RIP

I have decided to make a new section on my sidebar - the Project Graveyard. These are for projects that I have decided are doomed and I don't want to work on them any more. The first entry is the Love Heart slippers. The first one came out too big for me, and while I think I would have gamely carried on and finished the second one and given the finished project away - the yarn color I used is no longer available and I do not have enough yarn to make a second slipper.

I hope I will give this project another try sometime in the future. There is a smaller size in the book, and I do still like them. However, I will have to use different yarn. I'm not sure whether I will frog the existing slipper or just get rid of it altogether, but if this project is seen again, it will definately be a new entity and not a redo of what I've already done.

Fare thee well, not so little slipper. Fare thee well.

Afterthought: You know, that yarn was really hard on my fingers, and I do still have concerns over how comfortable that seam down the middle of the sole would have been. I think I will have to look at this one long and hard before I amke a decision to try it again.

The best laid plans...

Don't turn out the way my flaky plans do.

The love heart slippers may be the first project that I will actually have to give up on. After finishing the first slipper, I looked at the remains of the skein and concluded that I did not have enough for a second slipper. I didn't think about it for a while, but I needed some other stuff so I started to order a ball of it and lo...it is gone. Shine Sport is still there, but the color Cloud is not.

Now my lonely unseamed sock that is too big for me anyway will never fit.

I ask you, what's a knitter to do?

(I e-mailed knitpicks hoping I had made a mistake - we'll see what I hear)

Hail the conquering hero

I find it amusing that this week's KnitPicks podcast is all about finishing issues, and here I am gloating about my finished projects. Anyway, on Saturday I finished the third candy wrapper sachet, and what a relief that was. Sunday I finished the first love-heart slipper. Both of them still need the final assembly but the knitting itself is done.

Unfortunately, the slipper looks like it is going to be about two sizes too large. :oP I'm frustrated. I'll just give them away, but I really am vexed about this. And I'm afraid I'm going to have a hard time knitting slipper #2 knowing that they won't fit me. Also, I will have to buy another ball of yarn; I thought I could get through two slippers with just the one, but I was clearly deluded as there is nowhere near enough yarn left over.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do about this project. I may have to put it away for a while until the ARGH I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN feeling fades enough for me to take on slipper #2. :oP I'll have to find the Cinderella that fits this slipper - once I have a recipient in mind I'll probably be able to get up the motivation.

Anyway, so I'm now back to only two projects on the needles - Karen's hat and what I am now calling the No-Think Shawl.

Actually, that's not true - yesterday I decided that Sundays would, from now on, be my day for charity knitting, so I started a hat made from a skein of Lion Brand Wool-Ease I had bought in my flurry of excitement over learning to knit. I have, I think, two more skeins of that stuff in a couple different colors. After knitting with the nicer yarns I have been using, that stuff is torture to work with. -_- I got about an inch and a half into the hat before I gave in to temptation and picked up the slippers instead. So much for that resolution! :oP But I will finish that hat and I hope to keep knitting charity pieces regularly.

So, technically, that is three items on the needles with a fourth project scheduled to go on as soon as the yarn arrives. What can I say - it's a temporary victory. :oP

Love-heart Slippers

These are the slippers I'm working on: Love Heart Slippers

I didn't realize KnitPicks had a sample knit up (or that they were even selling the book the pattern comes from). It's odd though - the book says sport weight yarn, and they are pairing it with their fingering weight yarns. Wierd.

Also, the hot pink is not really the prettiest choice. The ones in the book are knitted in a much sweeter pale pink. The ones I'm working on are a lovely soft grey.

I finished the first half of the first slipper and started work on the second, so I'm encouraged. I just hope, hope, hope they fit. I am equally afraid of them ending up too big or too small. If they end up either it will be my guage at fault because the measurements in the book all work for my foot.

If they are too small, I will give them to my mom, but I have no idea what I will do if they are too big!

Itchy fingers

My order from KnitPicks was in West Virginia on Saturday so I am hoping it will show up today. I'm very excited. Probably more so than I should be, considering. I'm in love with the idea of knitting the cape I've mentioned, so it will be awesome to have the supplies to do that - but I am still working on the hat for Karen, and I'd kind of like to avoid starting too many things now that I have gotten back down to only two WIPs. At one point I had something like four or five on the needles at once, which starts to make me twitch. Two is a good number - one complicated (the hat), one mindless (the shawl). That way I have something interesting to knit at home and something that doesn't require too much attention that I can take with me when I go places. Also, the cape is really a fall/winter garment and I have been pretty constantly too hot for the past couple of weeks, so the idea of knitting something warm and thick is kind of...daunting is not the right word - I guess it's just not really appealing.

I did also order a ball of Shine Sport in Cloud to knit myself some cotton slippers. The hardwood floors are a little tough on my feet so I wanted something softer between me and them, but all the slippers I have are designed to keep your feet warm as well as cushioned, which I don't really need. I have a pattern for ballet slipper-style...uh, slippers. Shine is a cotton-modal blend (modal is made from fiber that comes from beech trees - I had to look it up) so it should be fairly cool and all the stuff I've read on various internet sites spoke highly of it as a textile. It's also machine washable, which, again, I do not ever intend to knit anything for the feet that is not machine washable. Because, you know, FEET. I am not going to hand wash anything designed to be walked on. Anyway, I'm hoping they will be fairly quick to knit, if I can just figure out the assembly part of it. I'm really a big fan of things that do not need to be sewn together, but these have to be seamed down the middle (or, actually, along the side, I think, but I'm not sure).

I was so mad at myself - I forgot to take the pedicure socks to church to give to DB this past weekend. :oP I will have to wrap them up in tissue paper tonight and put them in my church bag so this does not happen again.

I did make good progress on the hat for K. I made it through the last increase row for a while so the next 18 rows are just straight stockinette. I've gotten better about the increases, but they're still a little tough on my hands.

There's several finishing instructions for blocking the hat and adding a band inside, that I think I may leave to Karen because they are all specific to the size of one's head.

I am regretting my choice of color a little bit. I don't like the dark blue and light blue together as much as I thought I would. To me, it kind of looks like it used to be dark blue and white and then it bled in the wash. disagrees, but he usually does when I am unhappy with my work. Not that I don't believe him, I'm just saying. It's kind of in his best interests to say it looks okay. ;o) I think what I wish I had used was Burnt Sienna and Buttermilk. Also, I'm not as fond of the stripes themselves. I think I would have liked them thicker. So if I do this pattern again, I will do it in Burnt Sienna and Buttermilk with a strip pattern of 4 rounds instead of two. Live and learn. I'm not sure I ever will do this again because I have found it to be kind of difficult, but I don't know...it might go better the second round, and I can think of a couple of people who might have use for a hat like this. We'll see. Anyway, I still have a long way to go on what I have now, and summer will not last forever!!

I worked on the hat for all of my knitting time yesterday, even though I had originally intended to make some cat toys for fun. After church and lunch, I went to Michaels and the World Market (I was looking for Japanese tea bags I could use to put the scent in for the little candy wrapper sachets I plan to knit, and thought there was an off chance they might have some, but they didn't - I can probably try Wegmans), and then I went to Best Buy and picked up Die Hard and Die Hard III (they did not have 2 or the box set, which annoyed me, but I guess they are probably expecting a new box set to come out when Live Free or Die Hard is released on DVD; I know 2 kind of sucked, but I want it anyway), and Sense and Sensibility (what? it was on sale!), and then I went back to 's where he was indulging an urge to bake. So I knitted, watched movies, and ate cake and cookies fresh from the oven. It was a damn good day.