Sunday, February 03, 2008

I swore I wouldn't do this...

When I started knitting again, I used to laugh at those people that would start a project and not get around to finishing it. I swore that I would never become one of those people. I found out, much to my embarassment, that all you need to do to become one of those was to buy more needles.

It started out innocently enough. Someone mentioned somewhere that a good way to avoid Second Sock Syndrome was to get a second set of needles and work on both socks at the same time. "Sound advice" I thought and found my way to my LYS and picked up a second set of your typical steel needles. Little did I know that that one small purchase would start me down the slippery slope of having many WIP's in my house.

So let me introduce you to my newest wip. This is a hat in Noro Silk Garden. I won this yarn in a contest last year, and while I loved it, it didn't really scream out a particular project. On Thursday, Whitefeather, the first year weaving/knitting teacher, had her students start on knitting in the round. She asked me to photocopy a Noro hat instruction sheet. I made one extra copy and started after supper. I am about halfway through the hat brim. I love it!
Next up is an ill-fated sock. I read the pattern wrong and cast on too many stitches. So I ended up frogging it back and cast on again at my weaving group meeting. It is Briggs and Little and dyed by me. They are a fast knit, if I can get myself to knit on them.

Then we have my mittens that only need thumbs. Two little thumbs. That's all. Soon, I promise, soon.

And then there is the LACE shawl. I haven't fallen out of love with it, but I am having a hard time getting back into it. I set this baby aside about October when life got a bit busy with weaving for Christmas market and still haven't managed to knit a stitch since. But seeing as I have a 5 year deadline on this, I am not going to beat myself up.

And just so you won't think that I never finish anything, I did finish plying my merino silk blend. I had plied the first half of the bobbin quite tightly and when I came back later in the week, we watched a movie and had a glass or two of wine, and I wasn't paying too much attention to how much twist I was putting into the yarn and when I got to the end, I realized that I had plied way too loose. This is a beautiful yarn and I wasn't going to let my stupidity let it be anything less than it should be, so, with Mira's help, I unplied and wound two balls to get back to the place where the twist was right. There was a lot of sighing and a few well placed curses at myself. And now I am happy to present the finished skein.

She is a beauty!

And once again, sorry for spelling mistakes. Blogger is being stubborn!

6 comments:

David T. Macknet said...

You, too, have been assimilated. There was hope, once ... but, alas. Too many WIP's, too little time. ;)

Anonymous said...

I knew that a few glasses of wine could loosen the tongue but I didn't know that it could loosen the ply too .
Mamoo

KansasA said...

Welcome to the club! LOL Nothing to do with knitting but I have a cross stitch project I put away.... 14 years ago!! It is over half done and someday (sigh) I will get back to it :)

Anonymous said...

@ kansas a
A mere 14 years? I have a cross-stitch project that I started in the early 80s, probably about 1982. And it's not done yet either. Let's see, that would be 26 years. Jackie can confirm that my Ziggy cross stitch is about half done. I think she has seen it, even though I started it more than a decade before we met.

DH

Anonymous said...

I have a box of various garments that are cut out and still have the pattern pinned on them. They have moved house with me twice. The problem is that these are at least two sizes smaller than I am now. So, dropping two sizes is a WIP before I can even get to the sewing WIP.

Unknown said...

Jackie if these are the only WIP's in your house you are a superstar woman! Holy crap I have a few more than that (and if I actually slept I wouldn't lose any sleep over them either...lol)...they all look good and some darn good potential, especially that shawl (you know I am totally laughing at you on this one...!).