In Progress

I had a couple of minutes to myself so I figured I'd put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard depending on how you look at it ) and write a little sumthin sumthin.

Well I've been suffering hard from Knitters ADD. I've been having serious gauge issues lately which seems to fuel my project polygamy. I think its true when they say that your knitting is directly related to your mood. I've been wanting to blog for the longest just to get some thought out of my head but my mind feels like its being pulled off in fifty million directions. I just don't feel centered on one thing and I'm thinking its the holidays that have me feeling like an erratic mad woman. So I apologize if this post seems like I'm off somewhere else (because I am). Anyway, on with the show.

UGhhhh

Here are the mishaps that have had my knickers in a bunch (dontcha just love that expression).

First off is the bog jacket I planned for Little Boy Blue. I love Elizabeth Zimmermans patterns but being the impatient person that I am I didn't read the whole unpattern through properly before writing up my notes. I was OK with the sweater until I got the shoulders. I had planned to put all the bells and whistles on this jacket including the longer sleeves, shoulder shaping and back neck shaping. My downfall came from placing the shoulder shaping in the wrong spot. You can clearly see in this photo that there is no way to correct this without ripping out the whole top of the sweater and frankly thats not going to happen (please pay no attention to my mess in the background) I'm not a big fan of garter stitch so I can't see myself starting this pattern all over right now. I just have to take an L on this one and wash my hands of it.

Next up in the Ugh category is a project that was more than a year in the making. In August of 2006 I made a feeble attempt to make a fair isle mitten. All I managed to knit since then was about an inch of ribbing. Fair isle still seems to intrigue me but I have yet to finish one project that I've started using stranded knitting (case in point). So I decided to suck it up and try and bring this thing back into my knitting rotation. I already had about an inch of ribbing done on size 000 dpns so it took me about an hour to finish up the rest of the ribbing for the cuff. After that I got into the fair isle pattern and I was a giddy little knitter watching the pattern form. Then something told me that this looked kind of small. SO I tried it on and lo & behold, it was too small. Again, I do not wish to start ALL over again so this will sit in the corner until I know what the heck I want to do with it.

Instant Gratification Knitting

In between those mishaps, I've done a little knitting to get my mind off of the failures. The first one was out of necessity. Little boy blue needed some mittens so of course his mama had to make some for him.
These are the Target Mittens from the Knitting Nature book but I used the pattern in last years winter interweave knits. I used Plymouth Encour DK and you can find all the stats here on Ravelry.

DJ (my significant other) has been bugging me for a while now to make him a hat like the Marvin Gaye reminiscent one Eddie Murphy wore in Dreamgirls. I practically sat with picture in my lap while I crocheted the hat using odd balls of acrylic yarn. He loved it even though I took so long to make it. I even made him another one the very next day. I think they go great with his locs.

In Progress

Right now I'm working on some socks as travel knitting. I'm using the sock hop blogged about here on size 1's. I'm not really happy with this project but it gets me through the commute. The pattern is one of the rib ones from the More Sensational Knitted Socks book.

Next up is a vest that I started while at Rosi's post Thanksgiving get together. I scored this chunky yarn at Rhinebeck this year and I knew I wanted to make a nice V neck vest to go over a button down shirt. My inspiration is from my Traditional Fair Isle Knitting book and I'm using my Handy Dandy Notebook for the vest part. I'm using 2 three row patterns alternating with a 9 row and 13 row pattern in between. I may be about half way done and I'm hoping that the wonkiness will subside with some aggressive blocking.

Lastly I just started a new winter set starting with a hat. Right now I'm using my hat, scarf and mittens from last year and it just won't due. What kind of knitter would I be if I can't supply myself with a coordinating hat and scarf. Come on. Anyway, the yarn is some Caron brushed acrylic that I scored at Smileys a while ago. Of course I'm using my Handy Dandy Notebook for the pattern. I'm planning on alternating rows of stockinette, reverse stockinette and seed stitch for this hat. Once the hat is done I'm planning on knitting a Bainbridge scarf to match.

Thats about it. I am working on a detailed sheep to shawl project right now but I'll save that for another post. I also joined the WOW sock club. I'm using that in conjunction with Margene's earlier idea of wrapping them up to make it more of a surprise. Well until next time and if I don't have the chance to tell you hope you all have a wonderful Holiday.