Hanging in there...

As my lack of blog-posting suggests, I have been swamped lately. Even though work has been pretty slow, I've been putting in a lot of hours in an attempt to make us not-so-slow. Plus I'm taking 6 credits of online classes this semester. Perhaps I'll get a chance to post again in May...

Eureka!

I have found it! My sweater pattern! I’ve been on the hunt for the last several months to find a sweater pattern to make for myself. I had some pretty specific ideas for what I wanted, so the search took me quite a while. I knew I wanted some cables, but not allover cables. I knew I wanted it to be somewhat close fitting. I was also hoping for some kind of unique construction.

And here it is!

Rib and Cable Cardigan from Vogue Knitting Fall 2009

And with the help of some Christmas cash, I picked up the yarn yesterday and cast on. I debated on the color for quite a while. In fact, I even bought two different colors and brought them both home with me. The contenders were either a creamy, off-white neutral color that I could pair with a brighter tank top or a brilliant, rich teal that I would wear with a lighter tank underneath.

After a little bit of waffling, I decided to “live a little” and cast on with the teal. It’s going great so far!

And I haven’t touched my sock darning project.

Sock Emergency

Sitting at work today I randomly took a moment to admire my handknit socks. I like to wear handknit socks on Mondays, because everyone needs a little reason to smile on a Monday. Well, as I took a look at my sock, I noticed a reason to quit smiling. There was a hole in the heel of my sock!

The first thing I did was check the other sock. It was wearing thin too! Not a hole yet, but it was headed in that direction.

So I removed the socks to prevent the holes from getting any worse, and started looking up tips for darning socks. I learned that there is definitely hope. First of all, the yarn was a wool and nylon blend, so even in the area where the wool has totally worn away, there is still a tiny nylon thread holding together the framework of the sock. My first plan of attack is to duplicate stitch across that hole, following the nylon thread. Fortunately, I have plenty of leftover yarn. Let’s hope that I can make that work, and I won’t have to resort to more drastic measures.

I’m currently speculating that the combination of the pattern and my shoes are to blame. The socks are only 5 months old, so I wasn’t expecting to repair them so soon. The pattern is Eunice from Sock Innovation. One unique aspect of this pattern is that the cabled design is carried down onto the heel flap of the sock. This sure looks pretty, but it does replace the notoriously sturdy slip-stitch heel flap. The hole is also placed right at the point where the top rim of my ballet flats hits my socks, so that is an area prone to abuse.

I probably won’t get the chance to repair these until after Christmas. I’ll have to post an update later.

Hooray for Progress

This might be my most productive Finish-a thon ever! And I'm not quite ready to give up yet.

I finished my sister's birthday present. They were a pair of really cute socks using self-striping JoAnn Sensations Bamboo & Ewe yarn. I initially bought this yarn because it was on-sale, I liked the colors, and it was machine washable. I try not to gift items that have to be handwashed (cuz I know my family wouldn't appreciate that). Well, as I worked on the socks, I realized that it feels really nice too. So I promptly went out to buy enough of the yarn for 4 more pairs of socks. I gave her the socks over Thanksgiving break, which is a little early for her birthday (Dec 4th), but we were both home and her feet were cold. :)

I also finished my Mom's Christmas present. I started this project several months ago when I made these grand plans to knit a bunch of Christmas gifts. It's nice to know that it's finished now.

And yesterday, I finished my Glynis socks! I was stuck at home surrounded by 4-foot snowdrifts as far as the eye could see. So I had plenty of time to curl up on the couch and knit. It's a big relief to have these done. This may have been my most frustrating project ever. I didn't really care for the effort required to make the lace pattern. But the finished socks were WONDERFUL! I made up my mind that I was just going to tough it out, and now that they're done, I'm glad I did.

Time for a Finish-a-thon

As I may have mentioned a few times, I knit a lot of things at once. Well... what actually happens is that I'm easily distracted. I get the urge to start something new, and then I toss aside current projects and conveniently forget about them. When I actually look at all of my unfinished knitting, it's a little overwhelming. I liked all of these things well enough to start them, and I'd like to have them all finished, but the thought of actually doing the work to finish them is scary.

But as I said, I want them to be finished, so I'm going to try to make some progress. Here are some of my more pressing projects.

1 - My sister's birthday present (more details after I actually gift it)
2 - My mom's Christmas present (again, details later)
3 - Glynis socks (I have one finished, just need to make the second)

And here are some of them that I'd like to finish, but I'm in less of a hurry.

4 - Random Lavender Baby Blanket - I started this one because the pattern is really pretty, but I don't actually have a specific baby in mind to receive it.
5 - Rugged Vest - I'm kinda sad about this one. It's coming out too small for Greg, and I really need to just rip the whole thing out and start over.
6 - Ripple Sweater Vest - This is a crochet project that fell victim to my new knitting obsession. But it's still a really cute vest.
7 - Flirty Skirt - Another fit issue. This was coming out too small, so I ripped it out and restarted it a while ago. It's too "spring-y" to wear anytime soon, but I'd like to finish it before next summer.

So, now for the finish-a-thon rules:
I can work on any of the above listed projects.
I cannot start new projects. (Lone exception: If I have an uncontrollable urge to start something new, I'll make an ornament from the Knit Picks Kit.)

I shall continue with this effort until I get totally sick of it. I can't promise that I'll finish them all, but any progress is a good thing.

Itty Bitty Knitting

My Knit Picks ornament kit is here! Yay! For anyone who hasn't seen it yet, here's a link:

Tidings of Joy Holiday Ornament Kit

So the moment I got home with my kit, I sat down to knit this:

Isn't it adorable? It's a little scarf!

I shall now proceed to set aside all of my current knitting projects (and non-knitting projects), while I happily knit some cute, little, instantly gratifying holiday ornaments! (Socks? Homework? Accordion Effect? What are you talking about?)

Accordion Effect

Ah, yes. The dreaded accordion effect. To those of you who aren't racing fans (or don't have husbands who are racing fans) I shall explain. The accordion effect usually happens when a race car driver suddenly slows down more than the driver behind him or her was expecting. This results in even more sudden braking, cars bunching up, and shredded carbon fiber. All because of one foot that landed heavily on a brake pedal.

My life has been experiencing this lately. The culprit was a single work project. I won't bore you with the details of it, but it did require some major investments of evenings and weekends on my part. As a result, I fell a little bit behind on everything in my life, and felt pretty drained. Since I was feeling drained, all I wanted to do was make myself happy, so I dedicated a whole bunch more time to knitting pretty things. So I fell even further behind with the not-so-fun things like school assignments, online training for work, housework, etc. Then before I had the chance to motivate myself to do some of those not-so-fun things, I got sick. It started as just a head cold, but it has managed to drag out into a great big pain in the tookus.

So now that I've basically recovered from the cold, I have a huge, accordion-shaped pile of stuff to do that I'm just not excited about doing. Wish me luck!