Knitting A.D.D.

I think I have kniting A.D.D...
Although the green cable sweater is progressing nicely, I have reached the point of binding off for the armholes and have knitted a couple of inches beyond that, (I'm really hoping that the edge stitches will work out ok since it has literally been at least 15 years since I have pieced something together) I'm ready to move on to the next project..... My attention span is done for this piece now that I can see the pattern and the thought of knitting three other pieces for it doesnt excite me now. I really wanted to work this sweater seamlessly, but never having done that, I thought I'd start with a less ambitious piece. I want to use E. Zimmerman's guide to knitting a seamless sweater in some bulky handpainted yarn on large needles - with maybe a wide rib pattern, something that would knit up quickly with enough of a pattern as not to be boring, and with an interesting wool. My mind is already on to the next project. I knit up a swatch of the handpainted bulky last night and I really like the way it looks. I guess I need to make some more progress with the cable one first, before I start into another project. Is this a knitters curse... does anybody out there finish one project before they start another or do we all have knitting A.D.D?? I'd really like to get at least one sweater finished before it gets too warm to wear it......

Cable Land

Ive been in cable land lately. I bought this great tweedy wool/silk yarn and decided to do a couple of beenies out of it. Im happy with the way they turned out - I've finally gotten the proportions the way I like them.


I've also been working on a cable sweater for the Aranalong. I got some yarn from handpainted and I'm not really thrilled with the color - its a deep almost black/green color, and green isnt my favorite color. But, I have 12 skeins so I decided to work with it anyway. This photo is really bad and looks nothing like the actual color....

I also have two skeins of a really nice dark brown that I think Im going to whip out a scarf with to go in the gift closet....

Brrrrrrrr.........

Winter Storm Watch 2005! That's all we hear on the local news anytime there is a chance of winter weather here in the Deep South. This past weekend was one of those that we have been hearing about since Thursday, when the news of Arctic Air moving in first surfaced.
After listening to two days of frantic newscasters warning area residents that freezing rain, sleet and ice was headed our way for arrival this weekend, I awoke Saturday morning to find that they were, for once, correct in their predictions. We had about .75 to 1 inch of sleet and ice covering everything in sight. Trees were bent over from the weight of the ice, and power lines struggled to keep contact with their connections. I had gone to the grocery store Friday night to stock up on the essentials in case I was homebound for the weekend. And of course, I had my cable stitch beenie to keep me occupied during the long cold day. I was hoping the handpainted would have arrived by Friday, bt it was nowhere in sight. The beanie turned out great and I even had time and enough yarn left to start on a second... hopefully my yarn order will arrive today.

Ta-Daaaaa!

It's done. I finished the beanie.

I took my time and had my wits about me, and it turned out great. I should have tightened up the first graft stitch a little more - it sort of sticks out at the bottom row - and naturally its the first thing I see when I look at it, but I think that's a knitter's curse. We always see every little imperfction, that presumably most people would ever notice. This one is going to be a gift. Its definitely NOT my color and would be the perfect little happy for one of my nieces or one of my gal pals. I think next time I try this one, Ill make it a bit shorter and narrower in circumference. Its good now, but I like my beanies really tight, so Ill probably take at least an inch off around and about a half an inch in length.
Next, I'm on to my cable beanie.... progress report to come.

Progress!

Welll, I almost got finshed with the knitting on the beanie last night. I still have about an eigth to go .... and then (keep your fingers crossed) the grafting. Here is the progress at about halfway through


I also finished the looonggg scarf in the handpainted yarn about a week or so ago. Im very happy with it - and its really warm, which has come in handy since it was 17 degrees here this morning....brrrrr.......

I guess I'll be working on the aran blanket after the beanie while I wait for my next order of handpainted to arrive for my aran-along sweater. Lets hope I get what I ordered.
Have a good Monday all.

A seamless saga

What do you do with a single skein of beautiful lettuce green handpainted yarn??? Why, make Thuy's seamless beanie of course! The simple elegance, the ease of knitting back and forth in short rows, simple shaping, and then an easy stitch-up making a perfectly seamless piece of knitting with almost instant gratification. Right? Wrong... at least not for me. The knitting and shaping was easy enough - done during an episode of Desperate Housewives and a couple of nights of shriekig contestants on American Idol. Then it came to that simple little row of grafting. Ive never grafted in garter stitch before, but I figured, how hard can this be? So after finishing up my last few rows of knitting at around 10:30 at night, I started to stitch it up with the help of Elizabeth Zimmermans text to guide me through the seamingly effortless process of stitching this baby up. Well, after several failed attempts and pulling the grafting out over and over, I ended up with a row of twisted and gnarled cast on stitches from dropping them and picking them up several times, and a tail of grafting yarn that looked like it had grown fur and fattened up. Time to retire for the evening and deal with it tomorrow. So, on Friday, with a clear head and a this-is-not going-to-defeat-me attitude, I attempted to right the havock I had wrought on my otherwise perfect little beanie. Well.... those gnarled and twisted little cast on stitches just didnt want to cooperate with me it seems. I was defeated. With a heavy heart, and alot of pain, I began the process of unravelling the whole beutiful little piece of perfection. Not that it took that much time to make, but the fact that something so seemingly simple had beaten me. I then decided to make some sample grafting swatches - which, after a couple of attempts, I got the hang of. (Why didnt Ido this before I started the first time...??) So yesterday I began rebuilding my beanie. Got halfway through and am going to try to finish up the knitting today. But, I will NOT start grafting at 10:30 tonight - no matter how badly I want to finish. I have learned that all of my finishing has to be done when Im fresh and clear eyed, at the beginning of a knitting session. If not, even the simplest of tasks will beat me. Happens every time.

Yarn Dilemma

So I ordered this yarn from Handpainted Yarn. I ordered three colors of the worsted weight merino to get an idea of the colors, the wieght of the yarn, etc. before I ordered a large quantity to make a sweater or something. The yarn came about a week after I ordered it. The colors were beautiful. I had ordered two skeins of a dark blue, a burnt orange, and a beautiful lettuce green. My original intent was to use the three colors together to make a scarf - something easy to work with the to get a feel for the yarn. Upon closer scrutiny, and knitting a multicolor swatch, I discovered that the green was much thicker than the other two yarns...hmmmmm..... there went my plan for using all three colors together. Oh well, I decided to use the navy and orange only, using large blocks of the orange at either end and the blue in the middle. (See the photo in above post) All was going well until I went through the first skein of the blue and began the second. Because of the hand dyed nature of the yarn, there is alot of color vaiation within a skein - which makes for a rich looking fabric - but the second skein of blue had much more of the lighter tones than the first one did. Consequently, I now had what looked like a purply-blue patch at the end of my blue section. I decided to knit an equal amount of this color in order to balance the other blue and to make it look like I designed it that way. Its going to be alot longer than originally intended. I love the feel of this wool - its incredubly soft, and would love to knit a sweater out of it, but Im ocncerned with the color/weight variation thing. Ive corresponded with others who have suggested using two skeins at once and alternating them every other row - which seems like a pain. Any thoughts out there??????