Up this week…

So the weather here has been horrible and since I normally take ‘good’ pictures outside (the lighting is better) I haven’t been able to take better pictures of the scarfs I’ve finished. But I have gotten other stuff done (or at least started).

I’m making a black scarf for myself and I’m about 1/2 way done with it so I might be able to finish it this week. I’m also finally making headway on my mom’s ‘Vivette’ scarf. I like the new way I’m doing it (similar to the argosy scarf I made for my sister) and since the rows are shorter, it’s better on my attention span.

I still need to sit down with the purple/black scarf I blocked last week and add the fringe to it, sew in string ends, but otherwise I don’t have a lot to do. I’m gonna try and finish my scarf and my mom’s this week.

I’m also trying to plan out 5 Christmas presents. 1 for my sister, 1 for godfather (and 1 for his wife who signed all the cards, bought all the presents…etc.), 1 for my godmother, and 1 for my grandpa.

I think I can manage them over November and December…

Except for the fact  that I’ve decided to once again try NaNoWriMo. I attempted to complete it last year, but I didn’t outline very well and ended up getting about 3,000 words done before getting angry at all the plot changes I was coming up with and quit it.

This year, I’m planning on spending the rest of this week writing an outline and next week I’ll officially start writing it. It would help if I had decided which story idea I was going with.

Success?

I finished the second sock about 2 weeks ago.

I finished another scarf this past week.

I have two more scarfs currently being knitted.

I’m going to frog that pair of socks within the next few days and make a different pair from them (I mean I don’t do yoga, so what’s the point of having yoga socks? Ankle socks will at least be put to use)

I also finally decided that I was never going to finish my mother’s scarf if I stuck with my original design, so I’m in the process of redoing it. If all goes well (and it likely won’t) then I might be able to finish it by November.

I also finally blocked that lace scarf I finished a few weeks ago and decided to block the one I just finished as well. It didn’t really need it but I wanted to see if I could uncurl it a little. It looks like it might work but I’ll have a better idea tomorrow when I unpin it.

Here’s some pictures of the 2 scarfs being blocked.

The pictures aren’t great because of the lighting so I’ll put up nicer ones once I unpin both scarfs.

Hopefully I’ll get more done this week.

Failure!

Sort of.

Seeing as how it’s Saturday and all, meaning the day I was supposed to give my mother her new scarf, and I did not finish said scarf, that does technically make that a failure.

Luckily I was not entirely unproductive during this week.

I finished my lace scarf, although it does still need to be blocked.

I also worked on another scarf I started back in August. After working on it for a while I realized that I didn’t have enough yarn to finish it so I ordered more and set that scarf aside for now.

I’m still not working on my mother’s scarf, but I have decided to try an start and finish the sock pair from a while ago. One of them is finished but the other isn’t, so I’m working on that now.

Other than that…I got nothing else done.

This week was so boring.

Seriously the only highlights were the PBS Ken Burns specials.

Blah.

Clearly…

I am a master of reverse psychology.

I tell myself that I am going to work on nothing but my mother’s scarf…and I work on everything but mother’s scarf.

It has been started, but since last Thursday I’ve been swept up in the bi-monthly desire to completely reorganize my room. Every few months I manage to do a bit more to get rid of some of the clutter in my room.

Last Friday, I started by going through my closet and getting rid of everything that no longer fits or hasn’t been worn in like 2 years (there was a surprising amount in the latter category).

After that I stared around despondently for a while and tried to figure out where all this crap came from and how I was supposed to ‘organize’ it; so instead, I started my mom’s scarf – I’m not very far on it.

Last night I started working on my lace scarf again, but not my mother’s.

And today?

Today I worked on my lace scarf, and started sorting through the hundreds of pencils and pens that i have accumulated over the years.

Including about 50 pencils that haven’t even been sharpened.

And a bunch of those old jelly roll pens that barely work because the jell stuff is probably solidified. I’m trying to soak them in hot water to see if that works.

And maybe I’ll be able to get more knitting done tonight.

Or at least some writing.

Bah

I still haven’t started this scarf for my mother.

I know the stitch pattern I’m using and it isn’t that complicated.

What made it complicated was the decision to knit it like a shawl and include increases which means that the stitch count is constantly changing. And since I don’t want to cram the stitch pattern into the center while all the increases remain on the outside I’m trying to ‘redistribute’ the stitches my changing how many go between the pattern repeats.

I had five sections written out, only to realize that I had once again counted wrong and I was going to have to pretty much start over. Bah!

Edit: Yay! I figured out what I had done wrong. I still have to type up the pattern so that I can read it more easily (my handwriting is really bad), but it’s going to go a lot easier now that I’ve figured out what I was doing wrong that was throwing the count off!

Edit 2: Not only have I pretty much finished typing up the pattern, I’ve also officially cast on! I’m gonna try and finish up the border tonight so that I can start on the pattern areas tomorrow.

Another change in plans…

So…last night I finished my first sock. Of course, it’s a ‘yoga sock’ meaning it doesn’t have a heel or toes, but that’s okay because I got to really practice knitting in the round on double pointed needles. And of course this morning (okay mid afternoon) I woke up all prepared to start the 2nd sock in the pair. Only to find a package had been delivered. And in that package was pair of needles I had been waiting on.

So instead of casting on the 2nd sock, I spent all day finishing up my 2nd scarf knitted using continental knitting. By the time that scarf was done, I really felt like I had knitting, purling, yo’s, and k2tog’s pretty much down.

So after finishing that scarf this evening, I spent quite a bit of time planning a completely new scarf. I mean I know wasn’t going to start any new projects until a lot of my UFO’s were done, but hey, I got some of them done. And starting this scarf means making another scarf for my mother plus spending more time practicing continental knitting.

