A new cycle begins

Happy 2008! I took a break for the holiday, but here I am with a new revelation. Well, not so much new, as a new found willing to confess.

I am a serial starter.

I have this bad habit of starting projects with gusto, knitting like mad for the first 1/4 to 1/2 of the project, getting bored and moving on to something else which also is unlikely to get completed in a timely fashion. Unless the project can be completed in less than a weekend or is destined for someone else, I completely incapable of finishing a full project.

I always knew I was bad at finish but dude! Ravlery revels all! I was looking at my projects list and wow, that was a lot wip's for one knitter to have started in only a few months. There's the vintage-y long gloves (only one is finished), fetching (one cuff finished), the giant brown scarf (only 10" long), Tropicana socks (stalled at the first heel), the plain ol' socks (4" of the first cuff), Wisp (half done and in less than a week! And, I am still interested. I might finish this is a timely fashion), the stash-busting cropped cardigan ( 2" of the back) and the latest edition, a Clapotis so I can be just like every other knitter on the planet. That's a grand total of 8 new projects started in the past 3 months and none of them are close to being done, and half of which are not being actively knit on, AKA hibernating. Yeah, I'm bad.

Yeah, so new resolution, finish projects before starting a new one and no more than 5 wip's at a time. Seems reasonable right?

Pfft, who am I kidding.

Scatterbrain

Finished school on Friday. Commenced knitting on Saturday. Since then I have knit 3 inches on MY sock (that's right MY sock, so far 3 people have asked for them but not this time! I want a pair of socks damn it!), finished one Christmas present, got three quarters of another one done, and bought the yarn for the last one (last yarn purchase until most of the stash is gone). But aye, there's the rub, I have lost my set of 16" 4.5mm circs. Again. This will make the third pair I have lost or broken in the past year. Quite a feat don't you think? Luckily I only need them for the ribbing at the bottom, and I have 8 DPNs in that size so I'm OK but I'm still pissed. They are my favourite size so of course I will go right out any buy a new pair but I don't wanna! Gah. I'm going to Buffalo next month, so I think I'll pick up a pair of Susan Bates circs in that size. Maybe if they are coloured something other than grey, I won't lose them as easily.


So here are my projects for the week. Since I am a tight schedule and I am not the fastest knitter I chose pretty simple projects. Both are cabled hats in chunky weight yarn. I finish the Blue on in less than day. It's a pattern of my own creation. I didn't writei t down. but I am rather fond of it, so I think I will alter it and make another version, which I will write down and post. Its Lion Brand homespun in Delft and I will never use it again! Ever! seriously, I am throwing away the rest of the skein. It's squeaky, has absolutely no give, and its not terribly warm. Oh! Apparently the "painterly" colours have subtle stripes. I wish they had printed that on the bloody ball band! Gah. I used 6.5mm circs.

The green (unfinished one) is a Natty Hat from http://www.knitandtonic.typepad.com (link directly to the pattern is at the bottom) using Patons Rumor in "Fern Heather". As much as I hate homespun, that's how much I love rumor. I wish it came in more colours. It's lovely and soft and stretchy and warm. I adore it and want to have little alpaca babies with it. I used 5mm needles for the ribbing and 6.5mm for the rest.
















So there they are. I don't have a picture of the socks yet. Use your imagination. They are 4 inch's long right now at the cuff. I'm aiming for between 6 and 7 inches/ I want 'em semi-tall.

I'm off in search of my 4.5mm circs. I hate doing ribbing with DPNs....

Natty: http://www.knitandtonic.typepad.com/NattyRev.pdf
I haven't made a single mod (a first for me!!), excpet using smaller needles to get the right gauge and it's awesome. Its quickyl becoming one of my fave patterns.

New Goals

After being on Ravelry for a little over a month I have realized a few things.

1. I have too much yarn that I can't do anything with. Seriously, with the exception of sock yarn, 90% of my stash is single balls which means I can make a lot of hats and not much else.

2. My Queue is substantial, and I will probably get distracted before I start, let alone finish, most of the project on there but I want every single item damnit!

