Finishing Time

Ya know, when I started getting back into knitting I kept hearing these crazy old women talking about UFO’s. I mean I got the concept of unfinished projects pretty quickly, but…I just couldn’t understand how it would happen. I mean I had maybe two projects going at once and they always got done right away.

Of course, as the summer went on I wanted to try more and more new techniques. I started bouncing between more and more projects. Now, as many projects as I’ve actually finished since July, I have just as many still sitting on the needles.

So this week, even though I have loads yarn waiting for me to work with it, just sitting there taunting me, I have decided to not start a single new project. Instead I’m finishing a few up. Right now I’m working on a lace scarf for myself. Then I have another scarf for myself. And a sock. And then my continental knit scarf (that ones going really well, I think I’m finally getting the hang of it). Hopefully over the next few days, I’ll be able to finish at least two of them. If that happens, I’ll let myself start another project.

Continental Bound…again

I have once again decided to master continental style knitting. This is probably the…fourth time? Those other times didn’t go so well. I kept trying to learn it from my knitting books and well…I just couldn’t figure it out and I’d get really frustrated and I’d stop.

However, for the past few weeks I’ve been watching knitting videos on a bunch of different techniques and I keep seeing continental knitters going really, really fast and I decided once again that I just had to figure it out.

Seeing as how I’m in the middle of about four projects and I don’t want to run out of steam on them, I’m limiting myself to working in continental style for about an hour a day. I started a very simple garter stitch scarf to use up some old scrap yarn we had laying about. Today went quite well actually thanks to those videos. Apparently seeing someone go through all the motions several times was much more informative than still pictures. I’m still figuring it out (my hands don’t always want to do what they’re supposed to), but I managed to get a couple of rows in before my time limit came up.

Hopefully this continues to go well. If it doesn’t, I’ll just stick with what I’m already doing so it doesn’t matter all that much. I’ve got a whole list of projects that I want to work on and I’m waiting on yarn for some of them so it’s gotten my all excited. Hopefully this ‘full-steam ahead’ mentality keeps up, I’m kind of sick of dropping hobbies when it runs out.

Bah

…I think I need to stop reading. I just finished this cool book on the Grand Canyon and all the people who die there and how they die and stuff and now I have an idea for a new story (really more like revamping 2 old ones to use some of the stuff I learned).

Of course, it hasn’t actually made it any easier to work on either of these stories. It’s just that now I have even more ideas for them floating around in my head and that’s kind of distracting.

Also, my ‘one-shots’ and contained stories keep growing. They either gain sequels or develop into series before I can even start them. Once that happens I get really daunted and start rewriting everything. And rewriting it again. And again. And then I just drop it all together because it’s not something I feel like I can work on anymore.

This totally sucks.

Scarf Summer Continued

Back when I ordered that lace sampler, I also bought yarn to make a scarf for my younger sister. She’s another person I had promised to make a scarf for some time in the past three years.

I ended up buying two colors, intending to make her a striped scarf. But then I decided that was too simple and plain.

So instead I scoured the internet and a few dozen pattern hub sites and finally I found one that I really liked: Argosy.

So some time in July I finally got started on it figuring that I could either give it to her when she started school this fall or just finish it early and hold on to it as a Christmas present. She pissed me off a bit so I decided to wait to give it to her until Christmas.

All in all I liked how it turned out.

Of course now I still have enough yarn left over for another scarf. I haven’t decided exactly what I’m going to do with it yet but maybe she’ll get lucky and receive 2 scarfs this Christmas.

Scarf Summer

So before this summer I really hadn’t knitted in a couple of years. And even then I had only learned the knit stitch and made one garter stitch scarf. That was pretty much it.

But this past November in anticipation for Christmas I had my mother pick out some yarn so that I could make her a scarf/headband set for Christams.

And then I promptly forgot all about it and failed to make it in time for Christmas. And then in time for a late Mother’s Day.

Finally (I think it was June or really late May) I finally finished her scarf (the one on the left in the picture below). But I wasn’t really that happy with it. So within a day or two I started another scarf with the leftover yarn (they must have having a sale because I bought like 4 skiens of this stuff and each skein is easily enough to do 1 scarf). This time (the scarf on the right) I used the more typical 2×2 ribbing instead of the goofy ribbing pattern I came up with for the first one. I also made it thinner because the first scarf was (6 in at rest vs. 9 in on the other one) and as the picture makes obvious a bit longer (56 in vs. 50 in).

So now my mother get’s the second scarf (the one on the right) and, as soon as I finish it, she’ll get a matching headband/earwarmer thing.

And since I can’t let a good scarf go to waste I’ll probably just use the first one (on the left) to one of my Great Aunt’s this Christmas. I think she’ll enjoy it.

And now, since I’m giving one to her, I’ll have to make a scarf for my Grandmother so that she doesn’t get jealous of someone else getting attention…that’s been happening a lot lately.

