FO catch up...

Or Attack of the Size 7 Needles?

I am so ashamed. I have many FOs to blog about... and fully finish before I can. I admit it, I find little thrill in the finishing details once the actual knitting is done. Ends need to be woven in. Scarves need to be blocked. Pictures, many pictures must be taken. Then there is blogging. Sometimes, it is easy for a project to slip through the cracks. And by "a project," I mean, half a dozen projects. 2009 had a strong start for organization and keeping on top of my knits but I'm quickly losing steam.

Anywho, I have some knits to share. All children's knits which seem to be my thing lately. The Boy and The Girl are quite happy about it. The Boy moreso since he understands what is going on; The Girl would rather throw off her hats and try to wriggle out of her sweaters. Treacherous little thing, she is.

Pattern: Eyelet Yoke Cardigan (Ravel it)
Yarn: Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece

Needles: KnitPicks Options US size 7

Overall, this was a very easy knit that I completely converted from a bottom-up seamed pattern to a top-down seamless one. I reversed the directions (turned the decreases into increases, etc) and did the sleeves in the round. I'm not sure why so many people want to bother with seamed sleeves; I have an immense dislike for them. They never fit me right and I can never get them to fit into their armhole properly, despite being careful to make them the same size. This fits her pretty well as a normal cardigan at the moment, but it has room for her to grow into it and it will be a cute cropped cardigan as she gets bigger. This was a great way to use up some of my Cotton Fleece leftovers.

Pattern: Hurricane Hat (Ravel it)
Yarn: Malabrigo worsted-Marine and Hollyhock
Needles: US size 7, two circulars method

These were super quick, straight forward knits. Each took roughly one day of knitting. The very last decreases get a little confusing, but they look like the turned out all right. I knit them a bit smaller then gauge to fit a toddler head rather then an adult. In February, we'll be heading back up to Wisconsin for a wedding and neither of my little Texans are used to that type of cold. I've been working on some nice warm woolen knits for them to keep them toasty. It seems a bit early to start, but I like to be ahead of schedule when I can be.

Pattern: Whirligig Shrug (Ravel it)
Yarn: Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece
Needles: US size 7

You have probably started to noticed a theme here. All projects have been easy, and all have been on size 7 needles. This one is no different, I assure you. Very basic top-down raglan with some seed stitch ruffles. Really simple U cables, a little purl ridge edging and voila! FO. Easy, but cute. I suspect Japel could be even more successful as a children's designer. Once again, these were leftovers from one of my projects. I was surprised at how little it took, the pattern seems to seriously overestimate the yardage required. Other Ravellers have made the same comment, so it isn't just me. For now, this is a touch too big for her and falls off her shoulders. No bother, she has her blue cardi for now. Someday, I'd like to upsize this for me. For the time being though, I have plenty on my plate.

On a non-knitting note, Blogger and its formatting are starting to drive me batty. It should not be this hard to get everything to look proper. I finally had to leave my entry as-is and leave it. Why does this blogging platform hate me so much?!

And blogging blahs, apparently

I've been rather quiet this month since I have no pretty photos to show off...well, a couple, I should blog those later. For now, this is my monthly yardage post.

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

September: 1465 yds

Total to date: 11,480 yds or 6.52 miles

So while my yardage was decent, it was not what I had been hoping for. My first week of the month was fabulous and almost as much as the next three weeks I knit. Though I did have a slump, so that considered, I didn't do poorly at all. I had really been hoping for a mile a month for the rest of the year.

Oh well, do better next month, right? I get to do a new cast-on, which will cheer me up.

I haz them

The dreaded Knitting Blahs. I've already ripped my "Glee." Just wasn't feeling it. At the moment, I'm not really feeling anything. I want to knit, but nothing is appealing. Knitting slumps are the worst.

Deconstruction

What you see is my frogged Viking Cable CPH. Well, all of it minus the back panel, which has been steeked and framed to become wall art. I could not bear to rip that part out. This is ~800yds of MadTosh Worsted Cherry. I realized that had I focused on knitting for as long as it took me to rip this out, I would have gotten a lot done. This had been seamed. All the ends were woven in. It was a nightmare. No exaggeration. There was swearing. I tossed it on the ground in frustration at one point. But something felt right about frogging today, so after 6 months of sitting in my closet, neglected in a bag, it saw some natural light.

Now, I believe it is time to cast it on just as quickly. I can not bear to have this yarn back in stash and I do not want to have it unused for forever. I think I'm going to make a modified Glee. (ravel it!) If you look at the examples, I plan to make an open deep V-neck. I will not be putting closures on. I hope I have enough to do this; I'd be very sad if I didn't. I already know I'm going to be in end-weaving hell when I'm done, since so much of this is in smaller balls. When I said it was a nightmare to rip out the CPH, I meant it. In one spot, I couldn't find the tail for the seaming yarn at all and had to guess & snip. Took me a couple of tries to find the correct one. WHOOPS.

Other then that, no real big project work. I knit a couple of hats since my last post and I'll get pictures up eventually. The weather has been very rainy and dreary here, which I usually love, but for some reason wasn't agreeing with me today. However, I ADORE the lower temperatures it brought. I wish it would be in the 70s every day. But I know that realistically, it will not happen until November, which makes me a sad little bunny. I'm not a hot weather kind of gal.

Quickie

September has started off as a productive month. I knit a hat for The Girl yesterday and made great progress on my Whisper Cardigan today. I am finally out of the neverending sleeve on a 12" circular and onto some nice back and forth knitting for a little while. Whoo! Seriously, I cast this thing on in July. It's rather ridiculous how long it's taken me to get that silly sleeve done so I could start working on the back. I'm hoping the second sleeve will go more quickly as I now know that YES, it does end at some point. And if I'm focused, it won't take 6 weeks to knit it. (I know because I knit ~20 sleeve rounds before I got to the back today.)

Trying my hand at designing once again. The hat I knit yesterday was from a highly variegated skein of Yarntini sport which I could not destash and decided to get some use out of. The hat used just under 1/3 of the skein.

SO.

I cast this on and I'm writing down what I'm doing as I go along. Most armwarmer/fingerless glove patterns are written from the arm down to the hand. Which is nice, if one has smaller arms and doesn't need to fiddle which huge decreases. Or if one isn't working with a very limited quantity of yarn and she's unsure of just how much it will take for each glove. I'd rather cut the arm a bit short then run out before I get to the bottom of my hand. So far, it's been pretty easy. It took me a minute to figure out how to make the thumb hole. What I did is looking nice and I'm on my merry way. I have plans to nip in the wrist with some more ribbing and then do some serious increases to fit up my arms. I'm still deciding if I want to leave the thumb as-is, or pick up stitches and knit a little thumb sleeve.

Tricky.

So far, the color is pooling rather then striping, but I have hopes that once I cast on more stitches to go up the arm, that will resolve itself.

I'm surprised I haven't succumbed to the siren call of arm warmers before now, since they seem to be perfect for me. I hate having cold arms, but I hate having a cuff or ribbing hit my wrist area even more. If it goes down over my hand, I'm fine. But anything binding my wrist up to my elbow is no good at all. I might eventually get enough yarn to do a nice long pair all the way up my arms, and I have sketches laying around for a sweater with built in fingerless gloves. Which the Husbeast would hate, but I would love.

I should find that sketch and look at making it a reality.