August 2012: wrap-up

Yardage Totals 2012:

January: 817 yds

February: 782 yds
March: 1350 yds
April: 421 yds

May: 789 yds
June: 485 yds
July: 511yds
August: 368yds

Year to date: 5523 yds or 3.14 miles

Pi miles, kittens. Pi. Miles. AHEM.


This yardage was really hard-earned for the month.  Most of it was from my Color Affection which I would think is about half done, though it's hard to gauge on a project of its type.  I have to admit that I'm a little dismayed at how little yardage it actually is for all of the knitting I've been doing.  This project may be the death of me.  The soft, cashmere/silk blended death of me.

Onto September and hopefully finishing up my Color Affection and casting on for something that will go more quickly.  Autumn is hinting at her appearance here: the evenings and mornings and beautiful and crisp.  I'm not going to lie: I'm LOVING being stuck in the "FRIGID" northern area of New York.  (Honestly, we are still hitting the low-to-mid 80s during the day, but the evenings and mornings are gorgeous.)  Is it starting to show up where you all are, kittens?  Or are you all still trapped in the awful never-ending summer 'most everyone has been experiencing this year?

WIP-it: Color Affection

...or what is feeling like the never-ending knit.  I just started section three today and while it currently feels fast, I know those last few short rows will feel never ending.

...

And then it's on to the ending with just shy of 450 stitches.

I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.

WIP-it Wednesday

It seems that Wednesdays are my day to post in August.   It's been nice to get back on a some-what regular posting schedule.  [Not having a huge audience reading this blog helps since I do not feel the pressure to perform that more popular bloggers do.  I can fall off the planet for weeks at a time and not receive a barrage of, "Are you OK?!" emails.]

I have not been taking a lot of time to knit this last week, but this is what I have done so far.  I decided to cast-on...

Color Affection.  I thought I was ready to work on a sweater after all of the small projects I've done, but I was mistaken.  A shawl it is.  So far, it's a really easy and mindless knit.  Seriously: of the 4 pages of pattern, the actual directions take up fewer than 2 dozen lines...maybe 1/3 of a page.  It's simple but clever, something I've grown to appreciate in a pattern.  If I find this wearable, I have about a half-dozen more color combinations already picked out and ready to go.  Heh.

I guess we'll see how I feel when I hit the point where each row is like slow, agonizing death.  :)

FO, say WHUT?

Kittens, did you know that March was the last time I posted an FO?  I hadn't either until I went digging into my entries.  I know I've been lazy about documenting finished projects...but I didn't realize it was quite that bad.  So today I'm going to remedy this, even if it's just a small post.  I bring you....

Pattern:  Ribbed Socks for Kids by Susan B. Anderson (Ravel it)

Needles:  US size 2.5 (3.0mm)

Yarn: Dancing Dog Dyeworks Twist Sock--Hat Wearing Cat

We're having over-cast weather right now and will continue to for the foreseeable future, please forgive the slightly dark photo.  I have been avoiding the flash whenever I possibly can.   This is the improved version.  :P  


The Boy's socks are finished! They were a super quick knit:  less than 1 week start to finish with no additional time put in per day.  (I average 60-90 minutes on a normal day.)  I've put off knitting socks for the kiddles a long time; I'm really not sure why other than I imagined they'd be a futzy ordeal.  More so than socks for me, at least.  The Boy is always a grateful knit recipient and he was gushing about how great his new socks are.  Naturually, The Girl is now jealous and wants some of her own...only because he got some, of course.  I imagine she will not be quite so enthusiastic about hers if I ever knit her some.

The pattern is great as-written.  It's a top down sock with a heel flap which I tend to avoid for me, but for my son I wasn't too concerned about the stripe pattern getting messed up.  In the future, I may use the numbers for this pattern and do an after-thought short row or wedge heel instead.

The yarn though?  Oh, kittens.  I've found one of my new favorite sock yarn bases; it's a shame it's not the easiest to get a hold of.  (Not Wollmeise or GothSocks difficult, but it sells out in under 10 minutes when updates do go live.)  If it wears well, it may become my favorite one.  Twist is lovely and firm without being tough, and it knits up into a super cushy fabric.  It takes color really well as can be seen in the photo.  Michelle's dyeing technique and eye for color are excellent.  If you like saturated bright colors, DDD may be what you're looking for.

Indecision

Having a good sized yarn stash can be a blessing at times, but at others it is most definitely a curse...a hindrance.  It gets in the way of knitting.  Like many, I suffer from having too many choices.  Give me enough variety and I will be paralyzed by indecision.

Let's make that one!

No.  This one.

Err, that one looks great too!

We've been meaning to make that one for some time now.

Socks!  More socks.

No.  Definitely time for a sweater.

There are those toys we've been meaning to knit and get out as gifts....

Um.  Let's start an entirely new project with shiny new yarn!  

