. river tam vest
7. salto socks
8. crochet tank
9. stripey sweater

Obviously, there will be some small amount of fudging this list. I need a big project for home, and a small project for when I'm out and about. So, the scarf and wavy afghan will be my home projects, and I'll just work my way down the rest of the list, starting with 3 and skipping 5 of course. Probably won't finish the afghan, if I even get to it at all. I've done another few rounds of the binary scarf, and all it's done so far is remind me just how much I hate colorwork. Ugh. I remember why I stopped working on it in the first place. But once I got it out again, I saw the way Jason was looking at it so I'll be [hopefully] finishing it before next winter. Fingers crossed on that one!

It's a good thing the River Tam vest has fallen somewhere toward the end of the list. I was working on that, and then realized last night that I've completely neglected to start the armhole shaping. My complete and utter lack of reading comprehension strikes again. So I've ripped out several rounds, and it's in time out until I get around to working on it again.

On a less-whiny note, I'm also participating in my very first swap ever, which I am super excited about. I had the day off work, so I did all my shopping for it while I was running errands today. Then I knit up something small but very awesome for the box. It needs a teeny bit of finishing, but then everything will be all ready to go. I'm fairly sure all the post offices will be closed tomorrow, so I'm aiming to get it sent out early next week. I technically have until the 17th to get it mailed, and it's quite a change to have something finished so far in advance of the deadline. Usually I'm rushing around at the last minute, scrambling to get everything all wrapped up. It's nice. I might have to try it more often. :)

It's been a little quieter lately, now that I'm mostly unpacked. I've actually had time for some amount of knitting recently. Still not nearly as much as I'd like, but more than I'd previously been doing in the midst of crazy packing/moving/unpacking craziness. Glad to be done with that! Also, kittens make knitting a study in patience. Woo.

It's late. I suspect I'm babbling. Should go to bed. Happy 4th of July, all!!

someone kick me out of this slump?

Please? Someone? Anyone?

I don't know what's wrong with me lately, but I've been in kind of a funk , as you may or may not have noticed since I fell off the face of the world internet recently. I wish I could report that I finished my hat, my socks, all six pairs of mittens I queued up, and the Stupid Striped Sweater of Intimidation, as well as saved the city from aliens and developed a cure for the common cold.

But alas, I have not done any of those things. In fact, let's just take a look at all the things I haven't been doing:

• - I have not finished my January KAL socks.
• - I have not cast on for my February KAL socks.
  
• - I have not finished my goofy orange hat.
• - I have not cast on for my Stupid Striped Sweater of Intimidation. Really, the name says it all there...
• - I have not been blogging. (obviously)
• - I have also not been doing most of the other things I normally can be found doing, including but not limited to: reading, writing, laundry, saving the city from aliens, etc.

I jest, I jest. But only that last bit. In fact, the only thing I've been doing recently is poking around Ravelry and queuing patterns like I have until tomorrow to list everything I'll knit in the next five years. In one night alone, I queued 13 different patterns for socks. Thirteen. I don't knit socks that fast. I'll probably never knit anything that fast. Thirteen different sock patterns, and that doesn't even touch all the other sock patterns I've already queued. I'm starting to think I've got some sort of problem. I wonder if there's some sort of help group for this sort of behavior...

And so this post isn't completely boring and whiny, here's a picture of my pink lace socks. Or, rather, my one pink lace sock that I completed over a week and a half ago. The second is languishing in my WIP basket, waiting to have its gusset stitches picked up. Which I've been procrastinating on because I can say with relative certainty that picking up gusset stitches is my least favorite activity, like, ever.




Not bad, eh? Now if I could just be arsed to finished its mate... ::sigh::

socks, hats and mittens

So, my knitting is coming along. My pink lace socks are farther along, and I'm sure they'd be even farther along still if I'd worked on them at all since last Friday... I'm just past picking up the gusset stitches. The instructions at that point of the pattern didn't make much sense to me (possibly because I barely skimmed the pattern, went "that's not usually how I do gussets!" and then went along on my merry way doing the gussets as I've always done them.) I re-read the instructions after doing them my own way, and still don't quite get it. Something about k2tog in a place I don't recall ever knitting 2 together before...

Anyhow, socks!



Not a terribly good picture of the yarn, I'm afraid. It comes out looking far too orange-y. It's a really pretty pink in real life, and one day I swear I'm going to take a picture of this thing in natural sunlight. Although that might take a while because, oh yeah, I live in Pittsburgh, where the sun apparently abandons us every winter.

