Finished up that shop sample. Made it smaller than they recommended, because really a double loop was too intense. Also I hated the colors. And the construction was okay but annoying on that not-quite-right-sized needle.
I finished a scarf for my friend, and a pair of socks for me. And then, because I was in a socky mood, I made my own sock club!
Here's how you do it:
1) pour all your sock yarn out on the bed or floor.
2) bury your face in it or roll in it, depending.
3) squish and squeeze the best skeins of it, gently imagining in your head what you want to make out of it
4) grab the closest ball. Go on ravelry and find a project you want to make out of it, preferably socks since this is a sock club. Or if you already know that it's going to be ribbed socks for grandpa, then write that down on a slip of paper
5) put the ball(s) and the pattern in a paper bag or a big envelope or something. Don't mark it
6) Repeat until you run out of sock yarn.
7) Contemplate purchasing more sock yarn until you count the number of projects you have before you. Go kinda pale and mumble something about your hobby being totally worth it and not exorbitant at all
8) Next time you need a new project to cast on, or you clear off your sock needles, or it's the first of the month, or whatever deadline you set for yourself is met: grab a bag at random. Rip it open. take pictures of the ripping open process and post them for me, so I can live vicariously through you. Then knit what's inside!
Repeat step 8 until you run out of projects. Then feel fully justified in spending $200 ordering discount sock yarn online or at your LYS. Marvel in your collection of socks or your preparation for the holidays or the love you've shown random family members and friends.
What else have I been working on?
Well, I spun up some yarn. Finished spinning the purple stuff, just need to ply it; spun up and plied the orange and yellow stuff. Now I've started two new batches of rainbowy stuff--one the stuff that I'll chain ply and make into gorgeously skinny (I hope) sock yarn with sparkles. The other stuff is going to be a bit thicker than my normal dk (maybe. I'm not good at hitting the thickness I want all the time :P), and it might take me a while because the sparkly stuff is so much more interesting.
Of course it doesn't help that July was Spinneretta's buy 4 get the 5th free shop sale. That woman holds my wallet in her dyer's pots. I can't resist her stuff. The purple stuff and the yellow and orange stuff above are both hers, and she still makes up half my fiber stash. Anyway, I picked up 2 braids of butterscotch, which isn't as yellow as I thought it would be, so I'm not sure what to do with it any more. (and a gorgeous skein of blue and another of red, subtly variegated. <3 it!). Maybe I'll ply it with some of my natural white or brown stuff? If I had combs or hand carders I'd try mixing fibers but it's pretty hard to do otherwise. Hmmm...
Anyway, I'm building up my current list of things I'm working on
1) fat rainbowy yarn
2) skinny rainbow sparkly yarn
3) stripey socks for me
4) huge shawl for me out of Mushishi by Plymouth Yarns. I've been craving this stuff for YEARS and finally I caved at my LYS's annual sale and picked it up for $10 off per skein. 2 skeins is plenty for a giant worsted weight shawl, which is exactly what I've been craving to make lately. Lala's Simply Shawl it is, from ravelry
5) holiday gift #1, for my twin
6) holiday gift #2, for my brother
7) a scalene triangle shawl. I saw Leslie (of the Knit Girllls) working on one of these a while back and the concept is really simple. The other day when I was at work and needed a thinking break I found three random balls of yarn in my emergency yarn drawer, left over from my Hanna Cowl (which by the way I am totally going to have to rip out and re-knit. Gah!). Now, technically there's a fourth ball at home that matches, but I ignored that one and cast on this shawl. It doesn't get a lot of work done because my thinking time is usually pretty short (busy busy at work) before I get distracted and get back to action, but it's moving along slowly
8) I *finally* found a use for this Naturally Caron Spa yarn I've had in stash forever. I always wanted to make it a tunic or something but I don't have a large number of balls, and it's incredibly splitty, and no pattern is perfect... blah blah blah many excuses. ANYWAY! I found a lovely crochet pattern, and I'm going to make it into a huge wrap, or if there's plenty of it I might make it into a weird cardigan/tunic thing involving some seaming. *excited*
What I have to start in September:
1) holiday gift #3, for my older sister. These are going to take a lot of work, but if I get them started now I am sure I'll finish them
2) holiday gift #4, for my friend. The first one of these is almost done, I just need to make a few changes, and then I can (hopefully) cast on the second one and repeat it :D
3) holiday gift #5, for my older sister. Easy, repetitive, and hopefully a fantastic surprise. I should really be working on this every week from now until the holidays, but I'll see if I can condense it to one month, just for fun
What I want to be working on:
1) Knitting some mittens or something pretty in colorwork out of my remaining Peruvia fuzzy happy beautifully tonal yarn and then felting the crap out of it
2) Make more socks for me. socks socks socks forever.
