how about some socks?

Having three big projects on the needles is sometimes a little boring. I want to knit socks ...

Project 250 is going slow, but ok so far. After figuring out the armscye problem (and I finally remembered that the "skirt" is called a "peplum"), I wondered whether a diamond shape wouldn't solve the problem, giving me space and yet smaller armholes. So I completely unraveled the top and went to work. As you can see below, instead of a giant v, there's a somewhat diamond- or leaf-shaped section now. But!

But when I tried it on after knitting a good bit, I noticed that there was another problem. Instead of right below my armpit, the diamonds were placed further to the front. No wonder, since I don't have boobs on my back! But undoing all that knitting again? Instead, I chose to drop down the diamond section and reknit it 10 stitches further back.

The herringbone pattern is a bit complicated to knit back up, though, because the increases are unusual. Every row needs undivided attention, the only thing I could do was listen to a little music while reknitting. Still, the second section is almost done.

 To the right, you can see how far back I put the diamond section now - it's well into the back of the garment. I'm curious to see how it will all work out. But once the reknitting is done, I'll have to figure out a new problem: the new neckline. In accordance with the new look, my 250 cardi needs a new neckline to make it more Jane Austen than Jane Eyre. So I'll have to look at different patterns with the sort of neckline that I want and incorporate that into the cardi.

 
Sounds like a lot of work, no? Well, when I'm not working on 250, I'm working on my entrelac stole, called Quittez vos habits roses. When I can't think of a good enough name for a project (Why do they have to have such great names, anyway? Maybe I should start numbering them all.) I use snippets from folk songs (because I'm crazy about folk) and since I recently discovered a good channel for French folk songs, the titles of my projects are getting more and more incomprehensible. Quittez vos habits roses is from the song below, called "Marlborough s'en va t'en Guerre" from the beginning of the 18th century. 

If that song reminds you of "For he's a jolly good fellow", that's because the Brits stole the melody of this song and added their own text, a common and fun occurrence in folk. Most tunes for folksongs were actually dance tunes before they became song tunes. It's rare for melodies to cross borders, though, so this was a great find for me.

Anyway, back to knitting. On the left you can see my Quittez, it's made of Lana Grossa Qui and is soft and gorgeous, but due to my tendency to tighten my gauge once I'm comfortable with a pattern, the beginning of the stole is much looser than the section I'm currently knitting. Maybe in the future I should switch needles when this happens. But I'm hoping that it will even out in the blocking. Sadly, I've always found that the great texture of entrelac gets lost in the blocking, but maybe scrunching it up a little will help.

The other thing about Quittez is that I need daylight to knit it. Once one row of squares is done, I need to go back to every square and adjust the stitches. I still haven't managed to neaten up my edge stitches, not even with tugging and knitting some stitches tighter and some looser and whatever else - they remain uneven. So adjusting is required and for that I need daylight or at least good light in my room and ... anyway.


 
Third project on the needles is the Malagash Square Shawl that I'm calling Rose-colored Edges (because I didn't want to name it after yet another French folk song, frickin' a). It starts in the middle and is knit in the round and the pattern wants it to be garter stitch. But no way am I purling so much in a shawl that is knit in the round! And I also only have 600 meters of the main color, so I have to make it last.

So the main section has garter ridges every third row and three garter ridges every 7th ridge. I also wanted to do something with twisted stitches but decided against it. Maybe in a future project. But as this shawl gets bigger, it needs needles with a longer cable. Unfortunately, my best 3,5mm needles are occupied with the 250 cardigan, so I need to finish 250 first before I knit much more on this.

I want to knit socks ... I only have about 74 sock patterns in my queue ...

knitting statistics

I am a little ill at the moment, which I don't particularly enjoy, but I'm on the mend. Maybe I'll even be able to take some projects pictures later - after all, I finished a bunch of them and many still remain unphotographed. I now finally own a tripod, so taking pictures of myself actually wearing the projects should also be a little easier. And last Thursday, I officially became a Magistra of Philosophy.

However, I'm starting my 250th project recorded on Ravelry today and thought I'd show off a little. I've definitely knit more than 250 projects, but some weren't entered (because pre-Ravelry) and in two cases, two or more projects were entered as one entry, so 250 is the base of all the following numbers.

