Lots of Finishing and a Start

I have finally gotten around to taking pictures of my lastest finished objects. Here we have two hats, both made out of RY Classic Yarns, Silk Wool DK.




They were very nice to knit with, and super soft. The second hat I finished on Sunday in the middle of my Knit in Public stint. Of course I planned poorly and didn't think that it would be done and also had not thought of or brought a back up project. Being a one project gal, when I came home, I still had to take a moment to think... what now?

Remember these?




Yeah, that was a long time ago. I am happy to say that they are now finially finished, and what a relief! The unfinishedness of these Mitts haunted me. It had been so long since I touched them that when I first looked at them I had no idea where I was. This helped in the procrastination of actually getting them going again. However, once I figured out where I was it was pretty quick to just pick up and go. Since they are made for someone with smaller arms than mine, I had to have Mr Kiwi model them for me. He had just woken up from a nap and was not too thrilled with how I wanted him to model. He also complained of dirty hands and kept trying to hide them.

Last night I cast on for the Gatsby Girl Pullover from Interweave Knits Fall 2006. I have been waiting to knit this since it came out, but have just gotten around to setting it as a goal. Mr Kiwi also had a hand in it saying "You need to knit something that takes up more yarn out fo your stash!" Apparently using only one skein at a time to make a bunch of quick hats doesn't count as "stash busting". ;o)

Finishing!

Since finishing the socks last week I have made a lot of progress. Or at least it feels like it. In less than aweek, I started and finished a nice little hat that took only one ball of yarn. I also picked up and finished the Mt Tam mitts from forever ago! I looked at them and the pattern and thought "I have no clue where I am!" I had previously left the pegs in my counter board to remind myself where I was with each mitt, but when it travelled with me over the how many months, the pegs would fall out and eventually I just gave up. After figuring out where I was, it wasn't too long before I finished them last night; weaving ends adn everything.
I'll be posting pictures later today perhaps. With all this getting things done, I now have nothing on the needles. There are these moments right after finishing something whene I am forced to sit and think "...now what?" So here I am. With a knit group tonight that I really want to go to, wondering what I could and should quickly cast on to bring with me to StitchnBitch.....

Knitting in Progress

I have been in a posting frenzy the last week! But there has been so much interesting things that I can post pictures of instead of just babble about.
Once I finished the blanket, I picked up the Mt Tam Mitts that have been patiently wating for me. I would bring them to knit night to work on since, well.. the blanket was not portable. When I had last touched them, one was ready to start the thumb gusset, adn the other had the gusset in the making. This was the first time I had ever done a mitten/mitt/glove/whathaveyou, so I did not actually realize how long the gusset would be and how much yarn it would require. I actually thought it would be pretty short, so I used more yarn than I should have getting the main part of the mitt with the pattern knit before even starting the gusset part. On the first mitt, I managed to get a couple of rows past getting the gusset on scrap yarn before running out of yarn, but on the second one, I was maybe 3 or 4 rows short of getting the gusset onto scrap yarn before running out. I only need half a ball of yarn and maybe 30 minutes and both these beauties will be ready to be washed, blocked and worn. Even though it seems like they took forever because I was not constantly knitting them, they were very fast. Both main sections could be completed in one day, and both gussets (assuming I had enough yarn!) could be completed in another day.



My new project is, as I suggested in my last Stitches post, a lace project. I have decided to work on the Shoalwater Shawl from Fiber Trends. This was a pattern that I bought when I have *just* learned how to knit. After buying it thinking how cool it looked, I opened the insert and thought "what???". At that time I did not know how to read charts, and probably didn't know some of the stitches that I am using. Every time I started a new project since then, I have thought of this pattern, and how I was *eventually* going to work on it. So, why not now? Lace seems to be one of those things like socks, steeks, and short rows, that people are scared of doing. When talking about lace it is a gasp and a whisper because oh, it is so lovely but (in the whisper) it's so hard! If there is one thing about knitting that I don't understand, it is the fear of something new. I looked over the instructions before starting, checked out the charts (which now make *perfect* sense), and thought "awesome! bring it on". To me, lace is not that hard. It requires that you pay attention to what you're doing, stopping every now and then to make sure you have the right number of stitches, and just being careful in general. I also learned rather quickly that stitch markers and life lines are a necessity, luckily, a lesson not learned the hard way. I have not had to rip back to a lifeline far away ::spits through fingers:: and have finally found an appreciation for those dangly stitch markers I had randomly obtained from different places. For most things, I found the danglies to get in the way, but here I actually like the danglies better than the plain little stitch markers of which I ahve more than I know what to do with. I currently have 5 dangly markers and all of them are in use. In a few rows, I am going to end up needing more. I might be making a trip to the etsy stores before too long.

I am almost at the end of the second chart, and it is going so smoothly. If there is any knitting that I have done that was soothing and relaxing, this is it. The only thing I could see being a problem with this particular piece is that the yarn I am using most probably will not block. So unlike most lace knitting, what I see when this comes off the needles is what I will get. There will be no blooming and stretch. But hopefully in spite of all this it will still look fantastic.

Knit Therapy

It has been a very long week for this Kiwi bird. Work has been pretty rough lately due to important deadlines that are fast approaching and snuck up very quickly. This has only been impeding my knitting slightly. The blanket is coming along quite well, and with the progress I am making I think I should be finished in 2 weeks at the most. This will make me excedingly proud to bust about 18 balls of yarn out of my stash (and at the same time make room for more to find a home in my drawers). It will also be nice to have such a large and lovely item that I knit that can be displayed on my couch and cuddled under. Every day I look at the cable pattern and think how perfect it was for this yarn. I'll post more pictures when work is not completely exhausting me and I can gather enough energey to spread out the two sections and take a picture. Or when I'm not feeling as lazy as I do now.
Tonight was also knit night. I think I brough the blanket to one or two knit nights when it was still under 5 balls of yarn; anything more and it would be rediculous to attempt to carry around. Instead, I have been bringing a pair of Fingerless Mitts (*much* more portable) to work on while not at home. They are Mt Tam Fingerless Mitts by Lady Cashmere that have a lovely cable pattern in them. Even though i have been working on them very infrequently, each time I do I make a heck of a lot of progress in a very short amount of time. Unless of course we are talking about tonight. I was working on the thumb gusset and forgot to continue with my cable pattern. I think I am ending up tinking back 9 rounds, but of all nights, tonight I really didn't mind. Tonight was really a night of knitting therapy whether I was kniting or tinking. It was really nice just to feel the soft soft fluffy yarn in my hands, and it did help to destress from the week and enjoy creating (and then fixing). And now that I know what I am doing with this pattern, it is going to fly once I get going again. Maybe tomorrow.
Speaking of knit night, who remembers the Boise shawl I was so proud of? And the knit along? I have been doing my duty to reming the other ladies that for me once I finished, the knit along promptly turned into a knit alone since everyone has since put their shawls down. I'll be happy if even *one* other knit nighter finishes. And I'll stop harrassing everyone ;o) And don't blame my monogamous knitting... it was because of the surgery and my inability to get out of bed for almost a week. In either case....
Happy knitting.