I killed it myself

Guess what?

The Runcorn is done! I killed it myself. I finished all of the knitting on Wednesday night, and I finished the ends and buttons on Thursday morning. And then proceeded to wear it all day on Thursday, even though it was a little warm for a sweater. That's how proud of it I was. Isn't is gorgeous? It's got a few little quirks (because I'm sometimes an airhead), but I think I can live with them. For instance, the buttons are on the right hand side of the sweater and the buttonholes are on the left. While this is better than them both being on the same side, it is also opposite of what I expect when going to button a sweater. It's a little awkward. Also, I knit the ribbing for the collar on the size 8s, instead of the 6s, which is not how I did the edge ribbing for any of the other edges, but I think I'm ok with the way it looks. So there!

Funny story, though, I ordered the exact amount of yarn required for this sweater, and ended up with lots of extra main color, and a full skein of the green color left over. Must have been a marketing ploy. Guess I'll just have to store the leftovers until inspiration strikes.

This means that I am now free to focus on other projects that have been sadly neglected since I got sucked in to the black hole of knitting that was the Runcorn. Right now, I'm returning to the Cherie Amour sweater that I fell in love with not long ago. The only reason I abandoned this project was because I didn't want to lose the Runcorn into the terminal WIPs syndrome. This is not a problem I foresee for this Cherie, since it's knit in chunky yarn on size 13 needles. Pretty much excellent, even when you have to rip out 14 rows cuz you're pretty sure that you knit them wrong when you were drinking and stitching and watching "Tangled." Not that I'm admitting to any of that, of course.

Hopefully, the fact that I am no longer devoting all of my knitting energies to the Runcorn will mean that I have more interesting things to post about, and therefore more posts. Huffah!

These next two topics have nothing to do with knitting, but I think they're neat and relevant anyway. Some of you may know that it's fall, which is a wonderful season and has many things which I enjoy. Last weekend, my family decided to go do something we haven't done in years; go admire the changing aspen foliage.

Pretty, yes? I think so. Another of my favorite fall things is candy corn! And I finally made it to a Target store today to pick up the best kind of candy corn (less waxy tasting than the stuff you can get at the grocery store):

My inner child is delighted. I'm off to knit on something that is not a Runcorn!

Deja Vu

So, I finished the sleeves for the Runcorn. Then, just to be safe, decided to pin the fronts and backs together to make sure the sweater will actually, you know, fit. And I discovered that it was way too short. So I ripped back 8 full inches on the back and began re-knitting it, adding 4 inches to the part before the arm shaping. Because I don't want to end up with a sweater I won't wear. I've put too much work in.

This means that I can't really call what I'm doing this week "progress" because I was already done. And it also means that Caitlin has beaten me at this KAL, because she finished her sweater this week and I did not. This sweater is really starting to wear on me.

On the bright side, and I do mean bright, I got a bunch of yarn in the mail this week! Because the new Knitty went up this week, and it included a pair of mittens with which I quickly became obsessed. And it turns out, the yarn that the design used is discontinued. So, of course I absolutely had to have the yarns, and the mittens. And now I have 8 new skeins of brightly colored yarn, waiting for me to finish the Runcorn. That's my motivation. I just hope it works.

Mockery

I've been very lazy in terms of posting for the last while. It's not because I haven't been knitting, because I have. It's mostly just because I haven't been knitting anything very interesting. There's only so many pictures you can take of 5 and a half inches of ribbing before people suspect you of not making much progress. Believe me, progress was made. It's just that such a quantity of 2x2 ribbing is a little mind-numbing.

Plus, I've been not very motivated with the knitting this week. Probably because I made myself a deal: I would make some serious progress on the Runcorn and then I could cast on a new shawl. So, obviously, instead of focusing on the Runcorn, I worked on a pair of fingerless mitts. Or read. Or something that didn't involve 5 and a half inches of ribbing. You know how it is.

Anyway, I have made some progress on the Runcorn sleeves. Not as much as Caitlin, who has been forging ahead in a single minded manner, likely encouraged by the fact that she requires a fun hand-knit sweater to wear during her dog's many potty trips.

