Yardage for August 2009

Yardage totals for 2009:

January: 937 yds

February: 1286 yds

March: 1466 yds

April: 1093 yds

May: 909 yds

June: 759 yds

July: 1886 yds

August: 1679 yds

Total to date: 10,015 yds or 5.69 miles

All in all, a pretty good month. I would have just broken the 1 mile mark except that I had to deduct out for a frogged project. C'est la vie.

I did succeed in reducing my projects on needles this month, though it was through frogging and hibernation, not actually finishing them all. 3 of the 4 FOs I have this month are new cast ons. Though, I have only two active projects on needles for the time being, while I decide what I want to do with the hibernating ones.

Here's to a productive September!

Progress pics

I just took The Girl's sweater off of needles today; need to weave in the ends and decide if I want to put button closures on it. Here is a WIP picture of it from yesterday. You can almost hear her saying, "OK, Mom, put the camera down, take the sweater off of me, and finish it already." This knit has been a great way to use up some leftovers from sweaters I've made myself. I have this same yarn, but in the dark pink, I used for my Rusted Root and I'll have to make her another cute cardigan. Since it's Cotton Fleece, it will be comfortable year round in Texas. 80% cotton and 20% wool to keep it light and allow it to bounce back into shape after washing. When I have the FO picture, I'll have to post up the specifics of all the modifications I made to the pattern.

And Hayworth is finally blocking. I should have an FO post for it in a day or two. Not much else going on here, so that's it for now. (Yes, I'm using my bed as a blocking board. Wish I had thought of that sooner. I'll have to reblock all my shawlettes that way.)

Progress update

And back to knit-related posts. For now, anyway. Eventually, I'll have more crafts on here then knitting.

Finally finished knitting my shawlette today. I swear those last few rows seem to take forever. It's still unblocked so I'm not calling it an official FO, but it's close. I just need to get off my butt and block it then take photos. Even though I haven't been doing so well on the yarn diet front, I have been doing a great job of knocking out projects in my single skeins this year. I have shawlettes and hats to thank for this. I'll likely cast on another shawlette/scarf very shortly after I knit another small project that has a deadline.

My Whisper cardigan is slowly getting there. I have about 4" of the first sleeve done now and even though I'm knitting a bit tighter then gauge, it fits my arm, so it's all good. I'm not sure I'd want a more gossamer fabric then this. I don't really see the point in something completely see through. I'm also not 100% sure what this yarn will do when blocked. It's a cashmere/silk blend so I know it will grow in length from the silk content. I'm intentionally leaving everything just a touch short to compensate for this.

Also making some decent progress on DH's sweater. I have 8 of 14" of the body knit before the next cable section and it's coming along nicely. I have a hard time determining my gauge in ribbing, so I've gone up a needle size since I started to make my fabric just a wee bit looser. Now it seems to be just right. I've been getting an insane amount of knitting out of each skein of DiC and I suspect that it may be like other indie dyed yarns where it will say a yardage on the label, but sometimes you get bonus yards. I've barely touched the second skein and I'm already this far. 8 skeins seems to have been a gross over-estimation and it's looking like I'll have enough yarn for a cropped cardi for me or else a sweater for The Boy. I do owe him a handknit and he'd be darling in grey. If I feel like putzing around a bit, I could make him a sweater to match his daddy. Now wouldn't that be ridiculously cute? I think to make one for him, it would take maybe 2 full skeins of DiC, so we'll see what I end up with.

I will soon be casting on like a maniac as some of my favorite groups are all doing KALs this fall. So watch out for an insane number of cast ons in the coming weeks. I may have to give up my internet time to keep up with them all.

Fabric related today...

I am a huge fan of Denyse Schmidt's Flea Market Fancy line, but didn't learn about it until well after it was out of production. There is a possibility it could be reprinted, with enough interest. This is a pretty new site, but there are already 188 signatures on the list. Please help get this reprinted! I can not afford $40/yard of the rare scrap that comes up for bid on eBay and I really want yards of many of the original prints.

Rough Month

August has been rough for my projects. So many froggings. So many put on hiatus and will likely be frogged. My projects are living in fear as I decide what few stay and who is getting the boot. I went from 6 projects on needles to 2 I am working on and keeping. So what are the lucky two?

My putzy and languishing Whisper Cardigan is staying. I'm hoping that if I focus and make an effort to knit 10-ish rows per day, I will get past the sleeve o' doom and hit the body which will go much faster. When I saw everyone in the Snob group complaining about how putzy and horrible the sleeves are to knit, they weren't kidding. Laceweight in the round is a nightmare. 12" circulars are uncomfortable on the hands. I get too many ladders with DPNs. I do not have an adequate needle to Magic Loop and still need to try that out. So, slowly knitting on a 12" circ it is. Someday, I'll get longer cables for my KP interchangeables or buy some longer Addis to ML with. Despite all of this, the yarn is a dream. So soft and pretty. I've been happy with all the Plucky yarns I've tried to date and this one will definitely be purchased again in the future.