My ‘Big’ Project

I guess technically Miranda’s headband was my first ‘lace’ project if you consider ‘Old Shale’ to be lace (which I think it is). But my first big lace project was a scarf/shawl for myself.

My cousin got married this past weekend and I had bought a really cute black dress to wear to the wedding but I wanted something with color to go with it. I had recently discovered Knit Picks and had bought their lace sampler, but after getting it I decided that I didn’t really like the scarf pattern that came with it (mainly because it was a chart and I still don’t understand those).

After looking around a bit I found this pattern. It’s really just the scroll lace pattern and I’ve found it all over since then but that blog convinced me that it was gorgeous (and simple enough) for me to try.

I am really happy with the outcome and my Aunt’s seemed to really like it too!

Because I had a bit of yarn let over I decided to use it up really quickly in a little headband. It’s tiny but I loved the outcome because it just looked like a little stripe of color in my hair.

I don’t have any pictures of it on me, but I this is what they look like:

I think the scarf was like 8×60 inches so it makes a nice sized scarf and a slightly thin wrap.

Now I’m off to write fanfiction and maybe work on another scarf.

Still Knitting

So back before I made Miranda’s headband I picked up some scrap DMC floss and my size 1 needles and started knitting just to see how it would turn out. I didn’t really pick a good size for either project; I just cast on 15 for 1 and 20 for the other. I really wish I had pictures of them on the needles because I was working on them at the same time on the same set of needles. It ended up being a mess because of all the different floss spools, but it still worked out okay.

I ended up with these:

The one picture shows me wearing one of them as a bracelet but it really works out better as a wide anklet. And of course, I had been hoping that embroidery floss wouldn’t curl as much in stockinette but it does.

Oh well, it was fun to do even if I never wear them. And at least now I know what I can do with all that old embroidery floss.

Now I’m off to block a scarf.

Knitting, Knitting, Knitting

So I have basically spent the month of July knitting.

I finished a few projects and I’m actually really happy with the way they turned out.

I think I’ll try to upload pictures of them over the next week or so.

One of them was started as a bracelet but then I went long so it became a headband. I had just wanted to use the tiny size 1 needles I have and decided to try and use DMC embroidery floss because like most former girl scouts I have too much of the stuff left over from when I became addicted to friendship bracelets.

And so this was made:

It’s just a simple old shale/ feather and fan pattern but DMC floss is freaking hard to use. I mean I knew it was going to be seeing as how it’s splittable, but damn. Plus I was just using stuff from my stash and so most of the pieces weren’t that long which meant I ended up having a lot of ends to weave in.

Still it was totally worth it and she seemed to like it.

And since I pretty much took the month off with my writing I’m going to stick with that for the next few days. Then I’ll start August off by working more on writing.

Summer Projects

So last summer I got this great idea that the perfect way to improve my (still) dismal art skills would be to take one of my story ideas and work it up as a comic book. Doing so would force me to work on my art and scripting abilities so I didn’t really think I could lose out.

Unfortunately I totally underestimated my abilities and my attention span. I made the mistake of picking out a sci-fi story that I had only a very vague idea about plot-wise and too much to work with setting wise. With no end in sight, I kind of let the story ramble too much. Plus with the setting, I was challenging myself a bit too much to make it look like it was set in space. Long story short, I gave up after about a month of working on it and just two pages up online.

In part because of total creative funk that I’ve been in since last fall, I haven’t drawn since then. I haven’t really written much either, at least not more than snippets and story ideas. But last night I was thinking about trying something like this again, only this time I would only work with a contained story where I had a very definable ending and knew about how long it would take to get there. Except, when I started going through all my notebooks and files looking for a story that would work…I couldn’t find one. I mean I knew I liked epic plots and stories that unfolded over several different ‘books’ but I didn’t realize how bad I had gotten at taking previously shorter story ideas and extending them.

So then I was left with a dilemma: take one of my longer ideas and shrink it or come up with an entirely new one.

Now I thought over it for a long time and came to the conclusion that I didn’t want to work on a fantasy or sci-fi so that I would be more likely to have references when what I wanted to draw became too complicated. And that led me to another conclusion: I was going to have to come up with an entirely new idea, because apparently I really like coming up with fantasy-ish stories (even ones set in this world).

So I thought long and hard trying to come up with one, and the only idea I was really getting was the idea of a girl losing a lace headband – I blame looking up lace patterns for knitting. So after a while, I gave up and sat down at my computer and decided to waste time by reading fairy tales. And came across this page. Now I’ve read a lot of people re-writing fairytales, and I really didn’t want to do what they were doing by just interpreting it in a fantasy setting. But I think I’ve worked that out.

Now I just have to wait and see. I’m going to work on the story and some art throughout July. If I think I have something to work with by the end of July, I’ll consider posting it.

Note to self

…it would probably be worth it to use a long tail casting on method next time you knit a bracelet. The edge on this one is probably gonna look horrible.