Looking at it right now, it doesn't look like much. But it felt like a lot at the time. And after I post this, I swear I'll go back to working on it, so I can have a completed sweater some time before the Apocalypse.

Something that I have accomplished this week, however, has been the 11th pair of fingerless mittens this year. I know that you are probably shaking your head and thinking "Why on earth would any single person require 11 pairs of fingerless gloves?" And I have to admit that I probably don't need that many pairs. I can hear the mockery from my mother and from Caitlin right now. But I do like to make fingerless mitts. And I maintain that if I had knitted 11 pairs of socks this year, no one would think I was (as) crazy. But fgs are really a very good kind of project (except for the fact that there are 2 of them. That is sometimes a problem); they're small, so you can take them places, they come in all varieties, so you can work on them during all kinds of knitting moods, and they keep your hands warm in the winter. You can even wear them indoors! I often do this, and people exclaim over my warm hands all winter long. Little do they realize that the source of my internal heat stems from my obsession with little bitty gloves.

Anyway, these are my 11 pairs of fingerless gloves in 2011:

Pretty awesome, right? I won't tell you how frustrating it was for me to try to make Picasa let me make a collage with pictures in different albums. It's really not necessary to dwell on it.


Anyway, please keep the glove-related mockery to yourselves. They make me happy!

Progress

I would just like you all to know that I've finished the fronts to the Runcorn. I think. I may have to rip out the shoulders and make them longer. No verdict yet. But, they're bound off and so I'm counting it as a win.

I have already cast on the sleeves. And miscalculated how many rows of ribbing I need to follow the directions. So I'll probably be doing those sleeves for the next 3 or 4 years. Just in case you were curious.

In other news, I have abandoned my spinning, so no progress on that nonsense since last weekend. And I'm starting to freak out about school. Not that it even comes close to my stress at Mines. Just that I'm not used to the stress, I guess. I guess we'll see how it goes!

Knittin' Weekend

I had a fairly successful weekend. I went to see the lovely Caitlin and do various things. On Saturday, we drove around a lot: two yarn stores, my brother's school to drop off a package, and the cake place that we ordered Shelby's cake from. Let me tell you, cake tastings are awesome. Who doesn't love free cake in lots of different, and delicious, flavors?

With all that driving around in my car, it is unsurprising that I didn't get much finished this weekend. However, I was able to finish Robert's hat.

Lovely, no? I think he'll like it. Although we didn't meet up with him to give him the hat. No worries, Caitlin has strict instructions to take a picture of him in it if she sees him before I do. The hat was pretty quick, considering that I didn't dedicate specific knitting time to it. I mostly just left it in my purse and worked on it when I had a spare minute. Obviously that's the way to be for a project like this, even if the two balls of yarn took up a lot of purse space. The hat is posing on the monster scarf that Caitlin made for him this weekend. It's a good thing those projects are so quick, she'd kind of forgotten that she promised him a scarf.

In addition to the hat, I worked on several other projects. The colorful Cherie Amour, which I kind of lost interest in last night. It's hard to knit lace on very large needles while drinking wine and watching children's movies. So I wound a great deal of yarn instead. I did a few rows on the Runcorn, but I'd forgotten to bring the back so I could match up the armholes and everything, due to a very crazy Friday which I prefer not to discuss. Anyway, not much progress on the Runcorn. I shall rectify that tonight. I also finished up the first of a pair of fingerless mitts, except for the thumb. I prefer to leave the thumbs for last. That way I don't get screwed if I run out of yarn. But none of these projects got much attention, as I was busy spinning.

This is Mary, Mary Quite Contrary on BFL for the Nursery Rhyme spin-a-long from the Storied Yarns shop. I was a little on the fence about the colorway, but this picture is obviously very attractive and may have changed my mind. We shall see what the finished yarn looks like. I'm working very hard on this spinning cuz the deadline for the SAL is the 15th. Here's to hoping I make it!

Sweater problem

I may have a sweater problem. This is just a possibility, you understand. A hypothetical. Because, really, can it be called a "problem" if it's not hurting anyone? But I do have a lot of sweaters in my "to knit" pile.

