finish more knitting projects

February’s socks are languishing on the needles. My knitting time has shrunk to almost nothing. This makes me sad. Ever so sad. Hopefully soon I have have time to do something other than study, work, and sleep.

I have finished January’s socks in the nick of time. There is nothing frantic grafting to meet a self-imposed deadline. Details are here.

I could no longer take the tortured screams of my alpaca yarn so I lit a candle, made a pot of tea, grabbed a chihuahua, and cast on for Ene’s Scarf. It’s a good thing I am well caffeinated because casting on 375 stitches of lace weight yarn at the end of the day is well… tedious at best. But I soldier on because the alapaca has performed some sort of jedi mind trick on me and I know that I won’t be able to sleep until I get a least a few rows on the needles.

I am very soxy these days. Work and school have been taking quite a bit out of me and I find that the only sort of knitting I can tolerate of the mindless, portable sort. I just don’t have the brain power these days to focus on charts or patterns or breathing (inhale…exhale… inhale… wait, what was I doing? collapse).

This lack of knitting brain ability makes me sad because I have really been wanting to cast on for ‘Ene’s Scarf’ from Scarf Style. I have some lovely Alpaca Cloud that is just screaming to be be turned in to Ene’s Scarf. I can’t sleep at night for the screaming. Do you hear that sound? That’s my Alpaca Cloud crying because it hasn’t reached it’s full knitted potential. If I don’t use it soon it may form an Alpaca terrorist organization and hold my sock yarn hostage.

My administration does not stand for terrorists, ya’ll. Not even sinfully soft and fluffy terrorists. Maybe cashmere terrorists, but that’s another psychotic ramble.

Overworked and stressed? Whatever makes you say that?

They took me about 2 weeks to finish. I really enjoyed making these even though the fingers about drove me nuts.

My progress has slowed down a bit now that my cranky tweenager is home on holiday. I am up to the arm shaping on the back, but have stalled out just a bit because I am too busy washing all of the dishes she leaves out and putting out the fires she starts.

Joy.

I am actually a bit further along than the picture shows. I am really digging this pattern. It is knit in the round (yay for minimal finishing) and the pattern is extremely easy. I have about five more inches to go before I get to the shoulder shaping.

I am knitting with wool-ease in oxford grey and rose heather on US 7 needles.

Point to Point – Interweave Knits Fall 2000

This pattern and I are fighting a bit right now. The instructions regarding the color chart are somewhat vague, and to make matters worse, the chart seems to be off. If I end where it says that I am supposed to end, then the pattern is not symmetrical. I have got a few ideas on how to correct things and I hope to be back on track by this afternoon.

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Aran Scarf – Vogue Knitting: Scarves 2

I am trying to get a head start on my holiday knitting. This scarf will be a part of a gift set which will include a celtic cabled hat. I have worked this pattern once before and once everything gets established, it knits up nice and quick.

When it comes to knitted projects, I am a finisher. A completed project is my anti-drug. There is nothing like the feeling you get when the last end has been woven in, everything blocked, and the piece is ready to wear (or give away!).

My focus on the end result means that I am not the kind of knitter to have multiple WIPs. In fact, I only work on two projects at once, one major and one small. Usually the smaller project is socks or a hat that I keep in purse to work on during my morning commute. I also try to make sure that my small project uses a different from my large project so that I have a way to keep things interesting. This is also especially helpful when my larger project involves cables or fair isle.

But there will always be more projects to finish and that makes me a happy girl.