Sunday, January 31, 2010

Knitting: Sometimes organization is bad

Mostly it is good though.

Case in point... I had the brill idea to make a pattern/project binder for 2010. Sort of like the ravelry queue. And while ravelry is still a genius and I am its slave... I need tangible. I need something that I can carry around with me and touch and feel. I know this is weird because with the Iphone I can actually carry ravelry around with me. But anyway... binder it is.

So I started planning. I had 2 projects in the binder. The lovely Welig Gloves and The every way wrap. Both started around beginning of January/end of December? Anyway, I was a good girl and soley worked on these 2 projects. I finished the gloves. And decided to start a simple sock project to go along with the wrap. I cast on Spring Forward. It took it's place in the magic binder.

Welig Gloves
Progress on the every way
Spring Forward

Then I did a dumb thing and went to knitters mercantile. I bought this fantastic self striping/patterning yarn by Regia. I went to a friends to watch movies, needed something even more simple, so I cast on for another sock! That has no pattern though, so no insert into the binder. I will write it up though for prosperity, and to OH yeah, make the 2nd sock match the first. har,har, har.

The pic is of the in progress, but the 1st sock is actully complete.
SIP: Sock in progress
Then, I went on Ravelry forums and started reading the January challenge for SKA and I cast on another sock! It's a made up pattern from BW stitch dictionary... and I haven't gotten far on it. The sock yarn is alpaca and is super slippery and fine to knit, so these may get frogged or take forever, not sure.

SKA Jan Challenge

THEN... if all of this wasn't bad enough... my first shipment for the Rockin' Sock club came on Friday. Holy crap, do I love this yarn. It''s this gorgeous red/pink with a bit of bluey/silver, some orange and pinks and it is way too fabulous! I was actually leaving the house on Friday, pulled my car over in front of the mailbox because I saw a package. I sat there on the wrong side of the street facing the wrong way and opened the amazing. I was in love right there. It was like this was the most perfect yarn in the prettiest of colors and I felt like it was made just for me. I checked the patterns quick too and they were stunning as well.

Happy Go Lucky

Instead of running back into the house to immediately wind and cast on (which was truly a thought), I went about my errands. I didn't even cast on for a whole day! But then I just had too. It was staring me in the face and I knew I couldn't knit on anything else.

So, I cast on Flabella. I read through the pattern multiple times and on I went. Until the 1st freaking row. Yes, this pattern has bobbles, which normally I don't like, but they look so pretty in the pattern, I knew I had to knit them and would be pleased at the end. Well, I had problems, after about the 4th bobble, I decided to give up. I plan to potentially still knit this pattern someday, but in the mean time, I decided to cast on the other pattern that came with it, Cascadia.

Cascadia

It's a toe-up so not my fave method, but I did it. And for all of you that know me and know my relationshp with Judy's Magic Cast on... I actually did it. First time ever it actually came out fairly well. I just have one little hole to fix up instead of the usually craziness that happens when I do it. So, I felt better about that... then onto the pattern. It's just awesome. It's pretty and easy to memorize, the directions are written very well and the charts are awesome. So I'm half way through the foot (I think). And the yarn as knitted is still amazing and lovely.

Oh yeah, back to the binder... so on my lazy Sunday morning, I notieced I had patterns skattered about and thought I really needed to wrangle them in. So I put some random patterns in another binder. And I started putting the "I REALLY WANT TO MAKE THAT!" in the 2010 binder and lo and behold it has grown!

I think it is mostly due to ravelympics. If I get on a crazy knitting roll during this time, I want to be sure to have enough projects in my "queue". So I've picked a couple to knit, since Vivian is going to be knit another time. I have the twilight mitts to knit with Jackie and Karen. I thought maybe another sock pattern to go with the SKA Feb. challenge. And then I forgot about this cowl I want to make AND there's a blue moon team too and the criteria there is just to use Blue moon yarn, so enter in another project! Of course I could merge the Blue moon and ska into one thing and have my blue moon entry and the ska challenge be the same pattern.

Anyway... at this point in time... the binder has gotten out of control. I'm pretty confident I can finish the twilight mitts during ravelympics. I MIGHT be able to squeeze the cowl in, too... but much more than that is probably hopeless. I need to slow down and concentrate on one thing at a time, not sure if that will ever be possible, though.

Oh well, at least I enjoy what I do!

3 comments:

  1. wow....those colors are gorgeous!!! I don't blame you for wanting to wind and cast on right then!

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  2. You're making me want to go look at my Christmas sock yarn purchases ;-p

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