3. I need to finish what I start. I have many WIPs that I really should finish, if for no other reason than to free up the needles so I can work on make those hats-a-plenty.

That said I am starting my new years resolution early (because I never keep the ones I start in January anyway). So here are the commandments of my destashing

First commandments: I am to buy no more yarn until I have used up my current stash. This isn't as big a deal as I think it is. Most of my stash fits in a medium sized wicker laundry basket, and several balls are chunky weight and clearly sock yarn doesn't count. Duh, I will never look at my sock yarn and think "wow, I have too much sock yarn. I should get rid of some." No, I am more likely to look at is and think of all the wonderfully beautiful socks I will one day develop the patience and attention to detail to knit. If sock yarn goes on sale, I am permitted to buy it and welcome it lovingly in to the fold. The same goes for Diamond Tempo, my favourite yarn of all time. In fact if it goes on sale, I have given myself permission to buy enough for a sweater, two hats, a scarf, two pairs of mittens and possibly an afghan.

Second commandment: I will cast on not a single new project until all the ones on my needles are done, except Donna's Christmas hat because I've already bought the yarn, swatched, and started the matching scarf. I consider them pieces of the same project, like socks lol.

Third commandment: When I completed all the WIPs I can start working on the stash. I will try and choose projects that challenge my patience and skills so I can be a better knitter. I will tacker on projects that require lace, complicated cable charts, miles of seed stitch (to test my patience), colour work. I will try new cast on and cast off techniques and try continental knitting though I suspect I will continue to hate it. If all else fails, I will make Rapunzel scarves and a giant ugly afghan just to get rid of the yarn! It must go and I am giving myself until my birthday to get rid of it.

Fourth Commandment: All new yarn bought after the destashing will be quality yarn that has more going for it than pretty colour and cheap price tag. Because wool bothers my skin during the winter (I am aware of the irony), synthetics ARE acceptable, but only quality ones, and preferably blended with something natural. Also, no more single balls will be bought for stashing purposes. I will buy enough to make at least a hat and mitt set. No more novelty yarn! Not a single ball! Yes its fuzzy, and I get a small amount of joy from playing with little fuzzy balls of yarn, I simply can't make anything but pygmy puffs out of them, and I already have a herd of them.

There, the four commandments. Of course all of this will have to wait cause I have a research project and take home exam due at the end of the week so no knitting for me. I do have one thing to show you though.

This is my first glove. It's all done now, I just haven't taken a picture of it. I even blocked it. Isn't is pretty? I'm calling it my vintage-y long woollen glove. Catchy isn't it? I'll work on its mate after I finish school work and Christmas knitting. I can hardly wait. I am 8 kinds of in love with the glove.

Failed Sock

It's close to 10pm, I have a final in 12 and a half hours and I have yet to read 4 articles or review my notes. Am I studying? Nope, I'm blogging about my failed sock. The sock in question is the lacy mock cable sock that I have been knitting for two weeks, though I've probably only put 6 or 7 hours worth of work in to it. It was a rather quick knit. None of that matters though because the sock was a failure, and not just a single failure. No there are three glaring problems with this sock. To be fair though, two of them are my own fault.

Problem the first:

This is why I should never be allowed to graft. The whole concept of grafting eludes me. Not for lack of trying. I usually try three times, get frustrated and just end up doing a three needle bind off. Crude but effective. This was a sock of triumph though and I was set on properly grafting the toe, as you can see, I failed miserably. I have a feeling I'm going to attempt grafting every sock I make for the next 3 years until one day I just magically clicks and I will spend the rest of my life wonder why the hell I had so much trouble getting it. Kind of like my first attempt at roller blading.

Problem the Second: It's too small. At least a whole inch too small for my foot. The solution to both is to undo the grafting, rip the toe, knit another inch of pattern, then d the toe over again. It sound simple, but I hate picking up live stitches and the pattern prevents a lifeline from being added. So I have to decide it its worth it which brings us to problem the third.

