A Little Yarn On The Side

Here it is: Finished WIP #12! The pattern is called Ruched Magic and it's from this magazine: which is Knitter's fall 2002. I'd link to it on Ravelry, but it isn't currently on Ravelry. Ah--there is just something psychological about having finished one dozen projects without casting on anything new. Wait, or was that psychotic? Anyway--that currently leaves 15 WIPs left to go! I'm off to find Theo so we can wash & block the sweater. On to number 13! Blouse? What blouse??

Getting past WIP number 10 has been a lot like losing that last 5 pounds (except that those five pounds are still with me). By the third attempt Theo could no longer stand to watch but after much frogging, a little yarn stretching, and finally having to leave off the overlapping part of the band, the chemo cap is done: It's actually a pretty cute hat, but I'm not even slightly tempted to keep it. For one, it was a pain to make and I'd like to not have it around as a reminder. For another, I have a longish-type face, and I don't look good in hats without brims. In fact, this one makes me look like a pencil. So, it will be donated to a cancer hospital. WIP number 12 is getting close. I found the front, finished one side, and have started on the other. It's sort of a race now to see if I can hold out long enough to finish anything beyond this one before the starteritis bug gets me. I'm hoping for 14, but I could live with 12. Heck, finishing 2 WIPs in a row...

So....last night when I was about halfway through the edging on the hat, it became quite obvious that I was going to run out of yarn. I ripped back, then thought I would just do a normal K1P1 ribbing rather than an edging so I could just stop wherever I wanted, but by the third round it became obvious that I had far too many stitches to create anything even resembling a hat ribbing. So, I ripped back again, then ripped back a few extra rows for more yarn, then started the edging again--this time using one less stitch. Which brings me to here: which is about where I was last night. Sigh...... Since all existing projects were basically thumping me, I moved on to an idea for an upcoming birthday gift--copying from a similar project I ran across in a book. I cut 3 circles of about 4.5 inches in diameter (turns out a vase downstairs makes a perfect template), then putting the right sides of two together, did small seams of about 3/4 of an inch (turns out it will need to be about 1/2...

She who is foolish enough to brag about a project being done the following day will spend the night ripping back because she is running out of yarn.

...not right now, of course, but maybe tomorrow!!!! Still reeling from the ignominy of getting my crafting arse kicked by the blouse-that-shall-not-be-named, I am going for the last easy one--the chemo cap . I'm down to just the edging and it's moving fast. Could I finally get past the "10" rut I seem to have landed in? And will I, in sheer frustration, finally send the fussy blouse through the food processor? Tune in tomorrow for As The Needles Churn.......

OK, I admit it, the blouse is kicking my a**. It has 2 pages of instructions aside from being a silky-slidy material that I must have been out of my mind to select. Today it has driven me to the lowest depths...... I cleaned. Not just any cleaning even--bathroom cleaning. Now there are some bad projects, but when you would honestly prefer to scrub toilets than work on the project, that's a whole new level of "bad." Battered and beaten by a yard and a half of polyester, I needed stockinette stitch, so I dug out this which I'm not sure has even been granted photo space on the blog before. It's a chemo cap made from Elann Esprit, which I started at least two years ago. The yarn is elastic & stretchy and a nightmare to work with until I sort of got the hang of it. It's based on Elizabeth Zimmermann's Pi Shawl, and I'm just a few rows short of the sides. When the stretchiness of the yarn got to me, I switched to Fleur, and have started sewing on...

I have still been on a sewing rampage--it's just taken me a little while to be able to talk about it. First, let it be known that I love microsuede. I love wearing it, touching it, buying it (unfortunately)--love, love, LOVE it. It is, however, the very devil to sew with. This is microsuede. The pattern calls for a zipper. People brighter than I would stop right there saying "No, that's a bad combination." I, of course, plunged right ahead. 2 hours later--most of it filled with the sort of foul language that even makes the movie industry raise their collective eyebrows--and the dress has a working zipper. The seams are by no means perfect, the material doesn't exactly cover the entire zipper, and it doesn't look great, but I do think the odds of the zipper spontaneously falling off the dress are pretty low, so it is now in the washing machine for the final run-through. Not having learned a darn thing, I decided that it would be a good idea to attempt so...