U is for...

Undeniably ubiquitous UFOs.

Knitting UFOs.

I have knitting ADD, unable to resist the siren call of something new before I finish what I'm already working on. I may go back and forth between the new and the old for a while, but eventually the old project is relegated to the UnFinished Object bin. I return to these neglected projects in time, but they are becoming legion.

Here are a few:

This will be a Marigold slouch hat when it grows up, but it just couldn't compete with twined mittens and dishcloths.

My Faberge kerchief got off to a roaring start, but stalled when I joined a few swaps last summer.

This was going to be my new purse two years ago. I suppose technically whenever I get around to finishing it I will have a new purse...

And I don't even know why I ever start blankets

Trying to get back into the groove, UFO Thursday

Hey, remember when I made that resolution to blog more regularly, and then I disappeared for 9 months?  Yes, I did get pregnant, but that's not why I suddenly vanished.  Our internet source vanished, and while there once was a time when I could go to the library and blog while Silas sat behind me on the floor and played with my keys (those halcyon days before he could walk), those days are long gone.

I'm back now, though!  With internet, with a computer, with a camera!

It's Thursday, so that means focusing on the looming pile of unfinished objects that haunts our house.  This week, I actually finished one of them!  The mittens that I started for Silas way back in February.

In my defense, I started them with the intention of his wearing them this fall/winter, so there was no rush, and they were basically done except for the weaving in of ends, sewing on of buttons, and crocheting of the cord.  I finished the knitting in a bit of a rush back in Feb, because in the rush to get out of town for a funeral, Ryan managed to leave the house with the baby without including a jacket, hat, shoes, or mittens (I was at work all day, blithely thinking that surely my husband could think of those things without prompting, since it was February and all . . .).  I had one and a half mittens at that point, and I managed to finish the second the morning of the funeral, so between a blanket, my hat, and a pair of shoes bought at Target on the way to the service (we made another mistake in sending Ryan in to buy the shoes - they were two sizes too small, but by then we were late enough), Silas was at least reasonably covered, even if ornamented with dangling yarn ends and unable to walk.

The pattern is Heart Strings Mittens by Crystal Guistinello.  The blue yarn is Cascade 220 Sport, color Blue Velvet, leftover from the Eleanor Romper that I test-knit for Kate Boswick, which in browsing through back-entries, I find I never blogged about in any depth.  I will have to remedy that soon!  The red yarn is the same Red Ranch Wool-Ease that I used for the cowl of the previous entry.  The pattern called for a simple chain stitch cord, but I wanted a sturdier line, so I slip-stitched back along the length.  The result is a bit like a two-stitch-wide icord, but less fussy to accomplish in my opinion.

I really like the shape of these mittens, nice and round and roomy.  The pattern actually calls for fingering weight yarn, but even having gone up three needle sizes and using a heavier yarn, I don't think the size ended up too far off.  The cord is buttoned on to facilitate tangle-free washing.

The vest was a thrift store find that I just could not pass up for my train-obsessed little boy, though we are not in general supporters of the puffy vest look.

Yarn Along: UFO Thursday Edition

Merry belated Christmas, one and all!  I hope your holiday was full of fun and family and festivities.  I had two very nice Christmases, one with each side of the family.  Silas got more gifts than he knew what do with - literally.  As soon as he opened a gift he wanted to play with it, and he couldn't be distracted by anything like opening another gift!

I am almost finished with his sweater - just a few more teensy little sleeve rounds to go, and I can start weaving in ends (yippee).  In the meantime, (and for the purposes of the Yarn Along) I have my dedicated Thursday UnFinished Object to work on.

Oh, John Anderson's Kilt Hose.  How much I've learned from your humble little webpage.  Toe-up construction, short-rows, Magic Loop, the Eye of the Partridge, traditional Highland dress guidelines . . .