I had decided to try something a bit more detailed to make up for the scarf I made her earlier this summer. And to do it in her school colors so that she can wear it to spirit events in the fall and this winter. And since she has one of those spirit events coming up in like 2 weeks, I decided to see if I get it done in time for that. I think I’ll be able to.

So anyways, despite my last failed attempt at swatching and then using that swatch to come up with a plan, I decided to try again. This time I made the swatch larger so that I would get a better feel for size.

Normally I wouldn’t bother with a scarf, but I’m knitting this one lengthwise so I’d like to be more accurate.

I think I’ve figured out exactly what to do, so I’m going to sleep on it tonight and start the scarf tomorrow morning.

Hopefully this one’ll turn out okay and when I’m finished with it I’ll be able to go back to some of my UFO’s.

August Surprises!

I found a couple of pictures on my camera that were taken of projects I worked on in August so I figured I would go ahead and put them up.

The first one is a horrible picture but I was really pleased with the actual finished project. My cousin’s baby shower was in August and I didn’t really think I was going to have time to do anything for her, but about a week after another cousin’s wedding I decided to try for it anyways.

At the time I thought I only had a week to finish it so I planned a really simple baby afghan that was supposed to be 3′ by 4′. Of course, I did the math wrong and the cast on edge ended up being almost 50″ long. To compensate, I knitted it up so it was about 3′ long. Close enough to my original plan that it came out looking pretty nice.

Of course, after working on it for about 4 days and getting it half done I was told that the baby shower wasn’t that weekend, it was the next so in reality I probably could have done something more complicated, but oh well.

Here’s the horrible picture of it:

The border of it is actually a really pretty chocolate brown. The entire thing was knitted with 2 strands of worsted weight yarn, brown on the borders and one strand of brown and one strand of a palish green in the center rectangles.

You can’t really tell from that picture but there is a cable going up each outside edge. The rest of it is just in seed stitch.

My cousin informed me that she is very, very happy with and while she might just be coating my ego…well it’s working!

And since I had quite a bit of the yarn left over, I decided to put it to use.

I had already been planning on making at least a scarf to give my Grandmother this Christmas. She is after all the person who gave me my first knitting needles. And although she didn’t teach me to knit, I was definitely inspired by all the pairs of slippers and warm, thick winter socks she knit over the years.

I wanted to try something a bit more complicated than my mother’s so I decided to try dropping yo’s like I had seen on a couple of scarves. I ended up twisting them as well to get a neat effect.

I finished the scarf off by adding crochet chained fringe. I had to reteach myself how to do crochet chains to do it but I really like the look.

And to use up just a bit more of the yarn, I made her a head warmer as well. I wanted this one to be more shaped than my mother’s so I tried using short rows to fill in the middle section, making it thinner at the part that goes in the back. I like how both of these projects turned out.

Change in Plans

For starters, I think I’m gonna ignore my lace scarf for the rest of this week. I really wanna finish this pair of socks so I’m gonna focus most of my time on that.

I’m still gonna work on the scarf I’m doing continental style though. Especially since I finally figured out what was I doing wrong that made K2tog’s so difficult. I was wrapping the yarn the wrong way and I’m not sure if it was twisting the stitch or just making it tighter, but fixing that made K2tog’s a lot easier.

Up this week…

So I managed to finish one of my projects last week – the continental knit scarf. Of course since it was just done in garter stitch, I immediately started another scarf that would make me try purling, yarn overs, and decreases using continental. Surprisingly right now, the knit 2 togethers are giving me the most trouble. I think I’m gonna aim for about 8 inches a day on that scarf to see if I can’t finish it in a week.

I also managed to get a lot farther with my lace scarf – it’s almost 20 in. long! So this week I’m aiming to finish one pattern repeat a day (about 32 rows). I was managing about that anyways so it shouldn’t be too difficult.

And my last aim in knitting this week, finishing a sock. Not just one sock actually. I want to finish the one I’ve got about half done and then finish the second sock in the pair as well.

If I can do all of that, I’ll have finished at least 2 projects this week and be a lot farther with my lace scarf – as in like almost done with it. Hopefully by then the knitting needles I’m waiting on will have arrived and I’ll be able to start a scarf I have planned for my mother.

As for non knitting stuff. I really need to write more. And maybe draw a bit. I came with an idea for a funny comic and I’d like to see if I can do anything with it by October or so.

Let’s see if I can stay motivated enough to manage.

And…

Headbands!

Yeah, I had fun with these too this past summer.

I started with a longish head tie thingie for myself. I was getting ready to work on that scroll lace scarf for myself but I wanted to familiarize myself with the pattern so I found some extra yarn (maybe DK weight, not really sure) and just cast on enough stitches to do one repeat of it. I liked it so much that I just kept going until I used up the yarn!

And a close up of the lacy part:

Then this past august, I was working on scarf for myself that I had intended to finish and wear at a baby shower I was going to. But like two days before the shower I realized that I would never finish the scarf in time, so instead, I cast on a quick headband and started that. I got pretty far with it the first day, then I realized that I had a lot more work to do on the baby blanket that was for the expectant mother…so I stopped working on it to finish the blanket and well…I didn’t finish the headband in time either…oops. It isn’t quite finished since I was going to try and block some of the curl out of it, haven’t quite remembered to do that either, maybe I will when I finally finish that scarf and then I can just block them at the same time.

And finally, I finally finished my mother’s Christmas present from last year! I finished the scarf earlier this summer, and then this August I finally did the matching head warmer thingie. I think it turned out pretty well, though I came up with a few ways to make them look nicer in the future.

All in all, I think they all turned out well.