Saturday, August 31, 2013

Look, a shiny object!

Lack of concentration and more than average frustration continue to rule. When I was here last, three socks were in progress.

Sock 1: too big. Project sent to hibernation.

Sock 2: not enough yarn. It's handspun that I got as a gift. I'm probably going to frog a sock and a half and use the yarn for something else.

Sock 3: very splitty 8-ply. There's only half a sock to go. It is pretty much knitknitknit to the end and I can't seem to force myself to finish.

The first SuperSockScarefest pattern comes out tomorrow, as does the first one for Sock Sniper. A sensible knitter would finish Sock 3 and wait patiently for the patterns to come out. I considered that, then took a look at my Ravelry recommendations. Oh look, there's a crochet version of a shawl I tried unsuccessfully to knit. I'm going to go do that.

Monday, August 26, 2013

Knit one, two, three...oh look, a chicken!

My ability to concentrate has disappeared. My only excuse is that I was sick for a couple of days last week. When faced with the choice of knit or sleep, sleep won out every time. I think I've got a full-blown case of knitter's ADD.

I've got three pair of socks on the needles currently. I'm bored with all of them. I tried starting another afghan square, and managed to screw up a simple four row, four stitch repeat. Into the frog pond with you, afghan square.

The good news is this didn't start until after I shipped off my Doctor Who Odd Ducks swap. The bad news is, the recipient has had the package for several days and I've gotten no thanks. It's probably because the recipient is new to Odd Ducks and her camera phone is broken. It still is stressing me out not to know for sure if what I sent is okay.

I did get one thing done after that, though. The Super Sock Scarefest had a pre-scarefest pattern and I finished it:

The little guy in the middle is a vampire that someone made me in a swap awhile back. He's really cute. I used him in the picture because the yarn colorway is The Brat Prince (aka the vampire Lestat).

The actual start of the SSS is just days away. I better finish up at least one pair of the socks or I won't have any needles to spare.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

What's next?

I don't know if I'm in a negative frame of mind or if it is a whole run of screw ups. I bailed on the second sock in a pair. It had embroidery on it and it came out looking yucky. I restarted the afghan square I was working on. It was coming along fine this time and I found a mis-crossed cable. It's quite a way back and it has to be fixed. Sigh.

I may have mentioned pre-ordering a book called American Sock Knitting. It arrived yesterday. There are 13 patterns, each inspired by a different part of the United States. There are some recipes, too. The patterns come from a lot of different designers. I think I'd like to make most of them.

I signed up for this year's Super Sock Scarefest. I did it in 2008 and for some idiot reason forgot about it until it appeared in my Ravelry suggestions this week. Heatherly Walker aka YarnYenta is the scary mind behind this. I think she may have been how I found the American Sock Knitting book (she has a pattern in it). But I digress. A new pattern is released every 10 days between September 1 and October 31. They all have some kind of scary theme. One pair called The Gardener had this on the back of the heel:

Prizes can be won, but I'm just aiming at some stash busting.

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Progress, or the lack of it

Projects have not been going the way I want them to lately. Maybe if I post about it, I'll get it out of my head and things will smooth out a bit.

Deleted: the sheep sweater and a duplicate stitch sweater that's been kicking around for at least 15 years. I frogged the sheep because the colorwork wasn't very smooth. I started it again and it didn't look that much better. The sweater on which the duplicate stitching was going was white. 15 years of stopping and starting made it not as white. I wasn't sure it could be cleaned adequately, so continuing was pointless.

Swap projects: they all came out good enough to send. I did something dumb constructing a project bag that I've made dozens of times. It was made with a small amount of some very specific fabric, so starting over wasn't an option. It looks okay, just not the way I wanted it to look. I keep adding more stuff to the swap box, kind of in a way to make up for the stuff I didn't like enough. The latest was a Moleskine journal with a slipcover to make it look like River Song's journal. I hope my partner likes it. I hope she likes all of it, at least a little bit.

WIP: The Great American Aran Afghan is going s-l-o-w-l-y. I seem to have forgotten how to count. Counting is essential when you are making many varied cables. The new goal is now one square a week. Maybe breaking it down into a bunch of little projects will make it go better.

Done: I did the Dalek lace version of the Bigger on the Inside shawl. It was fairly tricky. Like everything else lately, it isn't perfect. I liked it better once it was blocked, though.

Quilt: I started quilting and some of it worked and some of it will require threads being removed and done over.

The one thing I'm actively working on is coming out okay. It's a pair of socks from last year's Socks That Rock club. I may actually keep these.