Anyhow. I'm probably not going to finish these socks by the end of January like a good little KAL participant would. And that's because I'm a horrible procrastinating project tramp. But oh, I have justifications. And don't I always?

The reason I haven't touched the socks is because I was being responsible. Yes, I know. Me. Responsible. Ha. But I really was! See, Sunday was the Steelers game that determined whether or not they'd be playing in the Superbowl. (and they are hurrah go Steelers!! ahem...) For this game, the FH and I decided to go enjoy it at a local sports bar. Unable to be parted from my knitting for even a few hours, I had to take a project. Now, since I'd planned on having a few beers and have learned from my past drinking-and-knitting experiences, I wanted something simple to work on. And honestly, who wants to be caught knitting pink lace socks at a sports bar?? Nope, knitting a goofy bright-orange hat is faaaaar better. *eye-roll*



(yeah, I was real productive knitting-wise during that game, wasn't I...)

Yep, that's my skein of Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted in Orange Creamsicle that I bought several months ago because I liked the color but had no idea what to do with it but that's okay because now I do and I really like the pretty things the colors are doing! Except, dirty dirty knitting tramp that I am, I now have no interest in my pink lace socks, and instead am itching to knit this hat. I'm on such a hat-making binge right now. It's kind of silly, but there we are. My addictive personality strikes again.

For whatever reason, in addition to hats, I also want to knit mittens. Why? I have no idea. I've never knit mittens before. Hell, I don't even ever wear mittens, and have previously had no desire to wear mittens. Yet I want to make mittens now. I went so far as to poke around Ravelry and queue half a dozen mitten patterns, most of which I'll never get around to making. Mittens mittens mittens. It's fun to say, but that still doesn't explain my obsession with the darned things. I'm probably going to make a pair out of one of the many skeins of yarn I've got lying about. Possibly the skeins of Bernat Berella 4 Ombrees in Terra Cotta Mist I've got. And then hopefully I'll lose interest in them entirely.

And speaking of yarn, I picked up another couple skeins when I was at Michael's the other day. Guess what I'm gonna make with it!



Go on, guess!! I'll give ya'll a hint: it's gonna be cunning!

I'm intimidated by my unknit sweater

There. I said it. I admit it. The damned thing intimidates me.

I've had the yarn for my Sesame sweater for nearly four months now, and not done anything with it. I swatched in October. I swatched again earlier this week. And not just my usual half-assed version of swatching, in which I knit a few rows, get tired of knitting it, measure, come up wrong, and go "eh, it's close enough." Oh no. I actually swatched like They say you should swatch. I knit up my little 4"x4" square, complete with a few stitches of garter stitch on each side, and a few rows of garter stitch on the top and bottom so it'll lay flat. Then I measured. Then I washed the swatch. Then I dried the swatch. Then I measured the swatch. Then I measured the swatch again. And I came up spot-on.

I have my needles.
I have my yarn.
I have my pattern.
I have my cute little square that tells me I'm good to go!

Yet I haven't cast on for this thing yet. I'm coming up with all sorts of reasons for it, too.

"I need to finish this hat because it's on a deadline." Technically true. But I don't have to have it done for another two weeks. And when have I ever finished something early when I could drive myself mad knitting it the night before?

"I have so many unfinished projects. I should finish some of them before I start another." Ha. I can hear some of you giggling from here.

"But I've got the project for my KAL!" This is how we can tell it's getting bad. I found a pair-of-socks-a-month knitalong that I joined. The last one of these I joined, I didn't even make it through the first month. I'm sure this won't be any different, but it's a little worrying that I'm seriously trying to use it as an excuse.

Really, I just need to man up and start the darned thing. I've looked over the instructions, and they seem very step-by-step and clearly written out. The toughest thing about this is probably the seaming, and I won't have to worry about that til the end. So why have I not started it yet? I don't know. Best I can think of is I'm intimidated by it. I've built up the idea of knitting a sweater so much that I don't want to do it.

This is ridiculous. My first knitted project was a pair of socks. "Start with a scarf!" I was told. "But I don't want to knit a scarf, I want to knit socks!" I said. "But socks are hard," I was told. "I don't care, I'm going to knit them."

And that's how I've always done things - by being too stupid to realize that I can't.

So, I really have no excuse. I need to just jump in. I need to stop being a wuss and just knit it. .....after I finish my hat.....