The UFO that will never end

So remember how I was gushing about picking up and finishing old UFOs? Yeah, my Hey, Teach! cardigan is doing very well to kill that enthusiasm. Oh, and the Valentine's Day socks, too. They aren't helping. Let me tell you about my knitting "woes."

My Hey, Teach! cardigan (or what I'm calling my Hey, Librarian! ) isn't actually that old. It was started in September but got put aside for socks in October, a sweater in November, and Christmas presents in December. I actually got pretty far on the sweater before it was put down. The back and fronts were all finished. I had even started on the ribbing at the bottom of the sleeves. All I needed to do was to knit the sleeves, block everything, seam, and pick up and knit the button bands and the neckbands. Putting it down like that makes it sounds like a lot to do but the bulk of the work was finished.

As written, the pattern calls for cap sleeves. Now, cap sleeves have the benefit of not very much knitting (so right now that looks like a distinct plus!). But I really don't find sweaters with cap sleeves to be very wearable because they don't keep my arms warm at all. I also don't like full length sleeves because my forearms get too warm and I'll just push the sleeves up anyway. So that means 3/4 length sleeves are the way to go. Another Ravelry member had already figured out the math for the 3/4 length so I was all set for my modifications. After picking it up again, I realized I had the wrong number of stitches on my first attempt at the sleeves. I frogged that, knit my sleeves and blocked everything. After that, I could see that I made a mistake in the lace pattern of the fronts. It was right across the bust line so the mistake would have driven me crazy. I ripped back and reknit. Blocked the fronts again then got ready to seam.

buttons for my Hey, Librarian!

I seamed up the sides and got pretty good at mattress stitching (though the first attempt at it was distinctly NOT good). I realized having the sides sewn up made it difficult to set in the sleeves. Having it flat would make things much easier so I undid the side seaming. When everything was flat, I realized there was no way that my sleeves were going to fit easily in the shoulders. The sizes just didn't match up. If I decided to sew the shoulder and sleeve together, the fabric of the sleeve would be pulled too tight. I tried holding the sleeve together to see how it would be on my arms and they are fine until you get to the shoulder. At that point, they are a little snug. Ugh.

Yesterday, I decided to ignore the sleeves for the moment and to concentrate on picking up stitches for the neck band and button bands. I watched Chuck and Heroes and got all of that done. Well, until I decided I didn't like the look of the last bind off stitch on the neck bands. So I tore back the bind off and the last row. I slipped the first stitch of the last row, knit it and bound off in pattern. Slipping the first stitch seems to make the last bind of stitch look much cleaner. I'm happy I went back even though it meant more time dealing with fiddly things. While I was going back and finishing things, I wove in ends at the same time. One piece sweaters don't have as many ends. Just saying. After that was all done, I blocked the neck band and the button bands.

This morning, after blocking, I bit the bullet and decided to frog the sleeves and start them again in the next larger size. If they don't fit after all of this, I'm going to scream. Oh, did I mention I could only find one of the sleeves while I was frogging? Normally I try to do things two at a time so I don't get bored with knitting two of the same things and so that they will be the same length. Well, one of the completed but soon to be frogged sleeves was hiding under an afghan. I thought, "Forget it, I'll find it later. I'll knit them one at a time because if I don't feel like I've made progress on this thing, I'm going to throw it across the room!" I got pretty far on the one sleeve before leaving for work this morning. It would be great if I could block it tonight but we'll have to see.


I'll have to tell you about the Valentine's Day socks later. I don't know that I can deal with that much knitting angst!

Finishing craziness

I don't know what has gotten into me. After that post the other day, I've been pulling projects out of the UFO black hole I mean, "basket." I finished my Waves of Plum scarf from my own handspun. I dug out the Hey, Teach! cardigan I was making for myself. I even restarted a pair of alpaca socks for a friend. I'm also considering pulling out the Valentine's Day socks after I finish the alpaca ones.

I love the way that the Waves of Plum scarf turned out. It is fantastic. Because my handspun is heavier than the laceweight the pattern called for, my scarf is a bit more like a mini stole. I love it. Have I mentioned that I like the result? Because I do. The color is fantastic and I love the beads at the ends. The only part I really don't like is the way I joined the two halves together. My grafting is all uneven so I think I might rip it out and regraft again. Or maybe just make sure I wrap the scarf in a way so that you can't see the join. Hmmm.

