Putzing Along

As usual, I've neglected the blog. But that was partly because I was so busy finishing things! Yes! I finished three projects in one day--Saturday, August 1st. That got me on schedule with the "52 Project" goal, so I was quite happy about it. Here are the pics:

Yes, the Girasole is finished, and I absolutely love it. I used Wendy's blocking technique, which worked very well (the instructions are at the end of the post, after the picture of her kitty Lucy.) I think it would have come out slightly larger if I had done the whole pin-blocking thing, but since my back has been giving me fits the past couple of weeks, bending over a king-size bed and using a bazillionty pins for this was a no-go. Next time I'll put the ironing cover on my cutting table and iron it on that. I should be able to stretch it a bit more than I could on the regular ironing board.

If you look closely, you can see the change in color on the border, but Daniele was right. She commented on my last post that it probably wouldn't be noticeable, and it's not. I think that's mostly because the odd skein had to be joined right at the border, and the change of knitting direction and pattern helps hide the difference in shades. If I'd had to use it 50 rounds earlier, it would have been a problem. (BTW, Daniele was also right about my ill-fated attempt at a schedule. How'd you know, D??)

So the Girasole took three and a half skeins of Ranco Multy, at 376 yards per skein, therefore between 1300-1400 yards. If I did it again, I would use one size needle larger (I used a size 3/3.25mm on this one.) BUT. Though I love the shawl, I find round shawls a little awkward to wear. I don't see why it can't be made as a half-circle instead. Yeah, that means purling on the wrong side, but I can handle that. It also means that I have enough Ranco Multy in another colorway to make a half-circle (must...not...start...) BUT. I've made the Girasole, and would like to try something different but sort of the same. Enter Wendy again. She has just finished designing two cool round shawls (here and here), so one of those will be going on the list.

Next item:

This is the 2003 Collector's Heart from Heart in Hand (Celia Turner, designer.) It's another small cross-stitch destined for our bedroom wall.

And we have this:

It started out as this, from Zarzuela's Fibers:

I spun it into a fine singles, and I think it turned out really well. Now I need to figure out how many yards I have so I can decide what it will become. I'm anxious to see it knitted up. I hadn't done any spinning for a long time, and now I remember why I love it. I'm poking around in the fiber stash now, trying to decide what to spin next.

I can't tell you how good it feels to actually be finishing things. (Ok, technically the Tropical Fish yarn isn't finished until I knit it, but it's still progress!) I have to fight the urge to start new things--I think "startitis" will always be an issue with me--but seeing results makes me happy. It's especially true since the fibromyalgia has been flaring up the past couple of weeks, so my life feels very limited at times. I don't get out much unless it's to go to the post office for work, but I at least have something I can do that makes me feel useful. It's not brain surgery or the cure for cancer, but I make pretty stuff, and that has to be worth something, right?

I'm Falling Behind

Since I joined the Ravelry "52 Projects in 52 Weeks" group, I had hoped to be able to finish at least one project a week, and had clung to the faint hope that I might be able to finish more than one per week. It's not a contest--there's neither prize nor penalty for how many projects I do manage to get done (or not get done, as the case may be), but it still gives me something to aim for. In theory, I should have finished eight things by this coming Sunday. I'm up to six, so that goal is not likely to be reached.

I don't want to get totally neurotic about this. I make things because I love to make things, and I don't want to turn my love of needlework into a JOB (which is why I've gave up trying to earn money from my needleworking skills after a brief fling at it.) But as I have chronic startitis--a horrible affliction--it's good to have a goal. Problem is, so many of the things that I've already started are big projects. I'm still clinging to the plan that I can switch off small projects with large ones, but I can tell already that I'll run out of small things and still be slogging away on the large UFOs when May 31, 2010 rolls around.

Still, it does give me some structure, which I badly need in my life. I kind of ooze from one day to the next, and end up wondering where the week went. I admire people who are able to create structure for themselves and stick to it. Remember the old "Wash on Monday, iron on Tuesday, bake on Wednesday..." plan? I don't know who came up with it, or how many housewives actually stuck to that program back in the day, but I need something like that. Not that I do much ironing. Or baking, for that matter.

I suspect I need a school-day type of schedule. Say, from 9:00-12:00 I do my paying work. Then from 1:00-3:00 I do housework. 3:00-4:00 could be violin practice, and so on. I think I'll draw up a little schedule and see how it shakes out. Every day won't be the same, because my paying job has kind of random hours. But I'll work something out.

Oooh, gotta post a couple of pics and get outa here. Rugrat and her mommy just pulled in the driveway!!

Here's the latest finished project. This is the 2004 Collector's Heart from "Heart in Hand" (Celia Turner.) I'm making several small heart-themed pieces in these shades for my bedroom so you'll be seeing more like this. 

Here's the Girasole still in progress. It doesn't look like much, does it? It's all in the blocking!!

