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.

2012 Stashdown: Q2

Kittens, a few entries back I video logged about how I had been stashing.  It shows, it really does. I had quite a few random skeins for planned projects come in as well as some sweater quantities. I regret none of it, but the number still stings.  Dear Pride, I'm sorry to have hurt you.   I can only hope to do better the rest of the year.

July 2012: Wrap-up

Kittens, I liiiiiiiive! And I'll catch up on blogging soon.  For reals this time.  We're finally in our house and trying to get it all set up but at least things are moving in the right direction.

Yardage Totals 2012:

January: 817 yds

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

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

Year to date: 5155 yds or 2.93 miles

All-in-all, not a bad month if I may say so. This month's 500 yards were hard-earned in a hotel and in the middle of a move in. (And they were all light fingering weight to boot. Dude.)  I've also finally caught up with June's proper total--I have never been so happy to see my kitchen scale--and from here on out, I should be able to keep up with my neurotic need to track my yardage.  Yay!

5 Most-Worn Knits

EDIT: In the day since starting to type out this post, the first statement is no longer true; we've now accepted our housing and will have our household goods on the 23rd.  There is an end in sight finally.   WOOT. No, seriously.  WOOT.

We're still in limbo here...at the hotel, no address, no end in sight for the time being and to add to the chaos, we did something crazy:

Meet Tala.  Puppyface! ♥♥♥  Now we have someone else who will steal my time and try to destroy my knitting...but she sure is cute, and she's pretty well behaved for being just under 3 months old.  I'm already concocting evil plans to dress her in sweaters and crochet her a blankie.


*Ahem*

I suppose it's time to actually start writing some of the Birthday blogs I meant to do this month.  This first one I thought would be the easiest, but it turns out I was mistaken about that.  Living in the south with a short sweater season made for difficulty determining which five knits I truly wear the most often.  For about 2 months of the year, I would wear all of them.  One might think that I would wear my socks more often, but when it's too warm for light weight sweaters it's usually too warm for wool socks.

After a bit of hemming and hawing and debating with myself what criteria to use, this is what I came up with:

Now, you may want to point out the obvious that this is a Top 5 list and there are only 4 pictures, but one of them is doing double duty.  Apparently 2010 was a good knitting year for me; every single one of these was knit that year.  You can follow the links to my Ravelry pattern page for each project.  Most of what has to be said about them is there.  One of these days I'd like to write some blog posts about which knits I still have in my possession and how they've worn over time.

O1. Goblin Gauntlets - These were perfect for Southern winters.  Fingering weight and went up the arm just enough to keep out the chilly breezes.  Neutral, but definitely not boring.  These are definitely my most-worn knit, hands down.
O2. Fit for a Goblin King - Made to match the mitts.  Of course I love it and wear it often.
O3. Olympian Cardi - Someone once told me that the yarn's colorway looked like raw ground beef to her. I'm not sure how that was meant, but I'm a huge fan of ground beef so I chose to view it as a compliment.  This cardigan has been quite wearable, even though my weight has gone down a bit since I originally knit it.  It's slightly big, but not to the point that it looks sloppy.  It makes for a nice layering piece on chilly days and the color is just so cheerful.
O4. Dreamy Basic Cardi - This is my go-to movie theater cardigan.  The only way it would be more perfect is with bracelet-length sleeves.
O5. Lacewing - Anytime I wear a dress and want a cover-up, this is the cardigan I grab.  It makes such a lovely silhouette with full skirts.

And now it's here!

Back in January I blogged that July is a big month for myself and this blog: we're both having significant birthdays this year.  My original plan had been to fill every day in July with blog posts, both serious and silly. HOWEVER.  This move is throwing a serious wrench in the works and at the pace things are moving it's going to be August before I'll be able to post photos or even have my household goods.  (Not sure this is the correct time and place to wank about how stupidly complicated this move has been... but trust me, Not. Fun. At. All. and not going to get any better in the near future. UGH.)  I'm currently blogging from a Microtel and trying not to dispose of my children.  Living in a single room together for more than a couple of days without a car during the day and no where to walk to is surely a recipe for disaster.  I may be institutionalized before it's over.  Add to it that I have some serious food issues, and we were unable to book a room with a kitchen, has a teenytinywhocallsthisthingafridge, and I'm unable to eat out at most places...?  YEAH.  Tons of fun here right now.  We finally gave in and bought a George Foreman grill last night so that we can at least make some sandwiches and grill some meat.

Anywho.

I'm hoping to make with some of the posts I had planned to do to celebrate my birthday and the blog's.  Hopefully, you'll be reading more of me in the coming days that will not be complaining and unhappiness.

June 2012 Wrap-Up

Yardage Totals 2012:

January: 817 yds

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

May: 789 yds
June: 358 yds*

Year to date: 4517 yds or 2.57 miles

Kittens, once again this months' yardage total will have to be altered at a later date; it's hard to keep accurate track of yardage while on the road without a scale, yo.  At least I was able to fix May's finally.

We're living out of hotel rooms here.  I hope the rest of you are having a better time than I am.