The Hey, Teach! cardigan has been languishing (wonderful word that) since September. I finished the back and the two fronts pretty quickly but was held up on the sleeves. I picked everything up again and was able to get the 3/4 sleeves finished in an evening. Then I blocked everything on towels on my floor, a process my cat loved. I took all of the pieces to the knitting guild meeting on Monday as a way to encourage myself to seam it up. Now I remember why I don't like knitting sweaters in pieces. Seaming is definitely NOT one of my favorite things. The side seams are wonky looking and the sleeves are something I really don't want to talk about! Earlier in the day, I had a horrendous migraine and had to go home from work. After taking an Imitrex and sleeping for 5 hours, I still had a headache but felt human again. In hindsight, that probably wasn't the best situation to be seaming pieces together. Let's just say I'm glad I also took the scarf in order to weave in the ends and the alpaca socks. After seaming for a little bit, I wove in the ends (except for the ones where you graft things together) and got a few rounds in on the socks.

A new member came to the meeting on Monday which ended up having fewer people attend than normal. I met her at the yarn shop last Sunday when I helped her with her Mobius bag. In the course of conversation I found out that she is a librarian, too, and even runs her own small CSA. I wish more people had been there Monday and hope she will come back next month, too. It's nice talking librarian stuff with someone else.

On Sunday, I unearthed a pair of socks (yum, alpaca!) which were supposed to be for my friend *mumble mumble last year mumble mumble*. They were originally a pair of Snicket socks from the now defunct Magknits. There were a bunch of minuses being applied to this pair: the marker which told me where I was on the chart had fallen off, my friend and I have the same size feet but they wouldn't even pull over my foot, and the color and the pattern were definitely "meh" together. So it was definitely time to frog those. Instead, I decided I needed a relatively plain pair that I could get done quickly and which would look good with the color. It is a mix of green, blue, purple and brown which was flashing like crazy with the Snicket pattern. So I decided to pull out the New Pathways book and cast on for a pair of Dove socks. The migraine must have been lurking on Sunday because I definitely couldn't count my stitches per inch correctly. The number I got was absurd the first time I counted. It was something like 10 stitches per inch and I definitely wasn't using that thin of yarn. So rather than counting again, I just kept increasing (these are toe-up socks) until I reached the number of stitches I normally use for socks for myself (60 sts). In three days, I've knit the feet, turned the heels and am 2 inches into the leg.

The sock is mostly a plain vanilla sock with a purl diamond starting on the instep and going up to the leg. The diamond pattern hides the increases on the top of the foot. You increase one row, knit one, and do the purl pattern on the third row. I'm wondering if that is why this pattern is going so fast. I keep thinking, "oh, it's only a couple of rows until I can see the pattern grow some more." On the foot, the increases naturally make the diamond grow outward. On the leg, you have to keep track and keep shifting the purls towards the inside so the top comes to a point. For a plain vanilla sock, it's amazingly good at keeping my attention. For a long overdue project, that is probably a good thing.

I'm considering using this same sockitecture to make the Valentine's Day socks (the red and pink ones). Recently I've been using the Riverbed sockitecture where the increases are on the bottom of the sole. This sockitecture has the increases on the top of the insole. If I do yarnover increases, there will be eyelets in the shape of a v. On the leg, I could have more yarnovers make the top of a heart. Would that be too much? Hmmm. I can definitely see my next project taking shape.

**I just realized that this is another blog post without pictures. I'll try harder to take some! The weather and my work schedule haven't been cooperating at all!

UFOs

I've been in a startitis/finishing mood recently. I know those two really don't go well together but, trust me, it does in this case. I really, really wanted to finish up my pair of Serpentine Mitts because the house has been cold recently. There is nothing better for typing on the computer or knitting in the living room than fingerless gloves. Well, maybe turning up the heat. These fingerless gloves were definitely an on-the-go, don't-have-to-think-about-it-at-all kind of project. When I finished them, however, I didn't have anything else on the go at the moment. Then I looked at my project pile (theoretically there is a basket in there somewhere under all of the knitting totes) and realized that was a lie. I had plently of projects on the go. There were even some in there that were mostly finished or well on their way to being finished.