Things I need to fix:
1) the Hanna Cowl. totally has to be ripped out and re-knit. I can't even just reknit part of it, because the main problem is this: I ran out of brown yarn. And the secondary problem is this: it's just too darn big. And the tertiary problem is this: the second half of it is at a different gauge because I was hurrying. So it has to be completely undone.
2) my Honey Cowl. Darn I really like this one, but I don't like how it curls and I just want it to be wider. Fortunately I've got a whole skein of yarn (+ a bit more) left so I'll just go ahead and take the bindoff out and pic up all the stitches and put the next skein into it. When I get time :P
3) my sweater. I started the sleeves, but I am beginning to realize I don't think I'll have enough yarn for the top half if I do full sleeves. So now I have to rip the arm out (because I was alternating two balls and I need both of them or at least another one to try doing the top half) and figure out what to do about the front and back. and change some shaping. and then knit it all before I come back to the sleeves.
4) weave in ends and sew down hems for my At the Telescope mitts
5) sew buttons onto my Spatterdashery
6) felt and assemble my first pair of felted press slippers. I finally tried some felting with this huge knitting bag I knitted about 4 years ago, and it felted WONDERFULLY. So I am no longer afraid to take a stab at the slippers, although getting them to fit and felt right might be challenging. I guess we'll see
7) gosh darn it work on that blasted Shipwreck Shawl. Someday I'll be done with it, and I'm sure it will be epic and awesome, but I can't finish it if I don't ever work on it! This is less of a fix and more of something just lurking... goodness, I wish I could just wave my hand and have it be done!
Revisiting my old knitting goals for the year:
January: Stockinette socks finished! yay!
February: Eggplant shawl finished! yay!
March: Baby Sweater x2 + fat stuffed turtle finished! yay!
April: Used up Grignasco Champagne in pink! yay!
May: Started Maluka, but did not finish.
June: Nada. Goals all went to hell. but I had surgery, so neener.
July: Giant Hideous Plarn Shopping Bag finished! bwahahaha and yay!
August: Found a pattern for the Spa and cast on, but did not finish.
so, my remaining goals are:
September: open (see above. Holiday gifts. will use up some of my generic wool/acrylic)
October: Cast on something with mohair laceweight and knit for at least 5 hours with it.
November: My goal was to use up this blue chunk alpaca. I made a hat out of it sometime in May or June, so my new goal is to use some generic wool deep stash to make thrummed mittens for my mum.
December: Start an Estonian Lace Shawl out of my red lace. but FIRST I need it to be untangled. without death. Still working on that.
Of all my goal-setting over the years (lol, five years) of knititng, this has been one of the most successful so far. It's focused me not on finishing things up, not on getting yarn out of stash, but just on using the old stuff that has been waiting for a purpose. I really enjoy it. Sure, I have plenty of new stuff that I'm playing with (*cough* sock yarns, the blanket, the giant shawl that's 1/4 done and I just got the yarn on Saturday, etc) but I also get some work done on the older stuff, and it's no longer just put off forever. I will have to try this again for next year.
