Successes & Setbacks

Look how cute it turned out with all the finishing touches!!



I'm very pleased. The recipient liked it very much.

Here is the hat that went with the gloves I posted previously, finally photographed:



The imperial armwarmers are finished and gifted. That means I am done with all the things I promised to do for other people! I feel very relieved - I will be careful not to promise so much in the future. I will still give stuff away regularly and make notes of things people say they would like to have, but I won't tell them until it's done.

I am currently working on the Beginner's Triangle from a Gathering of Lace, but I don't have a picture of it yet. It's working well, but I discovered after several pattern repeats that I have been doing yarnovers wrong this whole time. Once I started doing them right my lace looked much more open, and I had a much easier time overall. The way I was doing them before caused the yarnovers to be backwards, and made the next row a real pain to knit because of the way they pulled the stitches. I had to start over twice after one or two pattern repeats because I just kept getting confused and losing count and a million other things. Now that I am doing yarnovers correctly and using stitch counters and a lifeline, things are going much more smoothly. The yarn is Fleece Artist Suri Blue, and it is very sticky, so unknitting can be a bit of a challenge - and I am doing a lot of unknitting. It seems like I can't make it more than a row or two without getting messed up and having to back up and redo it. The thing would be twice as large if I did not keep having to stop and backup. But, this is part of the process of learning, and I am trying to take it in good humor. At least now I am able to recognize mistakes sooner and figure out what I probably did, and back up and fix it, rather than just wailing and weeping and ripping. I think I will improve with practice, and I am still really enjoying the piece despite the frustrations. However, last night when I crawled onto the bed I landed my knee right on my Knit Picks Harmony needle and snapped it in two. I've ordered a replacement pair, but work is stalled until it comes.

I had a mishap with the second skein of Starry Night yarn for my socks. I did something really stupid and ended up with a horrible tangled mess that took me a couple of hours to fix. I did eventually fix it, and rewound the skein, but the yarn is looking a little worse for wear.

This weekend I knitted a pair of wristwarmers which are intended for hospital patients that one of my church friends serves. That was a quick, easy project from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts, and it only took one skein of KnitPicks Swish Superwash.

I have also joined Socks for Soldiers, and my sock kit came in the mail this week, so starting those Big Black Socks is on my radar.

I can't decide what else to start on - the lace is great for a big complicated project, the socks (both black and otherwise) are great portable knitting, but I need a project sort of in between those levels of difficulty. Time to browse my ravelry queue!

UnRavelled

I spent Saturday obsessively checking my e-mail for a Ravelry invite (while knitting on my sock, of course). It finally showed up at around 2 and now I am ON as Craftninja!

First, knitting progress:

--I had a fight with the urban necessity glove, pulled back some stuff, and generally got frustrated. I have not touched it in several days, which I feel very guilty about since one concentrated session could probably finish it. Well, maybe two. :oP
--I have turned the heel and completed the gusset increase on my second garter rib sock. I feel accomplished, even though the foot stretches before me. Fortunately, my feet are small.
--I can't figure out what I did with the cape I was knitting. It is not in my project bag and I could not find it in the stash. I am a little puzzled. Needless to say, I have not worked on it.
--No progress on the Patons Shawl or the Witterings Hat. I have listed these in ravelry as "hibernating."
--Chocolate Waffle Scarf is cruising along. This has become my designated 'around town' project that I can knit when my eyes and mind must be busy with something else. It's about a foot long at this point - not lightening progress, but not bad.

I feel pressured to get some of these things off the needles because there are so many other things I want to work on. Being on Ravelry is definately inspiring - I wouldn't have given this
a second look if I had not seen pictures of it on Ravelry (actualy, I saw pictures for the Rogue design, but this seems like something I am much more likely to actually wear and it has the pretty cables that I loved so much on Rogue). I'm thinking about doing it in KnitPicks Wool of the Andes in Lake Ice Heather. I can see from the Ravelry pictures that the cables show up much better in lighter colors. I would like to look at and feel the yarn first, though, so I may order a ball and see if I like it. The only thing I worry a little bit about is what pants I could wear with that color; I'm sure it would look fine with jeans, and I guess that would be okay as it would likely be too warm to wear in the office.

I ordered a bunch of single balls of Swish Superwash a while back thinking I would use them for charity projects. I don't know what I was thinking as one ball is not really enough to make much of anything! However, I did find a pattern on Ravelry (is there nothing this site can not do?) that I think will work swimmingly - the Hand/Wrist Warmers from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts. And I already have that book! On the page for a particular yarn you can click to see what people are knitting with that yarn, and I clicked through pages and pages of projects for ideas. I think these will be great for hospital patients. It is always freezing in hospitals. One of the ladies in my church is a nurse (well, many of the ladies in my church are nurses) and she provides items to patients in the cancer wards, so I think this would be really great. I will also make some hats for variety.

I was also able to see finished versions of the patterns in Sensational Knitted Socks, which is really great because everything looks different on a foot than it does in a little square picture in a book. I have favorited a number of patterns that I tripped over while browsing. I am favoriting anything I like enough to think I will want to knit it at some time, but only adding things to my queue that I have definate plans for. I'm having so much fun.

Knitter's Block

I'm stuck and frustrated. Not on any particular project - on ALL of them, it seems like.

1. Pedicure socks - I am going to run out of yarn. I have resigned myself to this fact, and ordered another skein, fully aware that it probably won't be the same dyelot. I don't care. They're pedicure socks. They're a treat, and something I'm doing more for fun than because it will be useful. However, this means I will have to frog the heel for the second time. The first time I messed up and lost my place, and decided it would be less confusing just to rip it back and start over. The second time I am doing it because I had stopped the leg part at three inches instead of five, because I was afraid of running out of yarn. Now that I know there is no way I will get two socks out of the one skein, I can do it right. So, rather than have a pair that are two inches shorter than ideal and have a bunch of leftover yarn, I'm frogging the heel. I have accepted it, I tell myself I am okay with it...but I am not in a hurry to DO it.

2. Homespun Cape. I'm just frustrated at my inability to count on this one. It hasn't really done anything wrong, other than shed all over me. The shedding does bother me, though, and it's really quite warm out. My room is roasting in the evenings despite the fan running full blast. I can't handle sheddy alpaca until it cools off some.

3. Witterings Hat. It hurts my hands. :oP And I just don't have a fire under me for this project at the moment, for some reason. But mostly it's the hand hurting. I can't work on this every day for a week without having a claw on the end of my right arm at the end of it all.

3. Charity hat. Acrylic.

4. In my infinite brilliance I picked up a couple of skeins of Lionbrand Homespun thinking I would make a quick scarf for charity. I loathe it with the fire of a thousand suns. Considering just calling it a loss and putting all my acrylic in the church garage sale. I was okay before I knew what I was doing. Now I can't stand it anymore. Arylic, thou art dead to me.

Still waiting on measurements for Urban Necessity; she mailed them to me yesterday so hopefully I should get it in the next couple of days. Maybe this will bring meaning to my life again, I don't know.

I also have new yarn arriving...of course when I went to order more of the Paris Rain, I couldn't just do that. I ordered enough Snowscapes to make my mom a pair of pedicure socks to go in her Christmas stocking, and some Lorna's Laces to try out.

I really want to try making a real sock, but the math is kind of scary for me. What if they don't fit? What if they shrink? And most of all...I don't WANNA knit a guage swatch. Do I HAVE to?? (Yes, yes, I know...the answer is without question a yes...but I still don't wanna.)

I may end up getting Getting Started Knitting Socks. I've heard it's good from multiple sources now...I wonder if the B&N down the street has it?