So I splunked around a little and came up with my Waves of Plum (aka Waves of Grain) scarf that I started back in Sept. 2008. I was almost 45-47% finished with this project when it went into the UFO pile and can't come up with any good reason for having put it down. I guess another project distracted me with its shiny newness and this little scarf fell by the wayside. The construction of the scarf is interesting because you knit one half, cut the yarn, knit the other half, and graft the two together. I'm a little nervous about the grafting part. The Ravelry KAL will be a help with that.

I'm making it out of my own handspun from a merino/tencel blend I got at Maryland Sheep and Wool. It has just a few beads at the end which catch the light. My handspun has more yardage than the pattern called for but I'm going to keep going until I run out of yarn. It's been really fun working with my own yarn. The merino makes it super soft while the tencel gives it an almost silk-like glow.

At this point, I finished the first half and am well on my way to being finished with the second half. I need to dig out my yarn scale and see how much more is left in the ball of yarn. It's amazing to me how much progress has been made after having not worked on it for so long.

After digging through the pile, I even more projects that are mostly finished and are only waiting for me to work on them again than I even thought. There are 2 pairs of fingerless gloves in there. There should be a backstory on these pairs. With projects like these, I like to work two at a time if I can so I don't get SSS (second sock syndrome). These pairs were both supposed to be Christmas presents in 2007 (possibly?).** In order to make myself finish them, I knit one in one yarn and one in another at the same time. Then I cast on for the other "pair" when I finished with the first two gloves. This plan obviously didn't help me finish the two pairs.

Another problem I was having was the fingers I put on the first "pair." There were so many ends to weave in that I just got discouraged. I also didn't keep track of how many rounds I did on each finger so now I can't replicate it on the other "pair." The new plan (after the Waves of Plum scarf is finished) is to rip those fingers out and do an inch of 1x1 tbl ribbing like the cuff of the gloves. This will also make for MANY fewer ends to weave it. I'm estimating that there are 2 short evenings' (or 1 long evening) worth of work left in these gloves. I only have to finish one more pattern repeat on the second "pair," rip back the first "pair"'s fingers, knit 1 inch of 1x1 tbl ribbing on all of them, and do the thumbs on all 4. Then I will magically have 2 pairs of gloves finished. And a pair of my US 1 circs back.

There is a pair of Valentine's day socks in Koigu I started on Valentine's Day 2006 (maybe? possibly? I know I was home sick that day) and which haven't even been entered into Ravelry. They have little purl hearts on them and are pink and red stripes with white heels. I'm thinking of tearing them out (oh the ends!) and starting them again but using spit splicing. Also the stripes are more like 3/4 of an inch of pink then 3/4 an inch of red. I'm thinking of maybe 4 rounds of pink, 4 rounds of red. I'm also thinking of making them with white toes as well as heels. Hope the red and pink don't bleed. Also, I probably won't do the little purl hearts. It will be obvious enough that these are Valentine's socks.

What else did I find? A sweater jacket ! I really loved the look of this sweater. The designer reverse engineered a sweater she saw on the show Bones worn by Temperance Brennan, a forensic anthropologist. I finished the sleeves first because I thought they would be the most boring part and the part most likely to stall me. Ha!

The designer did something really interesting with the body design. You start with the back and knit 6 inches of bottom ribbing. Then you put a number of stitches on each side on holders and knit the remaining live stitches in stockinette for the rest of the back. After you are finished with that, you pick up the stitches on the holders and get to work with your cable needle. The cables are diagonal in a v-shape when you sew the fronts and the back together. It looks fabulous in the design. It also started looking fabulous in person until I couldn't read patterns suddenly and messed everything up. Rather than taking time to figure out what was wrong, I put it back into its tote back and buried it deep in the knitting basket. Oops. This blog post is making me itch to get back to it though I should probably finish the smaller, almost finished projects first.

Like another project I just found even though they are in plain sight on my chair (albeit covered in dry cleaning), the Clessidra socks! Yes, I was working on these in October. I finished the intricate legs on these knee-high socks and only have to turn the heel and knit the feet in order to be finished. Why in the world did I put these down?! The feet are easy! There is only cableing on the instep, none on the sole! These socks are probably 3-4 evenings of work versus the 2 weeks of work on the legs. What was I thinking when I stopped working on them?! Curse you, magpie tendencies, getting distracted by shiny new projects! I really should finish some of these things. At least I have plenty of projects to work on.


**Don't worry, I gave the recipients something else.