Facing the music

I have avoided blogging because I have not bothered to upload any of the pictures that I took, and I am ashamed. I know that text-only blogging is really boring for craft blogs. I guess I am just lazy, and I need to buckle down and put down the knitting long enough to get the pictures uploaded.

BUT for today, we will just have to muddle through.

This weekend was extremely productive. I finished the Paris Rain pedicure socks, and sock #2 went very quickly with no problems at all. Sock #1 still looks droopy and pathetic...I am hoping that it is just stretched out from all the reknitting and that if I wash it it will pull itself together. The two socks look pretty different in color too since the skeins were from different dye lots. The color itself is not that different, although the dark colors are a little deeper and more jewel-like on Sock #2. The real difference is in the width of the stripes. Sock #2 is much more heavily striped that Sock #1. I actually like Sock #2 much better than Sock #1, but don't tell #1 that. It might sulk even more and then I will never get it back into shape.

I also worked on the charity scarf that I have begun calling my chocolate waffle scarf. I cast on kind of an arbitrary number of stitches and have been working it in seed stitch, alternating short stripes of Nutmeg with wider stripes of Truffle, and it really looks like those ego waffles that are half chocolate. Working on it makes me hungry. Anyway, some friends and I went to Starbucks to hang out and chat and I worked on it the whole time we were there, so that was pretty good.

Lastly, Sunday night I cast on for the Urban Necessity tam...but about half an inch into it, I wasn't satisfied with my stitches. Ladders everywhere! Finally it hit me - I had picked up my KnitPicks Option needle without even thinking about it...and the shortest "Option" is 24"! I grabbed the pattern and sure enough...I was supposed to be working on a 16"!

I hemmed and hawed and tried to decide whether the problem was due to my very large cast-on (rather than get a size larger needle, I just held my two needles together and cast on over both, because I really wanted a loose cast-on...and I was too lazy to find the size 8). I really didn't know what to do. I tried to tell myself it would be fine and to keep working...but it wasn't fine and I didn't like it. Last night I got out my 20" Addi Turbo (the pattern calls for a 16" but I am knitting one of the larger sizes so I decided on the 20" instead) and cast on (again, over 2 needles, being too lazy to find the size 8) from a second skein of yarn, knit for a while and compared the two. The one on the 20" does look much better, except at the bottom, where the wide cast-on DOES stretch the stitches. I have decided I can live with this, since my cast-ons are often much too tight. I'd rather have it loose so it does not impede actual wearing of the hat.

One thing I didn't work on is the cape for me. It doesn't require a whole lot of concentration, but it does require some, and the weather is cooling significantly. I'd really like to get this one done.

I added a few projects to my 'future' queue...at my tabletop gaming group on Friday, a couple of the younger players requested knit items, and I happily agreed. This was probably not wise, but then, if I were wise, I would not have failed to check the needle length I needed for the tam. :oP

So many projects I want to do, and so little time. I am now dying to knit the Moonlight Sonata Shawl - I'm thinking in Kidsilk Haze in Nightly. I just think the halo would add a nice touch of romance to an already romantic shawl. At least, I think it is romantic. I am easily sucked in by pretty names.