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!

Onward and upward

I finally finished the Urban Necessity gloves, shipped them off to RG, and she loves the set and says it fits. I am extremely pleased. I have plenty of leftover yarn, so I am thinking of making her a scarf for her birthday or Christmas. Later. I love purple but I am tired of looking on it.

In the meantime I have started the Imperial Armwarmers. There is something funky with the black yarn. It is stiff and rough-feeling. I don't know if the issue is in the dye or what, but I'm glad I had knit with another color first. The yarn is Swish Superwash and it was great with UN, wonderfully soft and cozy, but this skein just isn't working for me. Even the grey I am using for the two-color work has a distinct difference in feel.

The two-color work is kind of killing me. I am worried that the floats are keeping the yarn from stretching as much as it will need to to go around the recipient's upper arms. I had her try them on when I saw her this past Friday and she said it was fine, but I still worry. I am knitting as loosely as I can, but for me...that is not terribly loose.

I hope the yarn will use some of its wierd feel when it is washed. I have almost three weeks before I see this person again, so I hope the armwarmers will be finished and washed by then. If possible I'd even like to finish the gloves for the other friend I will see at the same time. We will see how this plan goes. After this I am totally off gloves for a while. I will stick with mittens and wristwarmers like sane knitters.

My chocolate waffle scarf is going slowly since it is kind of a last-resort project. I knit it when I need something utterly mindless. I am anxious to get all my gifts knitted off so I can relax and knit something really fun for me, all for me!