It makes my ankle look fat. See that foot over there, that's my foot and normal its a very cute foot with a very nice ankle. This sock makes me look like I have Cankle. Not a good quality in a sock that I planned on wearing with ballet flats and thus would be visible. Tis quite the dilemma. I need help deciding what to do. Maybe I'll attapt the cable/lace pattern to a hat or scarf.

Socks and Ravelry

Partner recived her package, so I can known tell you about the coolest socks I've made to date. They are heavily modified version of Simply Ginny socks, which I lost the link to. You can't really tell in the picture jus theres a massive 10 stitch cable that goes down the centre of the sock. I knit them with Patons Kroy 4ply in the Paintbox colourway. Thres a big story about why this pattern and why that colour. Lets jsut say the theme was Harry Potter and leave it at that. I also made a sweater shaped ipod cozy, a coffee cup sleeve and a no sew double sided fleece blanket.

For another swap, I made a pair of Fetching (knitty summer 06 I think). I am a huge huge huge fan of this pattern. I will be making many a more fetching in the future. starting with a pair of my very own.The only mod I made was doing a regular bind off because lets face it, I'm a lazy knitter and I can't be bothered to do a picot bind off. Beside, it doesn't really change the look, and the picot flares out and I don't like that. (Ignore my hair looking arm. It's the flash. My arm hair doesn't look nearly that bad in natural light.) I used Vanna's Choice from Lion Brand. It made a nice dense fabric, and its machine wash an dryable, which is important to me for swaps. I want to send my partners somethin easy to care for. I have been known to make exceptions though when the yarn is pretty enough lol.

New topic! Christmas knitting! I have making a hat for my friend, and a hat/scarf set for one of my sisters, and two presents to myself. An Alpaca scarf in a chocolatey brown to go with my snazzy new red coat, and a pair of socks. I deserve a pair for myself damnit! lol. I keep giving them away. I may actually gice these ones away too though. I think my mom would like them alot. so who knows.

I have afew other projects on the go too, but I'm heistant to share because at least of of them is a swap spoiler. And while my partner is actually the orginizer thus is very busy, she also sent my package yesterday meaning shes finished and unlikely to actually read my blog between now and then. If she is, Hi Cindy! lol

If you're desperate to stalk my knitting, you can cause I am on Ravelry now! I've been having uber fun. I have pictures of a few of my favourite completed projects, some of my stash (I can't find all of it to photograph it) and all my WIPs.

Find me here:

http://www.ravelry.com/people/Michela

Swap spoilers though! So beware! Don't look if you don't want to know!

I'm off now. today we are putting up the tree, doing some cookie baking and I have about 20 journal articles to reader before Friday for a final and I have to learn aobut socio-lingistics for Tuesday. Wish me luck!

Swaps are fun

I have actually been knitting like a fiend since my last post, but I can't tell you cause they've all been for swaps. Hopefully one of my partners will recieve this week so I can post the coolest swap project I've completed to date. The others you'll have to wait for cause the send outs aren't until the end of the month.

I can tell you that I've found a new pattern for the lorna's laces I bought on a whime this summer that I thought wanted to be jaywalkers socks, but they lied. Now they want to be Tropicana socks (I like magknits sock patterns, so sue me lol). I only have about 4 inches of the first ankle so far, but they look and feel lovely! I'll be bringing them in the car for the long trip to Buffalo next week so maybe I'll get to the heel! I jot of joys! The heae!

Stay Tuned!

I am officialy a sock knitter.

Look! I made some socks! Matching socks that are actually foot shaped! These pair are destined for Jenn's feet (She better realize she has the best sister in the whole world). And no, the one on the left isn't shorter than the one on the right, I was just to lazy to pull it up all the way.

The first sock was made in the 3 week period in June this year, and the second on was done between August and today. It didn't actually take me that long to make each sock (probably about 10 hours a pop) but I got distracted by other projects and I only knit the second sock on the commute to school.

Anyway, the technicals: I used two balls of Paton's Kroy Jacquards on size 2 DPNs using this pattern: http://www.patonsyarns.com/pattern.php?LGC=kroysocks&PHPSESSID=aba5f5a96176b1187569680ee01d6575 with a few minor changes.