A Little Yarn On The Side

Two days ago, I was bored with knitting. Not knitting itself--just everything I was knitting. The lace scarf was disappointing, the Warm Up America blocks were boring AND not using up stash, the January Aran was scaring me with its threat of steeks, and I had restarted the Kauni cardigan for the fourth time using the alternating colors on every-other row and while it wasn't rolling I just wasn't crazy about the way it was looking I was SOOOOO close to ripping it back...but then I discovered that what I had initially read as 3 inches of ribbing was only 3 centimenters, and after ripping back about 6 rows I decided to plunge ahead. There are a lot of steps between bored & obsessed, and other knitters might be able to visit them. I, on the other hand.... Did you notice the lack of content on yesterday's post? That's because I can't type while knitting. I am OBSESSED with this sweater. I LOVE IT!!! If the wool weren't so darn scratchy I would sleep wit...

....wanted to cast on something new and been unable to decide what to cast on? Today I have that New Project urge, and yet none of the yarn is really calling to me, and I'm not lusting after any particular pattern. I can't even narrow it down to sweater, scarf, lace, stockinette, simple, challenging--nothing. Just NEW. I suspect it's because the January Aran--which I have been loving ever since I figured out the twisted stitch pattern--is creeping closer and closer to THE DECIDING MOMENT. When I brace myself and cut those darn steeks....or decide that I am too much of a coward to go anywhere near my knitting with sharp scissors and doom it forever to the Bin of Shame. I finished the first sleeve today, so that only leaves the second sleeve between me and The Steeks! Are there support groups for this????

The Kauni cardigan and me....well, and Theo.......we're trying it AGAIN. My last attempt looked okay color-wise, but the ribbing was rolling, so this time I'm striping only on every-other row of the ribbing. No idea yet if that will still look striped or if it will stop the ribbing, but I did learn a couple things yesterday: 1. Unless you rip back both yarns simultaneously, the alternate stripes function as double knitting and it can be really hard to figure out what row either one of the colors is on. 2. This might increase frustration, and when one is frogging and realizes that one will have to rip everything out and start over, one might get annoyed enough to pull a little too hard, thus breaking the yarn. Thank heavens I have other, better behaved knitting projects. The scarf is zipping along And the first sleeve for the January Aran is almost done! Theo was obviously enjoying playing "Vanna" this morning. You can see the fur on his leg still hasn't compl...

It's a new month and time for the Project of the Month bag! To be honest, when I bagged these up in December, I thought it would be impossible for me not to remember exactly what was in each bag. Apparently, this is not my problem since when I opened this bag, it took me a little while to figure out what it was I was actually supposed to make this month. Not that all the red & white candy decorations aren't cute, but the addition of the green felt sort of tipped me off that maybe I was thinking of something different. It finally hit me--Christmas wine bags! I really think that's what I had in mind that whopping two months ago. At this rate, I might be able to throw surprise parties for myself in a few years.... And, it isn't looking good for the lace scarf. Lining it up next to the picture of what it was supposed to look like has made me lose all interest in it. Throw in the fact that it's fussy lace that is patterned on ALL rows, and......I think there...

Some people are "process" knitters--they knit for the love of knitting and care very little about whether or not anything actually gets finished. Others are "product" knitters--they're in it for the sweater. I am a much lesser-known breed of knitter. I'm an "obsessed-with-the-little-tally-on-the-right-of-her-blog" sort of knitter. So, in a shameless push to have a big yardage total for February, there was no post yesterday while I worked on The ribbing looks a bit long right now, but this is about the length of ribbing I normally use for a sweater, so I'm sure it will be fine. I used the same K1, P2 ribbing that I used for the bottom of the sweater. It's nice--the extra purl stitch really makes the knit rib stand out. And that one last skein brings me to 3498 yards for the year so far. Still less than where I would like to be, but not bad. Also in a desperate grab for yardage--and to at least get Andy's Valentine's PJs done ...

While I haven't actually cast on the fabulous sock yarn I haven't actually put it away, either. And there was some browsing of sock patterns on Ravelry.... BUT, today the January Aran (from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac , though if she actually knit the whole thing in one month I would be shocked/impressed/jealous because she was obviously able to knit in her sleep). Sometimes our simplest decisions turn out to be real doozies, and mine was to decide that I didn't like the neckline of EZ's patterns, so I decided to give mine more of a scooped neck. A smarter person might have rethought that decision when she realized that, the center not being at the beginning of a round but a full stitch pattern in, one of the "fishtrap" pattern rows would henceforth need to be knitted from the PURL side once the center stitches were cast off and the knitting switched to back & forth from circular knitting. Of course NOW I also realize what EZ was t...