More pics and project progress

Sometimes, when you have a really complicated project (or two), you've just gotta do something quick and fun. This sweater? Totally quick and fun, and used yarn from the stash, so, bonus on that!

Please excuse my hair. I had just put on the sweater and Daven is not good at telling my my hair looks like I've been attacked by static monsters. I also look stoned. I was not. (This is a V neck sweater, I was just wearing a mock turtleneck shirt under it.)

This is the inside of the Fair Isle sweater. It is a lot of ends. The pattern had said "leave a long tail and braid them all together to finish", which I thought sounded clever. In reality, that turned into a big clunky mess. So, after several iterations of attempts, what I'm doing is this:

That would be making a billion tiny braids (typically 3 strand, occasionally a 4 or 5 strand will sneak in if there aren't enough buddy strands for it to fit in elsewhere). Then I weave those little bastards in:

And ta da! I think it looks pretty good and there won't be the threat of the holes between colours opening up due to teeny knots and then neurotic braids. The downside is that, well, this is REALLY SLOW GOING. Mostly due to the fact that it totally messes with my left wrist, which has been rather tetchy recently anyway. So, I can only work on it for about an hour at a shot. Eventually it will be done and will look wonderful and hopefully fit. I'm really not sure on that point, and since there are no arm holes, it isn't like I can try it on. If it does not fit me, I will gnash my teeth, shake my fists at the sky and give it to my mother, who loves Fair Isle sweaters, is much narrower than me and shares my tastes in colourways. I'm kind of hoping it will fit me, though. Funny, that.

My next update will include photos of the progress I'm making on the bigass blanket I've been knitting for over a year. Strangely, when I stopped working on it for about 10 months, it failed to grow at all. Now that I'm working on it again, it is once more growing. Funny how that works. :p For the curious, I got hung up about halfway through the first side of the leaf border. Now, after about 2 weeks, I'm approaching corner 3, with only one more side to go on it. I finally memorized the damn pattern, which helps. It is a little wiggly, so it took a while to get into my fingers, especially with the 10 month break.

Another project

A feather and fan scarf pattern (I actually have never done one of these before; I figured it was about time) that I picked up from knitpicks.com. Knit with a single Zauberball, this turned out really fun, and I got a ton of comments on it from people when I knit it in public. Usually people just ignore the crazy lady, but man, did they love this. I did modify the pattern by making it one repeat narrower than they called for. I don't like exceedingly wide scarves, and I prefer longer ones, so that worked out nicely. I knit this over a couple of weeks in December. (Yes, I have a backlog of projects to take pictures of. I'm getting to 'em slowly.)

Look! Pictures!

Admittedly, not very many pictures, but pictures nonetheless.

I chopped off all of my hair, making my neck cold, so I knit a cowl.

My first Cowl(TM)! I didn't like any of the patterns out there, so I made something up as I went along. Undyed handspun silk/alpaca blend. I might dye it eventually.

The front of the Fair Isle Sweater. I now have an ends-weaving-in strategy, which I'll poke away at when the mood strikes me. After all, I have the steek and neckline left to do!

The back of the FI sweater; you can see the upper pattern a little better here.

It is apparent that I am totally unable to finish projects. The colours on this are a little off; the purple isn't quite so blue blending into the pink. Baby surprise jacket made with a bunch of "sock bites" I picked up at a local yarn shop.

*random post to be snarky*

Am I allowed to redact someone's yarn privileges? Because these people should not be allowed near it anymore. These people, on the other hand, get as much yarn as they can handle. It is all in the execution!

Eventually more photos will happen. The fair isle sweater hit a snag...the finishing portion. I don't like weaving in ends for a normal project, this thing has an inner mane. I'm trying other options, but it is almost all knit...just in two bits.

Lots of other knitting has happened. More will happen. Maybe you see it, maybe you don't! Depends on my sense of whimsy! WHIMSY!

...I'm in a strange mood. Fleeing the keyboard back to project 1239784 now.

Week 4

Slowly but surely, we plod along.

Week 3

Finished up the sleeves (I maintain that steeked sleeves look like crotchless leggings until you cut them apart), finished my travel knitting (the scarf) and cast on for the body. Also, because I love to torture myself, I did some simple math. See that teeny tiny little bit of ribbing that is the bottom band? Just the ribbing part is over 7000 stitches, on size 0 needles. Check me out *not* discouraging myself by doing the rest of the math, lest I fall upon my needles and knit no more.

So, yeah. This is a weekly status of the sweater, and if I finish anything else, it gets screen time, too.

Week 2

Got a little distracted, and didn't get much done on the sweater this week. Without the impromptu "must do this now!" project, I should get more accomplished on the sweater.

(A little girl had a Curious George themed birthday party today, which is who the monkey was for; I came up with the idea of it on Tuesday, so it was a bit of a rush. I also included a card with $20 to "Cover a little bit of her therapy if the monkey is creepy instead of cute." Happily, she hugged it, so, it apparently is cute and not terrifying. It is a fine line between these two options in handmade toys.)

Week 1

Making reasonable progress, considering I haven't worked it much the last couple of days. The biggest problem was with the pattern; the charting is done in tones similar to that of the yarn, which is damn near impossible to discern unless you are in daylight. I don't know about you, but most of my knitting (at least of this type) happens on the couch, where the lighting is not as strong at the sun. This led to a few errors and tear backs, but I've got the two naughty colours marked differently now, so here's hoping the rest will go more smoothly.

For my own information

Yesterday I cast on this sweater. It is more complicated than any previous sweaters, and I'm somewhat unreasonably excited about it. So far, so good.

Caaaandygram

Kai thinks he should be an inside-too yak. After all, he plays with Leika, and she gets to go inside. Why shouldn't he?

Leika is aiding and abetting by rouping at the back door constantly to be "let out", which is more of code for "Open the door so Kai can come in to play with me, Mama!"

We remain yak-free inside as of this posting. It is pretty adorable to see the two of them standing on the steps, looking hopeful about coming inside, though.