Of those 250 projects, 17 were frogged (so far - I'm thinking of frogging 3 further projects).
The oldest project added is this scarf-like thing, which was supposed to be a wall hanging, called Irish Cream.

 

I didn't frog it immediately after making it, it hung around in my room for ages, never used. Then, one day, I had an idea and frogged it so it could be reincarnated with some additional yarn as a Spring Blanket (which needs blocking badly).



 

7 projects are hibernating - they're half-finished or maybe even almost done, but I've stopped working on them and they've been languishing for a while. For example, my Kingfisher Socks need a second sock to be done.




 

7 projects are currently officially in the works, although of those, 3 have been languishing for a while as well and really need to be done. But if I put them into hibernation mode, I'm likely to forget about them, that's why they're at the top of my list. One of them is this Tachikoma amigurumi, a robot from the anime Ghost in the Shell and a birthday present for my brother that I started quite a while ago. Crochet just needs a lot more attention than knitting is all I can say ...


So, of those 250 projects, 219 are officially finished - now I'll split the 250 (219 in brackets) into different categories:

• 19 (15) pairs of socks or slippers
• 28 (24) shawls & wraps, a category including ponchos, shoulderwarmers and all the lovely lacy and non-lacy shawls I've knit so far
• 50 (44) scarves and cowls
• 52 (44) entries in the "Misc(ellaneous)" category, which includes blankets, bags, toys, potholders, knitted jewelry, cushions, cell phone socks and other various stuff
• 18 hats, berets and headbands
• 39 (35) gloves, mittens, fingerless gloves and wristwarmers
• 34 (32) items of baby and children's clothing including baby hats, socks, vests, cardigans, pullovers and bibs
• 10 (7) items of adult clothing - vests, pullovers and cardigans

And finally, let me brag a little more than I usually do: Of the 250 projects

• 135 were intended for my own use or are in use by me now
• 115 were made for or given to other people
• 123 projects were designed by me
• 30 projects were "modified", that is, I took an idea or a pattern from someone else and turned it into something of my own, so sometimes I will use a stitch pattern in a different project, sometimes I'll keep the main pattern but use a different stitch pattern, sometimes I'll change the shape from cardigan to vest, sometimes I'll combine the best aspects of two projects
• and finally 97 projects were knit or started according to pattern.

And now that I've spent half a day on this, I'll go back to my 249th pattern, because it needs fixing and then I'll officially start the 250th.

and here I thought 2011 was going to be different

There were supposed to be two major differences. First of all, 2011 was supposed to be a happy year. Not so. My best friend's father died yesterday. And just like M., who helped me during my father's illness, because she had experienced the same a few months earlier, I am now able to help him. It still sucks, though, and I really want noone else to experience this kind of grief.

Secondly, 2011 was supposed to be the year of knitting for myself. Ah well ... there is no such thing. I made two lovely things for a friend of mine and my brother's girlfriend. As a matter of fact, they turned out so cool that I almost regret giving them away, something that happens fairly often when I knit things for others.

These are the Mountain Form Slippers, a Japanese pattern, with modifications as developed by another knitter. It took me a while to get them right and I'm still not 100% convinced ... maybe I should have knit them even more tightly. The yarn used is Lana Grossa Bingo and a bit of Lana Grossa Nuvola for the skulls.

When I thought about what I could knit for my friend V., whose birthday was in January and who was my main support throughout the whole writing process and proofread many parts of my thesis, I thought about socks. Or slippers. And then inspiration hit me. I've always wanted to make a Yorick scarf, but the yarn wasn't available. Then Lana Grossa Nuvola came out and seemed like a good match. I just needed to test how it would felt. Ta-daa, felted skulls. Only now the winter yarn season at my LYS is over, so I need to wait until next winter to buy more Nuvola. I've also thought about embroidering the skulls to make them look like Mexican sugar skulls, but couldn't find my embroidery yarn. They're still extremely cool - I called them Mountain Goth, since she also is a capricorn and likes many things gothy.

These are the birthday fingerless gloves for my brother's girlfriend. I call them Lilac Butterflies. She loves cool purple and this yarn caught my eye at the yarn shop. It's Lana Grossa Cool Wool 2000 Melange, i.e. heathered. I absolutely love that Lana Grossa developed this kind of yarn, it adds such depth to the color and makes it a little less in your face at the same time.

