Work-in-Progress Wednesday: Clockwork

The road of self-discovery was rather humbling this week.

Lesson 1:  I am not in the kick-ass shape I imaged.  Not exactly a news flash since I’ve been slacking since June, but even though I can boast completing a marathon and a half-Iron distance triathlon in the last six months, when confronted with the Insanity workout DVDs, I still collapsed on the floor in heap of sweat while gasping for air.  My quads feel like lead, and stairs are not my friend.  Oh yeah, and I’m only on day 2 of 60.  It’s going to be a long 2 months.

But you guys don’t really care about that right?  You’re here for the knitting.  That brings me to:

Lesson 2:  I AM AN IDIOT

Ages ago I planned to knit Clockwork, bought the pattern, and then whined when I realized I didn’t have as much yarn as the pattern called for.  Anyone remember that pity-party?  Apparently I needed 16 months of continuing to daydream about a red and cream Clockwork to come to the ridiculously obvious conclusion that it’s just a scarf knit lengthwise, and I could knit a narrower version.  Seriously, it took 16 months for that to occur to me.  Within hours of my monumental epiphany, the pattern was printed, yarn was wound, and Clockwork was in progress.

With the easy Citron project wrapped up and Laika currently acting like a black-hole of knitting, Clockwork is my new go-to project.  Is it all I hoped and dreamed?  No idea yet, but I'm enjoying it so I'm not stressing about the end result. After weeks of laceweight yarn and size 2 needles for Laika, I'm absolutely loving sportweight and size 6.  I thought I’d be further along after spending 10 hours at a dog agility event on Saturday, but the day was hectic and I was exhausted. Juno too.

Despite the blue ribbon, it was not one of our better days--only 2 clean runs of 5.  I think we were both hot, tired, and out of sorts.  Hiking and swimming with Rugby on Sunday was more her speed.  Wet dirty dogs are happy dogs!

Happy dogs will still refuse to look at the camera though. 

Visit Tami’s for more WIPW!

Finished Object Friday: Starling Citron

Recent epiphany:  the amount of time it takes me to post a finished knitted item is directly related to how I feel about said item.  Jordan, which I was thrilled with, I posted within 2 days.  Citron?  It was finished over a month ago.  I could drone on that I was on vacation, or just too busy lately, and the colors weren't coming out well in pictures and I wanted to wait until I got better ones, but really, those are all just excuses.  The plain and simple truth is that my feeling on Citron is best summed up in one word:  meh.  And it's not that easy to motivate to sit down and write about something that you are not excited about.

The crazy thing is that it came out almost exactly as I envisioned and planned.  Apparently I had to see the actual item and not just the picture in my head to realize it is so not me.

Example of color wonkiness

I do not do bold stripey shawls. Unfortunately I had to make one to realize that.  So I'm chalking up these few weeks of knitting and over 700 yards of handspun (those runched sections absolutely devoured yarn) to a lesson learned.  I will be trying to remind myself regularly as I drool over gorgeous handpainted braids of fiber that solid colors are my friend.  Or at least slowing transitioning gradients.  And maybe variegated braids that aren't as vibrant.  Or I could spin the fiber differently to give it a more heathered appearance. Or....yeah, I don't see myself passing up all variegated braids anytime soon.  How about just:  choose wisely?

The good thing is that I adored every minute of knitting Citron.  Even those beastly 700+ stitch rows (I seriously think it took about 90 minutes to bind off).  The handspun came out so well that I think I just liked knitting with it no matter what I was knitting, even endless rows of stockinette.  And talk about utilizing every last bit of handspun--I had maybe 2 grams left.  So while I am firmly in the "product knitting" camp, even I can't regret all the happy hours this shawl provided.  You win some, you lose some--I'm calling this one a draw.

Visit Tami's for more finished objects!

Work-in-Progress Wednesday: Starling Citron

This post should also be titled "duh", because really, there was pretty much no chance I would be working on any other project.

Citron is moving along quite nicely.

I'm completely enamored with this project.  I haven't knit a stitch on anything else since I started it.  It requires almost no thought, and I'm getting huge kick out of knitting with the handspun. This might be the closest to knitting monogamy I've been since....well....ever. If I were sticking to the pattern size, I would only be about 10 rows away from the ruffled edge--not bad for only casting on Friday night. 

Since I want to make the shawl larger, I'm still far from the finish line though.  I've never been a fan of projects with super long rows (pretty much the only reason I've been able to withstand the Color Affection craze), and I realized pretty quickly that the rows for this are going to get insanely long.  For the runched sections, you basically  double the amount of stitches, knit 5-6 rows, and then decrease back down.  My current row has 444 stitches, which is tolerable but approaching my patience limit.  As written, the ruffled edge has 540 stitches, but since I'm going to add a few extra sections, I'm thinking that by the time I get the ruffle, my rows will have 700-800 stitches. 

I really wish I hadn't just worked that out.

Visit Tami's for more WIPW!

Ishbel

Once upon a time, I started knitting a shawl.  It was so long ago that I can't remember exactly when, but there's no doubt it was well over a year ago.  The shawl pattern was Ishbel.  It's hard to go anywhere around the virtual knitting world without running into this shawl.  If you've knit at least a couple of shawls, good chance that one of them was Ishbel.  I'm a couple years late to the Ishbel party, but it's finally finished.

Like most new projects, I started out like gangbusters and quickly finished the stockinette middle section. I have no idea what happened next, but it did not involve knitting on this shawl for a long long time.  Ishbel was buried in a drawer.  I occasionally even forgot about it.  When I finally made it back to Ishbel to start the lace section, I could only manage two rows before stuffing it right back in the drawer where it was neglected again for weeks, sometimes months, at a time.  Obviously at that pace, progress was slow.  I usually like knitting lace, but my mind has been so foggy this year that even simple lace patterns have seemed extremely tedious.  Thus, Ishbel sat.  And sat. 

When my determination to clear out WIPs kicked in earlier this month, I finally gritted my teeth and dealt with Ishbel forcing myself to knit at least a few rows every night.  I really enjoy knitting the first half to two-thirds of shawls, but once the rows become so long that it takes fifteen minutes to get through each one, I start to drag.  One night I managed six rows with the help of two hours of Battle: Los Angeles (gotta love a good brainless action movie, especially when there are aliens).  A few episodes of Vampire Diaries and the Walking Dead (yup, vampires and zombies also totally fun to watch) got me through the last chart and epically-long bind off. 

 

So Ishbel is finished.  Finally.  Ishbel puts me at eight projects finished with stash yarn this year (the goal of twelve might still be within reach!) and a little more progress on the sock yarn stashdown.

October update: 
Current score: -3
Skeins acquired: 0
Skeins used/destashed: 2 (1 for Ishbel; 1 skein sold)

New sock yarn stashdown score: -5.  Best score yet!