The other keeper is the Husbeast's second sweater: the Columbia Cable Pullover by Shibui's Fyberduck. I haven't gotten far in this, yet. I started off alternating skeins, but for some reason, can not get it to work without little holes where I'm switching, so I've gone back to using one at a time for now and hoping that all my skeins are alike enough that there will be no obvious transitions. I've successfully alternated skeins in the round before, I'm not sure why it's so hard this time. Oh well. (And yes, those are the new KP Zephyr tips. So far, I'm liking them. They are so much nicer then other plastic needles I've tried in the past.)

Pattern: Crocheted Stash Basket

Hook: J

Yarn: Lily Sugar 'n Cream

I spent the last three days working on a crochet stash basket. It's a bit too floppy for my taste, but it will hold yarn. This was a good practice to get ready for the crocheted toys I plan to make my daughter for her first birthday, which is fast-approaching.

9 days in...

and I already cast-on a new project. I'm trying to keep it to a minimum, but we'll see. Everything else I'm working on just isn't appealing to me at the moment. I want to make hats, so a hat it is that I chose.

It's from the new Fall Vogue Knitting: the Eyelet Cap by Cathy Carron. I can not wait to block it because it is mind-blowingly pretty when you can see the color changes in the MamaBlue "Pit."

I love hats and I have a couple of free patterns I plan to make with some random sportweight skeins I have hiding in my stash. I may not be sticking to the plan for August, but I am getting rid of some yarn that up until now, had no plans for it. And I have been destashing this week, so I deserve a little something for my loss. :) Because seriously, it is hard to accept that some yarn you're not going to use anytime soon, no matter how pretty or how much you like it. I'd ideally like to destash a bit more, but we'll see. There is a second pattern in the new Vogue that I think will work for some of my other yarn, but I suspect I'll burn out on hats before I get to it.

Despite this little detour, I finally have some pictures of my other projects.

I'm finally using my RYC Cashcotton DK and irritatingly enough, in the original pattern I bought it for. Yes, I spent months agonizing over finding another pattern, just to return to the original. So far, it's looking OK. I'm not loving it. I bought some Aquamarine dye I plan to use on it once it's knit. Crazy and risky: knit the sweater then dye it. I like to live on the edge at times. At the least, I'm hoping for the FO to be a couple of shades darker. Ideally, I'd love for it to be a nice deep color. I have to finish knitting it first and I'm ~10-15% finished.

Another project I worked on this week is my BFF socks by CookieA. I cast these on in May and haven't touched them since. It's not that they're hard or anything, just became sidetracked and hadn't been in a sock mood. In all truth, I was in one for a couple of days and am back out of it. I'd like to push through this first sock at the least and go from there. Pictured is the cuff, but I have done the heel flap and turned the heel as well. Once I get past the gusset, it will fly.

Not much else going on around here. This afternoon, there is a meeting in town to set up a local Knit and Crochet Guild. I plan to attend, but I'm trying not to get overly excited about it.

Good Start

So far, August's goal of getting as many projects possible off of needles is going well. I started the month with 7 projects on needles--6, if you do not count the leftovers blanket and really, I don't believe it should count. Of the 6, I already cast-off one yesterday and will have pictures to show for it later in the week. Now I am down to 5 WIPs that I want to knock off my needles.

Remaining are: my second lacy baktus (30% done), my July Mystery Socks (50% done, cast-off the first sock last night), my BFF socks (20% done), my first Whisper cardigan (only 8 yds into it), and my Cherry Cardigan (about 35 yds into it). I hope to finish all the accessories and make decent progress on the two sweaters. I do not think I'll get all of it finished this month, but I should be able to get some good yardage racked up for my monthly total.

As I said, I cast-off my first Mystery Sock (aka Cerise) last night. It is a universal truth that it is impossible to take a decent picture of a finished sock on one's own foot. This is good enough that you get the general idea, though.

For the leg, I did heavy alterations. There were supposed to be apples, or apples and watermelon, depending on which version of the leg you decided to do. I didn't want any fruit other then cherries and I knew I was going to need to do a lot more increases to get the sock to fit a few inches up my calf. SO. I did the first cherry section as-written, did one additional set of increases before the second checker pattern, did that, then did another set of increases so I would have 4 cherry motifs per needles instead of 3. By the time I reached the ribbing, I felt some simple single color space would be nice again rather then the corrugated ribbing.

I learned a couple of nifty techniques with these socks. I can now do a Turkish cast-on as well as Sewn binding. Neat stuff and more simple then you would think.

Now, I just need to work on the second one.