Observe:

First and foremost, the Runcorn. This picture is missing the back, which is already complete. But it is still in the queue, because I haven't really been knitting it. Just letting it languish and hoping it will knit itself. I think I'm really going to love it as a sweater. I just don't love weaving in all the ends.








Next, the new sweater, Cherie Amour. I've been waiting for the yarn to come in for about a week. And I was so excited that it came in the mail yesterday that I cast on immediately. I'm to the ribbing portion. It's a quick knit, because it's chunky yarn. I'm excited for it!





The chunky white tunic. Yes, that is my new yarn bureau. And a whole drawer full of chunky white yarn for this cabled tunic. My mother wanted to get some of the stuff off of my floor, so we reclaimed a bureau from storage and now it's filled with yarn and other crafty stuff! The white tunic got cast on in a fit of excitement, but has languished since mid-July because it was too effing hot to knit a sweater. This will probably go back in rotation after I finish the melonstrosity, since they require the same needles. It may go back in rotation before, if I regain enthusiasm for the project.

This little pile of Ultra Alpaca Fine yarn wants to be the Effortless Cardigan. I was on the fence about this pattern for so long. And then I saw an in-the-fleece version of it at the Estes Park Wool Market and had to have it. My LYS was having a sale... it was meant to be.

This lovely alpaca laceweight recently came home with me because the aforementioned LYS is closing, and was having an even bigger sale and I couldn't leave it there. Note the name of the blog. I recently had the inspiration that this yarn probably wants to be the Whisper Cardigan. Don't ruin my pretty dreams of having a lightweight alpaca sweater with your observations that knitting a laceweight cardigan is probably going to make me want to gouge my own eyes out with a knitting needle. I don't want to hear it.



Anyway. I don't see a problem with that many planned sweaters, do you? I live in Colorado, it's not like I'll never wear them. And it's not like I have them all cast on at once (ignore the fact that this is more likely attributed to my short supply of knitting needles, and my fear of my family committing me to the sanitarium rather than my heroic self-control). No sweater problems here, no sir!

Long Weekend

So, as you may know, it's Labor Day weekend. Which, since I work for some pretty cool schools, means I get 2 days off. Which means I get a 4 day weekend, plus I don't really have much to do on Wednesdays, so I've got lots of time this weekend. Which does not necessarily equate to getting lots of stuff done. Well, not stuff that I wanted to get done, anyway.

See, Labor Day weekend means 2 things for me: Mariah's birthday, and the Colorado Balloon Classic.

Friday was technically Mariah's birthday, but she had things to do, so we celebrated Saturday night. I gave her some stuff for learning to knit, since she said she wanted to learn, and her boyfriend is out of town for the next 9 days. Seemed pretty convenient to me. Unfortunately, we ran out of time on Saturday night for knitting instruction, so we had to postpone it. She'll get there, though. And then I will have someone else to talk about knitting with! Mwahahaha.

The Colorado Balloon Classic is a hot-air balloon meet up that happens every Labor Day less than a mile from my house. The balloonists show up really early in the morning, decide whether the weather conditions will allow them to inflate their balloons and actually take off, and then either lots of people show up to watch or lots of people show up and get disappointed. This year, since I was running low on sleep, I did neither. However, Sunday morning, my father woke me up twice because he and my mother both went down to see the balloons take off. The second time he woke me up, it was via text message saying "The balloons are headed north." So I dragged my sorry self out of bed to see them float almost directly over my house.

Later on Sunday, my friend Jessica (who lives 2 blocks from the park where the balloons set up and take off), hosted a barbeque so that we could all get together and eat, and then walk to the park to see the balloon "glow." We didn't end up walking down because of various circumstances involving a late arrival to the party, and the fact that there weren't many balloons set up for the glow. Basically, the balloons get inflated and lots of people walk around in the dark, interspersed with some obnoxious person counting to 3 and all the balloonists lighting up their balloons with flame. Anyway, we didn't go down. But I didn't have any knitting time either. Know what I did have?

