Frog Pond

Welcome to the Frog Pond, unfinished sweater! I started you nearly 10 years ago, after knitting the sampler from Jacqueline Fee's The Sweater Workshop. Why didn't I realize then that the trim color did not go with the main color? Or that I would probably look like a large grape when I was finished?

No matter. I decided to rip you out months ago, but it wasn't until tonight that I finally had the courage, and time, to do it.

Rip! Rip! Rip!

In less than half an hour a foot of sweater is gone. I've weighed the resulting hanks and set them aside for another day, when I'll wash them and hang them to dry to unkink them.

RIP, ugly unfinished sweater!

What Would You Make?

I've started a new group on Ravelry called "WWYM?" (What Would You Make?) The idea is to look at other people's stashes and help them come up with projects they could make with it. I initially had the idea because I've been looking at my stash a lot recently, in an attempt to use some of it up, and was just getting stuck on most of it. For instance, I've got a lot of single and double skeins of yarn, and I want to use it, but don't know for what. I thought maybe if someone else looked at it, they would have some ideas that I wouldn't have thought of myself. And I figured there'd be at least a few others on Ravelry with the same problem, or who would at least indulge me and come up with ideas for my stash.

I missed my knitting group

After nearly 2 months, I finally made it to my Monday night knitting group this week. I was so happy! Since April it seemed something came up each week; birthdays, house guests, illnesses, bad traffic, business trips, and so on. It was great to get out of the house, talk to other adults, and get some knitting done.

Let's see, what have I been working on. I knit a Nottingham hat for E out of some very old blue Brown Sheep worsted. It came out ok, but the yarn doesn't really show off the cables very well. And I'm worried it's a bit feminine for a 3 year old (but I won't deal with that until the fall when he starts wearing it). I really should have used this opportunity to learn to do cables without a cable needle, because there were a lot of little cables in this hat. I love the pattern, though, and plan to make another one.

I also started a tank top for myself, the Lacey Vee Shell by Deb Gemmell, in off-white Cabin Fever Cotton Tweed. It's knit in the round from the bottom up, which I like because it means no seams to sew! It also means a lot of stitches to cast on, and unfortunately I wasn't paying attention when I started, and cast on to the wrong needle size! I did my swatch on size 5 needles (correctly), but was supposed to start the ribbing on size 3. I spent the entire Monday evening out casting on and knitting the first row (which always takes me forever) with size 5 needles, only to discover yesterday that I would have to redo it all.

UFOs

That is, UFOs that really should be FOs. I have 3, and all are small, almost finished, and hanging out in my knitting bag.

• Irish hiking wrist warmers. I need to sew up the seams and wear them.
• hot water bottle cover. I need to do a bit more knitting at the end, then sew up the seams
• my sister's headscarf. I need to crochet some ties, block, and give it to her.

I see a theme here. Apparently I hate finishing. Which is too bad, because if I had finished the wrist warmers a few weeks ago, like I could have, I could have been wearing them this entire time while we are experiencing unusually cool weather. And I could have given my sister her headscarf as a get well gift. And used the hot water bottle cover. And so on.

My personal goal is to finish all 3 projects by the end of the month. Doesn't sound like such a big deal, but some of them have been almost finished for several months.

little projects

I knit a super quick project for E recently: fruit cuffs. These are just 2x2 ribbed tubes, about 3" long, knit in kitchen cotton. They are for him to wear when he eats messy fruit, like watermelon. My hope is that all the juice that would normally run down his arms onto his shirt will get on the fruit cuffs, which I can then throw in the wash. So far he likes wearing them, but he's also been extraordinarily careful when it comes to eating fruit lately, too.

I just have one active project on the needles right now, a hat for either E or L. The pattern is Nottingham, by Melissa Mall, and I'm using an old skein of Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Superwash Worsted that I got from my grandmother's stash (not am I only busting my own stash, but my grandmother's, too!) I am knitting the smallest size; E's head measured 19", and the pattern says it's a stretchy hat. But if it's too small for him, L can wear it. The pattern is easy but tedious. Lots (and lots and lots) of tiny cables, and I haven't figured out how to do them without a cable needle. Fie on me for sure! I am halfway through the cable pattern, though, so it's doable with a cable needle, just, well, tedious.