It has been since I last bought yarn!

Friday, May 18, 2012

Attention Span of a Gnat

Oh dear... allowing myself indulgences for finished projects is a slippery slope.  One minute I am a focused machine quickly churning through my unfinished object pile and the next minute, the UFO file has grown again.

First I suppose we need to address the achievements.  Sweater pieces finished and ends (that will not require any seaming) are woven in.

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The blocking board is here and I just need to spend my afternoon communing with the blocking pins.  I will admit I am concerned.  The good news is that I had enough yarn.  The bad news is that this pattern was written by a very well meaning person, but not a pro pattern designer.  There is no schematic for making sure I block to appropriate measurements.  It is obvious to me that the fronts are much larger than the back and the sleeves might be a bit of a tight fit into the right spots.  I'm not sure what this means for the finished project.  I guess we'll see.  Hopefully I will be spending time sewing this up and gushing here when finished instead of lamenting a "so so" project.

Secondly- the mittens from my April indulgence are complete!

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Pattern: Emma's Mittens by Minh Hoang (Ravelry link only)
Yarn: Paton's Classic Wool in Mercury
Needles: US 5 for cuffs and US 6 for hand
Notes: I did as other Raveler's suggested and knit in a thumb gusset instead of doing an afterthought thumb.  This was TOTALLY the right call.  I hate how afterthought thumbs feel.  I did this by increasing 1 stitch every other row after the 2nd pattern repeat until I had 12 stitches.  I also knit these long- because I like mittens that can fit under a coat and aren't going to expose your wrist easily to the elements.  The only other change is that I did mirror cables for each hand instead of doing the same (large cable) for each mitten.

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These turned out pretty great and I'm quite happy.

Finishing the mittens was like opening Pandora's box however.  Because I finished that distraction and was technically finished the knitting/end weaving portions of the sweater- I cast on another little distraction.

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This is going to be Pasha the penguin.  Earlier this year Make One Yarn Studio partnered with the Calgary Zoo to knit some penguins for the new penguin exhibit.  I very much wanted to participate in this project but was otherwise distracted by a new baby that was eating up much of my knitting time.  The zoo no longer needs penguins, but I know a friend of mine thought the knitted penguins were pretty neat and inquired about buying one for her little boy.  She was put off by the price (not that they are over-charging... this is afterall a HAND MADE ITEM) it's just a lot to pay for some people.  Anyways her little guy turns one sometime soon and I thought it was a great "scrap yarn" eater- so I decided to knit her the penguin.  Hopefully this will be done at the end of May along with the others.

I went to my mother's the other day and decided there was too many parts and pieces to Pasha and I just wanted a simple knit to work on there- so I cast on a simple, ribbed sock in a very satisfying self striping yarn.

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Funny story about this project.  I had originally taken this yarn and needles to the hospital with me thinking I could knit while I was in labour.

HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

OMG I find it so funny that I thought I could concentrate on knitting while in labour.  Even funnier?  This wasn't the only thing I brought!  I worried about running out yarn/projects so I also brought a few dishcloths.  Um no.  Even WITH the drugs.  No.  Seriously HILARIOUS.  Anyways- I have a few short little trips coming up and this just seemed like the right "just a quick stitch here" project.  I'm not putting this on the "must finish by the end of May" list... (must finish by June for CERTAIN) but if that happens I'll be quite proud of myself.

So there you have it- this nap schedule is really benefiting my knitting time again!


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