When I saw the yarn at the yarn store, I already knew what design I would use. The pattern came from a sock pattern in the book "Socks, Socks, Socks", one of my first knitting books and is pretty simple to knit, except it takes up a lot of space (6st repeat).

And now it's time to stop knitting again. I'm supposed to study for my final exam, but got sidetracked today, cleaning up the chaos of finished projects, wandering yarn balls, tangled needles and knitting notions that had taken over my couch. The plan is to block something every day, so I can put it away. That means weaving in ends on a lot of projects, though - and I hate that so much. But since I have guests coming and the couch still isn't entirely cleared, I had to make some kind of effort. Tomorrow: studying.

all my moon base are belong to me

That's how it is. When I finished my thesis, it was something of a race to turn it in on time for it to reach the professor,  because he had to have it on a certain day or else my final exam would have to take place in May, meaning tuition for another term.

However, everything worked out, the thesis arrived on time, I was able to fix the date for the final exam and now I'm preparing myself for that exam, because noone told me that I would actually be tested on two separate topics. I thought one separate topic, but no, two. Eh, nothing big, because I know one topic already, so ...

Wanna know what I did until it was clear that my final exam would be on March 10th? I watched West Wing and knitted. One of my friends owns the complete box set and she said that I would get it once I had finished my thesis. So I did. So I got it. And now I'm on the first disc of season four, I knit beautiful fingerless gloves for my brother's girlfriend (it's her birthday soon) and I'm still knitting on a beautiful confection of a shawl called Gweneira, meaning snow white in Welsh. I'm calling it Rose Red, because my yarn is pink and not at all as thick as the original yarn - brushed alpaca isn't very available here.

Once I'm a little more clear on what I'm supposed to be studying for the final exam (I know what to do for one topic, but the other needs a little more research), I can start taking pictures of knitted stuff. I already took pictures of two finished projects, but I haven't put them up yet because ... West Wing. Well, I think I gotta stop watching West Wing anyway, because studying should come first, cleaning my room second (expecting guests) and finally taking pictures of my knitting projects third.

there's no end in sight

I have amazing projects in my (Ravelry) queue.

There's these, this, this one, this, and finally, this. I have the yarn and needles and pattern for every project. I have had the yarn for some of those projects for a long time. I've even swatched for some of those projects. But am I making any of these? No.

My main projects (those I'm supposed to be working on ... besides the thesis) are all for other people. There's the Tachikoma for my brother that requires undivided attention (as crochet always does)((Rav link), there's the headband for my mother (now finished), because the other one I knit got stolen - also needs almost undivided attention or at least a movie I know by heart and then there's the second one of the Aviatrix baby hats, just in case the first one doesn't fit. There are fifteen more baby things on my queue. Some of those won't be knit, others will be knit multiple times.

But I just want to knit this one again:

This is the Little Luxury Kimono, Rav link here. I love it. It can be made completely seamlessly, if you don't count kitchenering the shoulder seams (and I don't). You start at the bottom and oh, how many patterns I want to try out to make the bottom look all obi-like. For this one, I used one of my favorites, double moss stich aka broken rib stitch. Then you could use a cable or other cast-on for the ties, but I didn't because ... well, next time. Don't forget to make a hole for one tie to go through. Then separate the whole thing for the armholes, finish it, kitchener the shoulders and pick up stitches for the sleeves. Reverse the sleeve directions and ta-daa! Seamless kimono!

The yarn for this sweater is Lana Grossa Bingo, 100% merino and my favorite bulky workhorse yarn. This yarn has also been in my possession for ages. When I bought it, I had just come across Knitty, so it was 2005 and in Knitty's 2005 spring edition there was this pattern: Cleaves. I wanted it. I coveted it. But I didn't knit it, because I was busy knitting other things. I still wanted it. Then Ravelry came around and convinced me not to knit it. So what to do with the lovely yarn? I made a Springtime Bandit, which looked like nice enough, but ... I didn't like it all that much (Rav link). So, I decided to frog it and reuse the yarn for my vicarious my friend's baby. And am I ever glad I did.