That Wandering Eye

I love wearing lightweight sweaters, and I mostly like knitting them. Of the 35 sweaters I’ve put on to Ravelry (because I can’t begin to remember the ones I made pre-Ravelry), a lucky 13 of them have been sport weight or lighter. Clearly I don’t hate fine-gauge sweaters.

BUT. There comes a point in every sweater’s creation, usually sometime around the sleeves, where my eye begins to wander. I can’t help but notice all the other sexy little projects out there, and wonder how I got stuck with this dud. I know in my heart there’s not anything wrong with my poor little sweater in progress. It hasn’t done anything to deserve my scorn.

I’m just tired of it. I need a quick dalliance with a sweet little something on the side, then I’ll go back to being a loyal sweater knitter. I swear.

I’m leaning towards making a Chill Pill, mostly because I think it would be fun to throw at my coworkers during whiny team meetings (we’re a bit of a silly bunch). Totally understandable, right?

Still Endless

It’s been not quite 9 days since I posted about the endless yoke of this darn sweater. I’ve put roughly 20 hours into it since the last post. And can you tell which of these pictures is last week versus this week?

Cuz even though I’ve knitted miles and miles, there doesn’t appear to be any appreciable difference in size or in how long it takes me to knit a row. At this point I am torn between dropping everything else (Job? Who needs that?) to get this stupid thing done this week, or giving in, chucking it in the bin, and lighting it on fire.

Not sure which impulse is going to win, to be honest.

Miles and Miles

I’ve been a bit reluctant to post progress on anything I’m knitting lately because there honestly just isn’t much to show. I recently finished the last of a collection of patterns that will be coming out before too much longer, but because it isn’t published yet I can’t share! There’s also the Husbeast’s sweater, and I actually have gotten quite a bit done on that in the last week. His offer to do the Christmas driving definitely helped there. However…

As you can see, the sweater consists of approximately 23462783 miles of fingering weight, single color stockinette, and that’s just not interesting to look at. Not only that, but you have to add at least another 264 miles of stockinette before the photo will look noticeably different from the last one.

I have gotten a bit of spinning done this break though, and today I plied up a new skein of… the same ol’ blue-grey stuff I’ve definitely shown you before.

I’m at the point where stubborn desire to use all this fiber up before moving on to the next one is rapidly losing ground to, “Man I’m sick of spinning the exact same thing.” It looks like there’s so little of the blue-grey left, but I swear it’s breeding every time I turn my back. No matter how much I spin, there’s always the exact same amount of untouched fiber sitting in the cubby the next day.

So as you can see, I’ve been very productive. And I have almost nothing to show for it. Distract me: what fantabulous projects do you have going right now?

Hurry Up and Wait

Between all the waiting around at work, waiting around at the vet (routine appointments), and tons of soccer to watch, I’ve had a lot of time for mindless knitting lately. Good thing I had several long stretches of stockinette ready to go.

The pink/purple purse socks are finally done. There was no real urgency on those, of course, since they were a purse project. Still nice to have something finished though. It makes me feel like I’ve actually accomplished something this month after all.

Because the pink socks are done, yesterday I cast on these lovely green beauties. The striping is a bit more subtle, except for the fat stripes of spring green thrown in amongst all the darker blue-greens and grey-greens. Still, I like green a lot more than pink, so these are making me happy so far.

I finally managed to piece together the fronts and back of the mohair sweater too, and start a sleeve. It’s taking me an inordinate amount of time though, because I just do. not. feel like working on it. I think I’m still a bit bitter towards it. Luckily I’ve got a massive undertaking coming up (shhh, secrets!) that should distract me from it for the rest of the summer.

Marathon Knitting

Amazing Hubby ran the Marine Corps Marathon today.

That’s him in green!

Naturally, I came out to cheer him on. But while I was waiting for him to pass, I had a little marathon of my own – a knitting marathon.

Because this is the Black Hole cardigan, the photo probably doesn’t look appreciably different from the last one I showed you. However, in the couple of hours it took for Hubby to pass my viewing points, as well as the Metro ride back, I did manage to finish the body of the right front and about half the armhole. Progress! Sort of.

Messy Black Holes

I went away over the weekend, and didn’t really expect to get a whole lot done. After all, we had lots of fun stuff planned for the weekend, both historical:

 

and decidedly seasonal:

 

 

None of the things we had planned were really knitting friendly, so I didn’t pack too much. However. Awesome Husband offered to drive both there and back, which means I got about 6 solid hours of knitting time in. I was a little extra nervous about running out of knitting now, but it turns out I needn’t have worried. Apparently I have stumbled across a knitting black hole. You know those projects where you knit for hours and hours and hours and never seen any appreciable change?

 

Yup. Where the heck do all those stitches go? It sure doesn’t seem to be into the WIP. I’m pretty sure the only reasonable explanation is that I’ve created a black hole. Clearly all the stitches I make are getting sucked into it, which is why I never see them again.

Maybe I should cast on for a new sweater. You know, just to teach this one a lesson.

Too Many Projects!

I’ve found the tipping point. I just found myself contemplating casting on another project and thought, “Nope, you’re an idiot.” Apparently there is a limit to how many projects I can do justice to at once.

Project #1

I already have 3 active projects, all my own design, going on right now. I also have 2 more designs that are beyond the knitting part, but have quite a bit of clean-up and preparation going on.

Project #2

Even with school being out for the summer I can barely pay attention to all the projects needing my attention right now. Casting on another would be absolute lunacy. Be strong, Christina, be strong!

A deliberately boring shot of Project #3

Invisibility Mode

I have done so much knitting in the last couple weeks, and done so much designing, and I can’t share any of it with you guys!! It is super frustrating. There’s a lot going on in my personal and professional life (lives?) right now too that’s also “up in the air” and not shareable. So for now, a poll. I am making a beaded shawl to wear at my friend’s September wedding and we’ve narrowed down the choices some, but I still need help making a decision! I will be wearing royal purple with silver jewelry/shoes, and yellow flowers.

In a Holding Pattern

There are a whole lot of things about to happen in my life, and not a one of them is in my hands right now. Frustration!! Most of them are things I don’t really want to talk about for fear of jinxing them, so instead here is the beginning of a baby sweater:

I’m not usually a pink girl, but this is knitting up ridiculously adorable. Also my best friend is getting married in September and I find myself daydreaming about designing a shawl to go with my bridesmaid dress. This is a really bad idea because I already have multiple samples going, plus the baby sweater and Spinning Tuesdays (yes, I am spinning today). But since none of those projects seem to have any interest in finishing themselves, I really want to start something new. Because Knitter’s Logic is like that.

Signs of Spring

It’s still definitely winter, and in fact there’s ice in the forecast for tomorrow and snow for Friday, but I’m beginning to see signs of the coming Spring, and I’m getting excited.

When we were out photographing a sample the other day, we startled a flock of robins. Robins are always my surest sign that the snow and deep freezes are done, and I can’t say I’ve ever seen them come home this early before. It’s a little unnerving, actually.

 

Pic by Carine06 via Wiki Commons

It’s also planting time, for things I’m starting from seed. So I set up my little indoor garden over the weekend, and while there’s nothing to see yet I’m still very excited. Outside, some of the trees are starting to get little red buds and the crocuses are getting leafy too.

Nothing to see here…yet.

Then, there’s my intense craving for green. Admittedly, green is my favorite color so I always crave it a bit, but this time of year it gets out of control. All I want to wear is green, all I want to knit is green, and absolutely nothing is as exciting to me as discovering a new bit of green outside. It doesn’t help that I can’t photograph the sample currently in test knitting until it gets greener outside. I’m so impatient!