knit what? purl who?

I surrender!

Looks like one of the yarn thieves has been apprehended. He's in the hot seat for sure.

What's new in knitting? (aka: have I actually finished anything and reduced the piles of crap that are all over the house?) Well...

Convertible mittens, I shall not speak of you. You continue to mock me. Will I ever love a project again? Perhaps a trip to the LYS to do some thinking...

Ahhh... j'adore. In person, the yarn on the left is brick red, but up close it has blues, purples, greens, and oranges in it. The one on the right is brighter than it appears. It is so delicious and soft. Looks like I might get to make some more endpaper mitts after all. (By the way, Eunny has finally updated her site. That fair isle sweater is amazing.)

Should I bother to show you my (humble) sweater?

This Kenobi sweater is patiently waiting for someone to make it some sleeves. Alas, meet the competition:

That's right, it's finals week. My nocturnal significant other will be sleeping all weekend, so I suppose I should take advantage of the quiet house and do some studying. Will I be able to resist the knitting? The Kenobi jacket? The Brea bag? The endpaper mitts? The project-we-shall-not-speak-of?

or not to dye?

I ordered a kit from Pick up Sticks around Christmas time for these felted Snugs for moi. I've always thought that the outer color (sand) is a little bit boring, but I figured if I liked them I would just make myself another pair in something brighter. (This should have been the point at which the voice in my head screamed: "with who's time, money, and attention span, YOU FOOL?") The color for the lining is a robin's egg blue alpaca, which I like.

Then, it hit me. I could just get myself some kool-aid and dye that yarn! (The voice cried: "BRILLIANT! Wait a second, do you even know how to do that?")

Uh, I don't know how to do it. But I'm pretty sure I would like them a lot better if they were a brighter color, and the chances of my actually finding the time/money/interest to make another pair are, like, jack shit. One annoying setback- I've already finished one.

And it shouldn't matter, but the yarn came in those nice center pull balls and I have neither ball winder nor swift (ahem, boyfriend if you are reading this). It makes my stomach hurt to think about unwinding them, I don't have nice center pull balls very often. (And spending 45 minutes with the dyed skeins around my neck rewinding them, I do not look forward to.) So the question: Dare I dye? Question two (whichI hate almost as much as "what do you want for dinner?"): What color? Purple? Green?

Oh, and the study avoiders, I mean, endpaper mitts have somehow cast on and begun knitting themselves.

Weird.

I've realized that I pass through three stages with every knitting project.

Stage 1: Preparation (aka: infatuation)
I become infatuated with a new project. I obsess about what pattern to use with a certain new yarn or vice versa. I frantically collect all the items I need to begin. I imagine all of the compliments people will give me, they'll stop me in the street and tell me how beautiful my whatever is, and I'll say "Thanks. I made it." in a really casual way, and then they'll call all their friends over and say "Look at this, she MADE this!" And I'll be late to work because of posing for pictures and signing autographs...

Stage 2: Production (aka: neck cramps)

The relaxation/rabid knitting begins. The house must be quiet. I must not be asked too many questions. The dogs must not sit on the yarn.

Stage 3: Presentation (aka: this is ugly)
Once the whatever is almost done, and I realize that people are actually going to see it, I start having second thoughts. I get broody (if that's a real word). Was this the right color/yarn/size? Am I going to look ridiculous/fat/insane? Maybe I should rip this out and try something else. Did I actually think about what I was making or was I blinded by the thought of a new project and a trip (or two or three) to the yarn store? Any why did I make something I have to SEW together?

The Karate sweater has entered Stage 3. The upside is that it took me two days to mostly finish the thing. About three qusrters of the way thorough I started wondering if a sweater with all those holes in it is something I'll actually wear. Originally I was thinking it would be a good spring weather sweater. Now it just looks like something with a bunch of holes in it. I'm debating ripping it out and using the yarn to make the Rockefeller sweater, or the Shopping Tunic, or the Skating Sweater instead. But can I confess something? I'm secretly afraid that I'm not going to like anything I make out of this book. I've been spying on some FO's on other sites and it seems to me that the general feeling is very "meh" about their completed projects. And mind you, these women are clones of the model in the book. Are the chunky knits not very flattering? It doesn't matter whether or not these women look adorable (which they do), because if you don't like it, you won't wear it. Another problem that I'm having is the way the thing is put together. It has this weird shoulder seam thing that is not very comfortable. I am not patient when it comes to finishing things, so it could just be my cobble job. Here are some crappy pictures of the finished thing sans button that I took last night:

There is another category of knittied thing that does not really fall into the three stages. The Gift. There are two sub-categories: Satisfaction (liking and being proud of the gift) and Misery (you'll see what I mean.) Knit and Tonic Wendy has a post about how she will never again make a pattern for someone that she doesn't like. ( the pattern, not the person.) I wish I would have taken that advice before I started the convertible mittens for my friend Elizabeth. She doesn't know that I have a website, so I may speak freely. I should start by saying that Elizabeth is a good friend, and I wanted to make her somehting nice for her birthday that she wuld actually use. I knew that she wanted a pair of convertible mittens, but I was planning on making her a pair of endpaper mitts. Why? I think they're adorable, I wear mine all the time, I think the pattern is fun, and I actually want to make the second when I'm done with the first. I picked out some red and orange alpaca to match her vest. I was ready to cast on. And then I got the email. A pattern forwarded to me with a not so subtle hint that she likes these convertible mittens. And I take one look at the pattern and hate it. Okaaaaaaaay...
I made a mitten out of the alpaca. Awful. Too thin, the cable looked stupid, whatever. Lets try a little fair isle. It doesn't change the fact that that this isn't the right yarn for the things. Trip to LYS. For some reason I get talked into this self striping soy/wool yarn. I don't know why. I don't like self striping yarn. I don't really like stripes, except on socks, and I don't knit socks. And I agonized over the color of the ugly striping yarn. I got it home. I made another mitten. I hate it. Another trip to the LYS. I buy a skein of undyed wool thinking that I would put off the color decision a little while longer. I dye it green. The green is nice. But not for these mittens. Maybe a dog sweater. BACK TO THE YARN STORE. WHAT COLOR THIS TIME?

So, here we are. Not done. I had finals and a friend in town, but they should be done this weekend (only a month after her actual birthday). In case you're wondering, I hate these, too. Maybe I'll take a picture when it's over. I need to get these mittens out of my life and move on. And consider it a lesson learned to never make a pattern I hate again, not matter how much I like the person it's for. And to stop obsessing over color. It wastes a lot of time.

Well, I'd hoped to have ol' greenie done this weekend. I knitted the shit out of the thing on Saturday, and by Sunday, I was tired and had homework to do. Anyway, lookit:

The blue lines are single crochet (a la brooklyn tweed and eunny) Have I done this before? Nope. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Take a deep breath and here goes...

My hand's not really pink.

A cardigan! Hooray! It hasn't fallen apart yet either. Stay tuned for finished object!

Yeah, I did. Cast on for another EZ cardigan, that is. Long sleeve this time, and a couple other changes.

Wait, who's the little fella in the backround looking for attention?

Well, I'll be damned! It's a sock! I was briefly distracted by something green, but I'm over it now and I finished this sock. I'll need to make a little buddy for it soon.

I have a little problem. Well, it's not really a problem, but one of my good friends is graduating from medical school which, I've heard, is kind of a big deal. (Those of us 26 year olds that drive ninety minutes each way over a mountain pass EVERY DAY retaking freshman college classes just to get into dental school wouldn't know anything about that, dammit. My nursing degree counts very little in the way of dental prerequisites, don't you know.) In any case, I'd like to come up with a simple gift to make for her, but I don't have any ideas, and she can't have my sweater. She's starting her residency in Washington D.C. (about as far away from Washington state as you can get, right next door to my parents in South Carolina.) so there will be cold weather for knitted items.

Any ideas?

Some stitch markers with no dang dangle. I'll admit to having lost most of my little plastic ones in couch cushions and dog bellies.

The red sweater for my mother is at the seamstress (otherwise known as my friend Tina with the working sewing machine who is capable of sewing in a straight line.) being prepared for the big steek. I used a crochet steek for my wool sweaters, but since this one is cotton/silk, I figured I'd better machine steek it.

It's been really hot this week (like 106 degrees) and it's wildfire city around here, not the right setting for a picture of the brown sweater. Someday, people (Secretly, I'm hoping to be a size 4 before I take the picture. It could happen).

I've started over with the purple yarn that was to be for the jacket worked in rounds. I think I may have to rip it out again. It fits, but isn't the fit I really wanted, and to be honest, I'm feeling a little schizophrenic about what I want it to look like in the first place. There is a pattern in the Rebecca magazine that might be the thing, but I CAN"T FIND THE MAGAZINE! My significant other works nights (and , duh, sleeps all day) so I can't go on a giant cursing, screaming, rip the house apart rampage like I really want. And I still have to find the right thing for my lovely Malabrigo. The Mystery Stole is working out all right, I'm finished with the first clue. If my printer had ink in it I would have printed out the second clue and statered working on it and would have just bought some more plastic stitch markers. Instead, I am making a hundred little stitch markers (which are totally cuter than the plastic kind) and brooding over the purple sweater and the missing Rebecca magazine. And the dogs are pouting because they want to go for a W-A-L-K. What a weekend.

Without further delay...

A brown sweater.

Pattern: my own, using Elizabeth Zimmermann's percentage system.
Yarn: Cascade 220, some heathery brown color
Needles: US 8 Knitpicks Circulars

Here is a poor picture of somebody wearing it.

Despite loathing any picture that contains myself, I love this sweater and wear it all the time. Cascade 220 is surprisingly softer than you might think, and is affordable. I plan on making some basic turtlenecks for the fall from it this year.

My mom's sweater is back from the seamstress, but I got bored in the three weeks it took her, so I had to start some new things. I've started Orangina, and Flicca. My friend from work and I are having a mini Flicca-Along (it's just the two of us), using Rowan Yorkshire Tweed. The pattern calls for a chunky weight yarn, I'm using an aran weight and I've already had to rip it out beacuse I was afraid it wouldn't be wide enough across the shoulders. It's already long enough for a dog to sleep under...

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