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Current Projects

I have been haphazardly working on various projects, and finishing none! It’s highly annoying. You would think that with the sheer amount of time I have on my hands I would be whipping out the finished objects like nobody’s business, but instead I’ve mostly been back and forth over the following projects:

Rainbow Over Lahaina

These are the Rainbow Over Lahaina socks from the Sock Club book. I like them a lot. They are pretty easy to memorize.

Then we have Jaywalkers:

Jaywalker

I’ve never knit Jaywalkers before, can you believe it? They’re kind of a classic. They’re being knit up in Knitpicks Felici, which I continue to enjoy working with (and good thing too, considering the sheer amount of it I have in my stash. Does one person need this many striped socks? Well, obviously.)

Then we have this Lacy Kerchief scarf (Rav link) that is going to take me for-effing-ever to finish because scarves are boring. This one is less boring, and I actually desire the finished product, so we’ll see how long it takes me. Not super long, I hope.

Lacy Kerchief Scarf

But I’m really like the garter stitch aspects of it. It’s still not quite reversible, but it’s an interesting knit, which is the important thing.

I also wanted to work on a sweater that’s not totally boring like the alpaca blob (but I will LOVE the alpaca blob when it’s done, hopefully by the end of the summer. I like the look of stockinette, I just hate knitting it when it’s not in the round). So one of the things I have been mulling over was making another Forecast. However, I already have one, and I do like the designer’s Bulky Cable Sweater as well. Though I don’t want a bulky sweater – I just want a regular worsted weight sweater. So I hybridized the two patterns and came up with this:

Red Sweater

It’s knit out of the Stitch Nation Bamboo Ewe in geranium (a tomato-y red) which I got on sale awhile back. It’s actually pretty nice and is half wool, half bamboo (well, rayon if you want to get technical). A little splitty but nothing my inexplicably sharp Susan Bates circulars can’t handle. Seriously, those things are sharper than the Addi lace circulars, which are pretty dang sharp. What gives, Susan Bates? Incidentally, I really like them. If you’re going to go cheap on your needles, go Susan Bates.

Anyway, I think that’s pretty much it around here on the knitting front. I’ve also been working on some jewelry but haven’t taken pictures of that yet.

I have to go to a meeting for the library gala thing I’m docenting at this weekend and then going to Jason’s after for dinner, so I probably won’t have a jewelry post until tomorrow. But hey at least this whole unemployment situation has gotten me to blog more, right? I’m having fun with it again at long last.

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Hey Look At That

I was whining yesterday on Twitter about being bored, so when my longtime pal Sam from New Zealand called me on it and instructed me to “knit something” I did what anyone else in my position would do:

I took a nap.

And then I finished a project that had been slightly languishing on the needles with only a few more rows to go.

I took this picture earlier this week.

Annis

I started this project about a week ago. It’s Annis from the new Knitty “surprises”. It’s an interesting shawl construction that has you knit the bottom edge and then using a series of short rows, much like the bottom of a sock heel, you shape the rest of the shawl. This causes it to curve and ultimately you have a shawl! I’d like to use the technique again with a different edging.

I soaked and blocked it last night:

Annis

And it was already dry this morning.

Annis

I used Knitpicks Gloss Lace in the (discontinued) Mermaid color. I still have quite a bit left of the skein and another whole skein, which can be used for another shawl of some sort. I’ve never used lace weight before and let me tell you: This shawl weighs approximately nothing. It’s fascinating.

So, yay, I finished something.  This year hasn’t been much in the way of FOs, though I did knit two sweaters, so that has surely got to count for something.

Also considering my current lack-of-employment I really don’t have much in the way of excuses at this point! Hah.

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17 Months

Berry Nice Socks

After a healthy 17 months on the needles, I finally finished ye olde Berry Nice Socks.

I used Knitpicks Felici in the Mixed Berries colorway on size US 1 DPNs. For my sizing, it was 80 stitches on US 1 needles with a 3×1 rib over the whole thing. Easy peasy but I guess I was bored by them. At any rate, they are finally done!

I like the yarn a lot, so the fact that these took so long is stupid.

Speaking of Felici, I cranked out a quickie stockinette scarf on the knitting machine on Friday.

Felici Scarf

It’s also out of Felici, and knit at a loose gauge. It’s an experiment that worked out all right, though I’m not in lurve with it or anything. I will have to tighten up the gauge a bit for future experiments.

But all things considered, I made a six foot scarf in a half hour, so whatever.  I blocked a little bit and it curls less.  I’ll probably block it a bit more another time to see if I can kill the curl some more.  Hopefully that will work. I just pinned it this time; I didn’t use the blocking wires.

It’s a good way to use up that self-striping yarn, because despite its flaws, it turned out fine, so more will probably be on the way.

I also finished a scarf I knit the summer of 2004 while I was staying in Leon Springs, TX – house-sitting in BFE, basically.  I’ll post pictures of that another time. I found the scarf when I moved again in January, and I finally wove in the ends and blocked it this weekend, so technically speaking it is a 2009 FO. Heh.

Right now I’m working on some socks and also thinking about a sweater with all this dark grey Wool-Ease I got on sale awhile ago. We’ll see.  I’d knit the front and then machine knit the rest because I am super lazy and product oriented when it comes to sweaters.

I also got a bee in my bonnet about hats, so next time: a finished Norah Gaughan hat from the latest Vogue Knitting, and maybe, if I crack the whip, a Koolhaas, which is a hat I’ve wanted to make since its debut in the 2007 Interweave Knits holiday issue, and finally found the perfect yarn for it – the blue lagoon Dream in Color Classy I got for my birthday.  The Norah hat is also knit with Classy, in Spring Tickle. It’s been a busy week, and I haven’t really been home when there’s been good light, so no pics just yet.