Just over six months after starting them, I finished my Woven Ridges socks yesterday. I am not sure why these took me so long. A severe case of second sock syndrome, I suppose! I wore them all day and I love them already.
I have been thinking for a while that it would be nice to have a Clapotis that didn't have lots of bulky end fabric hanging off of it. When I saw everyone knitting up cowls this winter a Cowlotis seemed like the perfect plan. I couldn't think of what yarn to use until I fell in love with a hank of Blue Moon Fiber Arts' Luscious Silk at Purlescence on the day of the yarn swap. The results are gorgeous, thanks to the softness and incredible sheen of the yarn, but a bit floppier than I was hoping. I used less than half of the hank, so I might knit a plain stockinette cowl with the rest of this. This yarn must be next to my neck. It's just so soft. (Have I mentioned that it is soft? Actually, it might need to be ribbed so it stretches over my head without being too floppy again.
Abigail's Cowotis
Using size 6 needles, CO 52 sts (multiple of 6 plus 4) provisionally (I used Fleegle's Provisional Cast-On)
Work section 3 of Clapotis stitch pattern, the straight rows, until length is about the circumference of your head, ending after a row 12.
Graft the stockinette sections using kitchener stitch, skipping over drop stitches. Weave in ends, enjoy the softness!
Mom came through with some pictures of Stefan's birthday party. He's not looking at the camera, but such is life.
A friend of mine is having twins soon and I attended a baby shower for her last weekend. What did I knit? Bunnies of course.
(I can hardly believe he was every so tiny. Eep.)
Anabel posted on the BobaKnit list that we have more requests for boobs than we have boobs knit so I knit one up superfast at Boba today. I arrived at about 2:40 and handed it to Anabel at around 5:40. Speed boob!
Since Anabel had finished up two while we were there, I took a group shot too.
Niels was finally well enough to be willing to model his new sweater today. Not well enough to go to school, but well enough for modeling.
He loves his new sweater, even without the tie.
Kristan asked me about yarn storage:
As a non-knitter, I have become curious about all of this yarn. WHERE DO YOU KEEP IT? What organization system is maintained for that purpose? How do you keep the boys out of it?
I took a few pictures for you Kristan. After seeing how organized your house is, I'm hoping you'll still want to speak to me after you see my yarn storage. 😉
Sadly, it doesn't end there.
And yes, one more picture.
As far as how I keep the boys out of it, they just don't go after it. Stefan moves my knitting around if I leave my current project on the couch or something, but then again, so does Erik. Honestly, they aren't that interested. Niels will tell you that he's learning to knit, but he's really knit about three stitches.
I hope Kristan, and the rest of my intrepid blog readers, will still speak to me after this post!
Purlescence had a yarn swap today and I made out like a bandit.
I had all the yarn out on the floor in the office (an advantage of cleaning up the office is that I can use the floor, even if it's just for poorly lit photo shoots). Stefan decided that all the yarn spread out looked like a garden and started arranging it and stuffing some of the balls into shoes. The ones he was stuffing into shoes are actually sock yarn. Smart kid, eh?
While I was waiting for the end of the swap (to collect the stuff for school) I finished sewing the hem of Niels' sweater. It's all finished except for the i-cord tie. I am not going to make the i-cord tie, though. I am going to go to JoAnn and buy some sort of cord for the tie. I don't see a point in knitting four feet of i-cord so that one foot of it shows. Also, it seems likely, as Anabel pointed out, that Niels will decide he needs a rope for something and pull it out. At least if I have store bought cord, I can go buy another. PIctures of the sweater will come later, after it has blocked and the recipient has recovered from his current flu-y illness and is in a sweater modelling mood.
I don't know how many yards of yarn I took over because some of it was old yarn from my grandmother and I didn't know how many yards it was. Not counting that yarn, and including a fluffy yarn I'm donating to the weaving projects, 2274 yards of yarn left my house today. Unfortunately, 3417 yards came in. That's a net gain of 1147 yards. I did put a few more balls of yarn into Niels' sweater but I thought my stash total would go up. I figured out why it dropped so much between my last two calculations: Ravelry changed the way they count your yarn so that if you put something in a project it subtracts it from the total in your stash. Even so, my total has dropped again and I'm not sure how. I now have 43867.3 yards or 24.93 of yarn that's down another 6 miles and over my goal for the year. That seems wrong somehow. I must be missing something. I'll figure it out eventually, I suppose. I'm still going to aim for using up 5 more miles of yarn this year, because I think I can! I already used up almost a mile in Niels' sweater.
Someone on Ravelry posted a link to an article on Knitter's Review about Slow Stashing. I like the sound of that. That is sort of what my deal with Kristi has made me do. When I want to buy yarn I have to really think about how much I've knit recently and whether this yarn is worth using up my allotment of allowed purchases or, worse, pushing me over the edge. In the past almost every time I've bought sale yarn just because it was on sale, I've ended up with yarn for which I couldn't find a project, so I am not doing that. It's hard, honestly, it seems like every time I turn around someone is having a sale, but I must be strong and use the yarn I have.
In that vein, I decided to recalculate my stash number. I sort of aired out my stash a couple of days ago, going through the bins, seeing what was where. I did find a few things that weren't in Ravelry, even though I keep thinking it all is. I thought that my stash number would go up because of that but I also found some things in Ravelry that I hadn't marked as used up. I'm "down" to 54968.8, or 31.23 miles. That's down 3 miles! I would like to see it go down another 10,000 yards or about 5 miles this year. I'm not making any declarations or resolutions or anything like that, just a casual goal. You'd think that if I can finish 51 knitted objects in a year, I can use 5 miles of yarn. That's only about 200 yards of yarn per item. Finishing what's on my needles would probably be a good start.
Happy Knitting in 2009 to you all!
Lisa's mosaic of finished objects for this year made me want to do one for mine. Thanks for the idea, Lisa! I had too many to put into one mosaic, so I made one big and one small. I blame the rabbits.
the sheep free knitter 