The yarn is Lion Brand Wool-Ease in Oxford Gray, which is my grey standard.  When I'm contemplating making something grey, I picture it in this yarn.  The pattern suggests using a worsted weight yarn and size 3 needles, to create a stock sturdy enough to stand up by itself (and then soften with washing and wear).  It is producing a dense but still squishy fabric that should hold up to a lot of wear and washing - I've had pretty good luck with my first pair of Wool-Ease socks, though they're fuzzing and pilling something fierce these days.  They are warm and cozy, so although the little knitted bumps of the wrong side of the fabric against my feet are sometimes more irritating than massage-like after a full day of standing on them, they are still my go-to pair of socks for seriously cold days.

The book, Rilla of Ingleside, is a much-worn library discard copy - thank Heaven for free library discards!  I've read it once before, and I came back to it recently because I recalled it to have a lot of sock knitting in it.  I haven't reached that part yet.  So far the main character is still shallow and very fifteen, which annoyed me when I first read it and hasn't improved with time at all.  As I remember it's going to take almost all of the book before she becomes a sensible human being, but I suppose all teenagers take a long span to mellow into something presentable, even with WWI as a harrowing backdrop.  Besides the sock knitting I remember really liking this book for the perspective it gave on the Canadian homefront  - what the War looked like to the women trying to hold things together at home while their husbands, sons, brothers, and sweethearts fought so very far away.  And of course, it's L.M. Montgomery, so there's a wealth of beautiful scenery, quirky and endearing human characters, and plenty of warmth, humor, and piquant sadness, and a little poetry.

Putter Putter

I cooked up some laundry detergent (using Redshirt Knitting's "Bucket of White Slime" directions), and afterwards discovered that I had added about a half-gallon or so more water than I should have, so we'll find out tomorrow if it's too diluted to be any good.  On the bright side, even if it is I'm only out about 97 cents, plus small amounts of borax and washing soda.  If all of my cooking mishaps were this cheap I wouldn't lament them so much (the several pounds of stew meat that I've mangled trying to freeze and thaw come to mind . . .).

In the process I learned:

1) Grating soap is much less difficult than I thought it would be.  Much like grating cheese.  Somewhat relaxing.

2) Soap takes a long time to melt, or I have a really short attention span.  Probably the latter.

The really big news of the day is that I found my iPod!  It's only been missing for two years now!  It was in one of my knitting bags.  I was cleaning the living room (stop laughing), and I was about to put a half-finished afghan into the bag when I looked down and saw the little plastic pouch.

My heart skipped a beat.  I picked it up with shaking hands.  I looked at Silas, and asked him in a voice tense with emotion, "Do you know what this is?"  He looked at me, decided I wasn't going to give him anything to chew on, and went back to playing with a toy golf ball.  I leaped up and grabbed my phone, and texted Ryan, who shared in my enthusiasm a little more.  My iPod!  My music!  No more jumping from radio station to radio station searching for something palatable!  No more aggravated attempts to tune out the shouting of my coworkers in the lounge!  It's a tiny room, people!  Your audience can hear you without having to bellow!













I am so happy right now.

The background is the somewhat-less-than-successful attempt at a log cabin Moderne Baby Blanket (from the pattern book in the previous picture (Mason-Dixon Knitting by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shay)).  As it turns out, individual colors of RHSS work up at different gauges.  It also turns out that I really hate log cabin afghans.  Mindless knitting isn't really mindless if you have to keep checking the pattern to see if you can FINALLY change colors.

It's UFO Thursday, so I picked out a few more stitches on this infernal thing.

I am getting no pleasure out of this project.  A coworker gave me the yarn (Red Heart Sashay) a few weeks before it exploded in popularity, and as I'm not a scarf-wearing type of person for the most part, and I remain generally uninspired by the legions of ruffled scarves being paraded past my desk, I decided to try something a little more offbeat and make a circular shawl.  It's taken many, many attempts to get it to work, and it's only my commitment to the finished object and baffling my coworker with its awesomeness that keeps me going.

No, I don't know why it really matters, but I've never let that stop me in the past.

Fridays, Fridays

I wrote out a few depressing paragraphs, and then Jiji walked all over my keyboard and managed to erase it.  I'll take that as a sign.

