Six months later

I didn't plan on being gone for so long but a few days of wanting nothing to do with my knitting needles turned into weeks, then months, until it soon became evident that my love affair with knitting had gone on an indefinite hiatus. The few half-hearted attempts I made to knit resulted in a couple of beanies but once those were done, I promptly returned to ignoring the many unfinished projects sitting in my basket. But that's all in the past and I'm finally back. I've resumed work on a few things and, thanks to the Summer 2007 issue of Interweave Knits, I'm even planning on starting a new project or two. In the meantime, here's a look at one of the two FOs for this year:







This is a Christmas gift for Tony, who is Zeb's sort-of-brother-in-law. I made this using the London Beanie Pattern and it's so ridiculously easy to make that it took me fewer than five hours to finish, and that's including the time taken to weave in the loose ends. Quite an achievement for a slow poke like me.

Yes...

...I'm still alive. And yes, I still knit but I haven't done any knitting for the past month and consequently, I don't have very much to report. Except that I only finished one of the knitted items on my list and so my Christmas knitting adventure was a failure! Oh well. I'm not too upset about it because I knew I wasn't going to be able to finish in time. Overly ambitious gift list + modest knitting talent = doomed from the start. On the bright side, at least now I have a head start on gifts for Christmas 2007.

Speaking of Christmas, check out one of the wonderful gifts I received:



In an effort to out-gift me, Zeb bought me an insane amount of knitting needles of every size and type I could possibly need. I am not exaggerating when I say that I now have at least 60 pairs of straight knitting needles at home, not counting the ones I already owned before I received Zeb's gift. What I will ever do with all the needles I have no idea, but I like knowing that I will probably never again find myself in a situation where I do not have the right size needles for a pattern.

Hi, my name is...

Meet the new member of our family. He's four years old and is the sweetest and friendliest cat I've ever met. His previous owner named him Darfield, but we're not crazy about the name. We're trying to decide on a new one but so far we've got nothing, although Zeb's brother Bjorn insists on calling him "Squeezer."

Zig Zag Conundrum

Having made significant process on the my other Christmas projects I decided to begin some new ones. Enter Zig Zag stripes:



I'm making the adult version (the one on the left) for my friend Miriam who's a fan of bright colors and fun designs. The pattern is ridiculously easy, which is great because with about 2 weeks left until Christmas I don't have the time for elaborate designs. The challenge is keeping all the different balls of yarn from tangling. I find myself having to untangle yarn every couple of rows and it's getting pretty damn annoying. Here's what I've got so far:



Damn, that is one craptastic photo! The horrible lighting! The boring composition! I seriously need to enroll in some photography classes. Anyway, notice how the bottom half of the scarf looks a little crooked? Well that's because instead of cutting the yarns before switching to a new color I've been carrying them on the right side along with the working yarn until I need them again. The result is the scarf isn't draping properly because the right side has a little more weight to it. Regardless, I've been plodding along telling myself it looks okay and I'm perfectly fine with it but it's bugging me. I should just stop and frog the damn thing before I get too far but I'm not sure what to do to correct the problem. As far as I know the only alternative is cutting the yarn after I'm done with it but then I'd have a million ends to weave in afterwards. Suggestions, anyone?

I promised you an FO...

...and here it is!



Pattern: "Backyard Leaves" by Annie Modesitt from Scarf Style
Yarn: Karabella Aurora 8 in color #25
Needles: US 7

So it's a week late but at least it's here, right? I can't believe it took me a month and a half to complete it. Anyway, I'm pleased for the most part with the scarf. It's very pretty and I love the texture which I think was greatly enhanced by blocking. I didn't make any modifications but if I had to knit this again I'd do it in one long piece instead of knitting two halves and then joining them as instructed. That way, I wouldn't end up with this:



See that? I was extremely careful and tried really hard to make the join look as seamless as possible but as you can see from that photo, I wasn't very successful. It's the only flaw in this otherwise beautiful scarf and it bugs the hell out of me. But I'm going to resist pulling it apart because it's not very noticeable. Besides, I have quite a few more gifts to finish so I really don't have the time.

Sorry for the pictureless post...

...but it was either that or wait until the weekend to post an update. I never have enough time in the mornings to take photos and by the time I get home from work it's pitch black outside. But don't worry, I promise to take photos this weekend and show off an FO!

Long time no blog

Remember all that crap I said about not freaking out about my huge pile of Christmas knitting? Yeah, well, that was the denial talking. Or perhaps I was drunk blogging. Whatever it was, it has now disappeared and been replaced by anxiety. And panic. There is absolutely NO way I will be done in time to get these goods shipped off for Christmas. What the hell was I thinking? I'm such a slow knitter that I could have started knitting in January and still not have finished in time. Ok, I'm not that slow but I'm certainly no Eunny, who has the enviable ability to knit sweaters in less than a week. But no worries, I'm still plodding along, hopeful that somehow I'll manage to pull this off. I work better under pressure.

Anyway, it's unlikely I'll be blogging any more than once a week because I'll be spending much of my spare time knitting. Speaking of which, here's this week's progress report:



That's one half of "Backyard Leaves," off the needles. I haven't made much progress on the other projects, mostly because I've been doing a little bit of work on all of them instead of concentrating on one or two. But I prefer to do it that way because it keeps things interesting and it's more efficient than spending days on a single project while the others languish in my knitting basket.

As for yarn purchases, I bought what Zeb and I agree is the perfect shade of red for his sister Chantal's scarf, which will be "Here and there cables."



The color looks really dark in that photo but I swear that red is possibly the brightest red I've ever seen. It's so bright it hurts my eyes when I'm knitting with it, and that's just a slight exaggeration. According to Kuna, Chantal likes really bright shades of red, so I'm sure she'll be happy with the color choice.