A chocolate fountain. I ordered it for Shelby's bridal shower, and it came in the mail on Saturday. It seemed like a good idea to give it a trial before I actually took it to the shower and something catastrophic happened. So I took it to Jessica's barbeque. It was a big hit! Especially with her younger siblings. And I learned some valuable things. Like the fact that I need more chocolate than the little booklet says. And I should place some kind of placemat underneath the machine to catch drips. And I should use not milk chocolate chips, because they're a little too sweet. Not that it didn't taste awesome.

I have gotten some knitting done this weekend, I am proud to say. I started a hat for Robert, who requested one and seems to be the sort of guy to appreciate handknits, even if he does have rather dull taste.

He didn't want anything too ornate in terms of the pattern, and he wanted dark colors. Or actually, just one color. I chose to go with stripes so I don't actually die of boredom. Anyway, it's shaping up nicely. I haven't spent that much time knitting on it, and I've already got a fair amount done. Still quite a bit to go, but it makes good knitting for when I can't pay attention.

I also picked up the fronts for the Runcorn again. It's been comparatively chilly here lately, and I'm longing for a nice sweater. I know I said last week that I was going to have the fronts done by Monday, but I lied. Because I messed up the decreases and decided that I'd work on something simpler for a while before I tried again.

I finished the first repeat for the pattern today. Only 2 more to go! Huffah. And sleeves. And the ribbed edging and buttonholes. Yeah, so maybe not all that much progress. But any progress is better than being left to rot in the bag I've allotted to it for an indeterminate amount of time.








When I started working the fronts two at a time, I thought it was going to be a great idea. I'd get it all done in one go, they'd be the same length, the shaping would be mirrored, I wouldn't have to redo basically the same thing. I just forgot one thing. The ends. The stripes in the pattern yield a lot of little ends that have to be woven in. It was bad enough with the back of the sweater. Weaving in two sets of ends at the end of each repeat is not such a good idea. Especially since I despise weaving in ends. Guess I'll have to get over that...






I've also picked up some neglected spinning:

I didn't spin the two little skeins all today, or even this weekend, of course. Drop spindling is a lot slower than wheel spinning. And I've been kind of fighting with the fiber. It's BFL from Storied Yarns in the Prim colorway. The lady who does the dying likes to take her colorways from books that she likes, hence her shop name. Prim is a character in the Hunger Games. I liked the colors, the character, and I'd tried some BFL from this shop last year and thought it was going to be perfect. Unfortunately, something is different this time around. It might be me, it might be the fiber. Either way, it's not been as perfect as I'd like it to be and the spinning has been a bit thick and thin. At least it looks pretty, right?

End of an obsession

It's official. I've finished the fourth monster scarf.

This one only took 3 days, but that was only because I was powering through the knitting to get the little bugger done. I'm officially sick of these monster scarves. Not that they aren't lovely, but I've made four in a row and it's becoming a little monotonous. Did I show you a picture of Abby's scarf? Here

The colors were all nice, I didn't hate any of them. I didn't have to rip back whole sections because I'd messed up the pattern. In short, they were nice, one-note kind of projects. And now I've got 3 other people who can wear them with me. (Note to self, get a picture of that. It'll probably be funny) But this epoch of monster scarf knitting can now be in the past and I can move on to bigger and better things.

The only question is: what bigger and better things? The bigger part had better be in a metaphysical sense because the only things larger than these scarves are baby blankets, and I'm not going down that road. That way madness lies. I'll have to think on it. Maybe work on one of my WIPs which have been sadly neglected during this scarfalicious period. Perhaps I'll go rummage for inspiration.

My kingdom for a knitting needle!

So, Thursdays are long days for me, at work. I work from 9 to noon, and then I have an hour for lunch and I go back from 1 to 3 to tutor idiots stupid people community college students at math. All kinds of math. The nice thing about this is that mostly not many people come in or they don't need much help. So I have a great deal of knitting time, as long as the project is simple (so that I'm less likely to drop stitches/lose my place in the pattern). Because of this, I was looking forward to completing a 4th monster scarf today.

It totally could have happened.

Except that I forgot one of the knitting needles, and therefore couldn't knit at all today. This lack of a needle and last week's craving of Sour Punch Straws can mean only one thing:

I need a minion. Any applicants?