  
She's a cunning kitty.

My swap package has been sent, and according to the tracking info, received, but I've gotten no confirmation from Ravelry.  Is she staring at the contents in disbelief, and too disgusted with my inept handling of the assignment to say anything?  Is everything sea green?  Is her internet out?  Does she have a life outside of Ravelry that is keeping her away?  No one told me swaps were so aggravating, argh . . .

Today was the deadline for sending things out, so I should be receiving a package sometime in the next week.  I'm so excited and curious to see what my partner picked out for me.  I hope it's purple, but I love all kinds of colors, so if it isn't purple I won't be at all disappointed.  I almost wish I'd said 'orange' and left it at that, just to open a box and see nothing but orange.  Orange is an unexpected color.  I love color.

I finally finished this darn bookmark.

Who knew second sock syndrome could be caught by such a small target?  My tension and row counts were inconsistent, so they don't quite match, but I'm just so happy to have another UFO off the board that I don't care.  It's a bookmark.  I'm happy.

Since that didn't take up all of my Wednesday, I also wove all the ends in on Jenn's finished mitten, and worked a couple more rows on the thumb of the unfinished one.  Have I mentioned that I hate those mittens?  I'm so glad I don't have to work on them again until next Thursday.  On the bright side, it's been so crisp and cool in the mornings that working on mittens is sounding charming again.  I can't wait to get back to work on my Hermione mittens.  I wish I had taken better notes (or any notes at all . . . ) on the first one.  I'm more or less starting from scratch with the second, except for the knowledge that I added eight stitches to begin with, and I can read cables pretty competently.  There's going to be some guesswork, though, and that makes me antsy.

Silas is rolling over these days.

He doesn't really look where he's going yet.

Unfinished Thursdays

I've cheated today and continued working on my swap package instead of anything outstanding from my UFO list, but here at least is a thing I finished on a past Thursday.  It was a SquiPod iPod cozy for my Zen mp3 player, but I got bored of making i-cord tentacles not long after I started it, and then I retired the Zen, and it got tossed around the house a lot, but I finally finished all the legs, embroidered on some eyes, stuffed it with a nice crinkly bag, and a wee bit of catnip, and voila - new favorite cat toy.

UFO Thursdays

Thursdays are for flying saucers.

Or so it would seem.  Any knitter will tell you that a UFO tends to lurk in project bags and closets rather than the depths of space.  I have a terrifying collection of UnFinished Objects cluttering up various corners of the house, and my resolution to finish them this year has been off to a rocky start.

Enter Ravelry again, and the group One Day a Week for UFOs.  From now on Thursdays are dedicated to those looming half-finished projects that I steadfastly ignore the rest of the time.

Today I finally ironed and trimmed off the ends of a dishcloth that I actually started back in March.

It's a knitting pattern off of a Sugar and Cream label.  It packs a nice punch for a really simple pattern, though it was agonizing on my hands to knit so tightly with unforgiving cotton yarn.  I'm experimenting with taking better pictures, or at least finding more interesting backgrounds.  I've asked Ryan a couple times for advice, but despite almost having a degree in commercial photography he doesn't seem interesting in photographing knitwear for his wife.

I also pulled down the Everlasting Bagstopper that's been hanging in my kitchen collecting bags of chips for the past two years and finally wove in its ends and started crocheting a handle onto it so that it can finally fulfill its destiny as a reusable shopping bag, assuming I ever remember to bring my reusable shopping bags with me when I go to the store.  Heaven knows I'd miss all the plastic bags, though, since they line the various garbage cans upstairs and also come in handy for cleaning the cat boxes.

Ryan is contemplating giving the cats away as a money-saving measure.  I can see the logic, but I can't bear the thought of their ending up put to sleep in a shelter or mistreated somewhere.  I couldn't let them go unless I knew they were going to a good home.  Fingers crossed that it doesn't come to a head for a while yet.

How can I possibly let these poor dears go?