What a rough problem to have, amirite?  These first world problems will take a lot out of ya.

I have bound off the socks I showed you all for The Boy and am now stuck in the place of not knowing what to cast on next.  For now, I'm less-than-half-heartedly crocheting a toy out of the leftovers from the socks--a part of me wants to have a small stash of already made toys to pick from for times when we're invited to parties out of the blue--but I'm getting very little done on it because honestly, I do not really want to be working on this.  My ♥ isn't really in toys at the moment.  It wants to knit something for me.  Preferably in a yarn heavier than light fingering-to-fingering weight.

I thought I might share some of my potential projects with you kittens and see what you think: what makes you excited?

My first choice is the insanely popular Color Affection shawl by Veera Välimäki in the colorway shown above--seriously, you would have to be living under a rock and avoiding all contact with the online community to not be at least familiar with this pattern. The yarn is a gorgeous and painfully soft cashmere/silk blend in a lovely dark teal, bright magenta, and lovely driftwood color.  It's listed in the Ravelry data base as a lace weight, the label doesn't given any information either way about it, but I feel it's light fingering-ish.  It's definitely not heavier weight, but few of my projects are if I have to be totally honest.  I rarely venture above sport weight for anything.

Choice number two is a modified Little Birds sweater by Ysolda Teague--those of you who have been with me long enough know I love Ysolda's whole body of work.  She always manages to have just enough whimsy in her projects to keep them fun, but they're practical at the same time; I've never seen a pattern of hers where I think, "Man, that's just so cute but who would wear it out in PUBLIC?"  

One day I was looking through Ravelry's data base for Chroma fingering weight to figure out what on earth to do with these two skeins of the Lollipop colorway I bought on an impulse.  And then I saw it: vivaglam's Little Birds made with a different colorway.  BINGO.  I had been meaning to make a pullover version of the sweater forever and now here's my chance.  I do not care for any of the Chroma solid coordinating yarns, so I used this as an excuse to try some Tosh Merino Light, despite the fact that Tosh keeps biting me in the ass with quality issues.  (From what I've been reading around, none of these have been  cleared up so it breaks my heart to keep avoiding Amy's yarn.  I do want to try a few bases I've never used before, but I'm steering clear of the now-called-DK ...and any dark colorways.  Oof.)

A third choice is Norah Gaughan's Beatnik in some of the Dancing Dog Dyeworks yarn I purchased. (I've linked the shop in previous posts, and you can stalk my stash if you want to see more details.)  This is her new tweed base, and it's still not widely available.  I've been trending towards tweed lately and just had to have a sweater's worth of it.  For some reason, I had to have it in this lovely minty green which is a much bolder color choice than I've been making lately.  I've been heading back towards neutrals in general.

Another choice is a stripey sweater--still not sure of neck shaping or sleeve style--in this lovely palette.  The colored yarn is less red as it appears here, and more very deep raspberry pink.  It was difficult to get a good photo of.  And the lightest color is less blaring white than it appears. These are all merino/silk blends and in the fingering weight range.  I have so many self-designed stripey sweaters planned for the future that it isn't even funny.



I clearly have more choices in stash than just these, but the ones above are calling to me the most.  Writing out this post, I think I know what I'm going to cast on now, but I'm still curious to see what you all think.  Happy Wednesday, kittens!

WIP-it Wednesday!

It's been a while, eh, kittens?  But here is it, a new WIP-it Wednesday!  It's not much...

...these are in progress right now. I just cast them on last night, in fact.  With very minimal effort, I'm already a red stripe farther along in the pattern.  These socks are for The Boy from yarn I snagged especially for him from a DDD update.  (I had mentioned the shop in my video blog when I flashed some of the yarn I've been stashing.) I've been blown away by how quickly the leg on these is going; who knew that socks for children go so fast?!  The plan is that these will be almost knee-high before I turn the heel and work on the foot.  With any luck I'll have a finished sock in less than 48 hours and maybe even a pair before the weekend is over?  I can always dream.  All of the stuff in the house that needs to be put away and all of the art & curtain rods that need to be hung may prevent this from happening.  Bummer.

I had originally planned to work with this yarn during the two months we were homeless (yes, start to finish it was only a day or two shy of two full months) but I didn't have as much time or desire to knit as I had hoped.  I got quite a bit done, but not as much as I thought I would. I ended up having a couple skeins too many of yarn with me, as well as my Dessert of the Month for the year-to-date from Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery.  (At this rate, I may wait until the year is almost over and have a marathon cross-stitching week.  I think they'll be adorable in my new kitchen. )  And let's not get started on how I didn't read a single book I brought along with me.

Anywho.  Point is, I'm still knitting. And I'll hopefully catch up on some of the blogs I wanted to do for my 30th birthday and the Blog's 5th.  The move really messed with a lot of things.