 

 I'm a little worried that I'm going to run short of the right shade of yarn. I have seven skeins of this yarn, all the same color from the same dyelot. Three are like the photo above; three are the same colors, only darker; and one only has a slight family resemblance. I'm on the third skein of the paler shades, and I have a feeling that it will end before the shawl will. I'm hoping I can squeak out the shawl and do the edging with one of the darker colors. That might help disguise the mis-matched shades. At any rate, it's not open-heart surgery, so I'll just let it go the way it wants to. I don't know how well the picture shows the change in color, but the skein lying on the shawl is definitely darker.

Now I really must run. Rugrat has discovered my peanut butter M&Ms. She was kind enough to stomp up here and share one with me. It was a little sticky, as was the kiss I got, but that's ok!

It's All Wendy's Fault

I tried to resist this, I really did. I'm supposed to be finishing projects. You know, that whole "52 Projects in 52 Weeks" thing I've been writing about? But after following Wendy's progress on her Girasole shawl, and finally seeing the finished project I could hold out no longer. I rummaged through the boxes of yarn stacked in the stash room, and finally found the skeins of Ranco Multy I bought on sale last year from Little Knits. * (Naturally, it took quite a bit of rummaging because they turned out to be in the one box I set aside because I knew that yarn couldn't be in that box, because that box was specifically for lace yarn, so there was no possible way I could have put fingering weight/sock yarn in that box because that box was clearly the laceweight box, so of course the Ranco would not be in that box. It was in that box. Right on top.)

Sooo, I paid for and downloaded the pattern, did a small swatch that clearly was not correct, said the heck with a swatch because it will block out fine anyway, tossed those needles in a box and put the pattern, new needles (guesstimating the correct size this time), and yarn in a basket, took my sleeping pill, and tottered off to bed.

I put on the iPod like I usually do, and waited to drift off to the sweet strains of Joshua Bell's violin. But I couldn't stop thinking about that shawl. Finally, I got up, retreived the basket and cast on.

Oh, it was blissful. I sat cross-legged on the bed, listening to the violin, knitting, frogging the first circular cast-on and casting on again without even muttering under my breath, working my way through round after round. I finished Chart A and started Chart B before my brain gave out somewhere around 1AM. Sometime around 4AM I woke up and thought about the shawl, but forced myself to resist the temptation. I'm not totally insane.

I woke to someone pounding on the door at 10AM to tell me the power company was going to be trimming our trees. Ok, whatever. I staggered back to the bed, picked up the basket, rubbed away the sleepy dust in my eyes, and started working the rest of Chart B. Before coffee. (Anyone see where this is going yet?)

Dum dee dum dee dum...Chart B was a breeze, and I finished it and decided it might be a good idea to have some coffee and get dressed before noon at least. I got dressed, made my tea (not coffee because the coffee pot was still dirty from yesterday because some slob around here spends more time knitting than housekeeping), and carried the tea and the basket into the sun room and settled in to start Chart C. Dum dee dum dee d...WHAT THE...???

Now let me say that this is a terrific pattern. The charts are clear and large, and the instructions are well-written with plenty of helpful tips. Anyone could make this pattern. Seriously. Anyone, that is, who can read and follow instructions and remember that a right-slanting slash means "knit 2 together" and a left-slanting slash means "slip, slip, knit" (or is it the other way around?) It's an important distinction (and I strongly advise that you look it up for yourself because I truly cannot remember at this point), and I have certainly done enough lace in my life that I should know by now which slanty line means what. I got it exactly WRONG for all of Chart B, which I found out as soon as I started Chart C.

Oh, the wailing and moaning and gnashing of teeth!! Well, not really. Since I had no coffee onboard, I simply didn't have the energy. I just muttered under my breath, figured out where Chart A ended, and ripped back to that point. Which is why you can see what appears to be an entire skein of yarn that has exploded in the basket in the photo above. It's really the former part of the shawl I was going to blog about, and that post was going to have an entirely different feel to it. The joy!! The delight!! But it was not to be.

By the way, I have now carefully written on the chart exactly what a right-slanting line and a left-slanting line mean. And I certainly don't blame Wendy for my slant issues. It's just that this wouldn't have happened if she hadn't made such a pretty shawl, and that wouldn't have happened if Sheri hadn't started the KAL, but it's really Jarod's fault for inventing beautiful patterns that contain those pesky slanty stitches.

*I would have bought the yarn from Sheri for this shawl, since she's the one that started the KAL, but I'm trying very hard to knit from my stash. (Mostly that's so I can rationalize that since I'm knitting from stash, I'm not really violating the spirit of the "52 Project" plan.) So, Sheri, I apologize. It's tacky to be KALing with one shop while using another shop's yarn, I know. But trust me, hon. I'll make it up to you, especially if I can ever hit the website at the exact same moment the Wollmeise gets put up!