Knitting Monogamy or Monotony?

As I have been discussing this week, I am trying to be monogamous with my Dayflower Cardigan and as a result, it is progressing at a nice pace. I have about 12 or so rows left on the back and then it is on to the front. I am really happy about how this is moving along, but there is part of me itching to get back to the Spring Forward Socks and I would like to be making a little bit of progress on the Lace Ribbon Scarf. How do you feel about knitting monogamy – do you enjoy it or does it become monotonous after a while?

Great Knitspectations is meant to be all about the journey and the process, but I think we will all admit that sooner or later in the lifespan of a project the process can get a little boring. I think that is why it is so important to make things that we love for whatever reason so there is always the motivation to get to the finish line.I really love the color and the yarn itself for the Dayflower Cardigan and I really want to wear it this season and I can’t wait to see the finished product so these things keep moving me forward. Knitting really is a psychological process in so many ways and more and more I am struck by how much our knitting life truly is a reflection of our daily lives.

Whether you are being monogamous with your knitting or not, I hope you are enjoying the journey!

Stash as Inspiration?

Does your stash inspire you? I love my stash and every time I look at it I want to get working on something new. There are so many projects that I want to make, but part of my Great Knitspectations’ journey is to work on completing projects. So, I am busily working away on the Dayflower Cardigan. I hope to have the back done by the weekend and then I can start on the two fronts which will be fun since there is pattern work involved. Of course, this project was supposed to be my no-thinking knitting, but now I am psyched to get it done. I want a new summer sweater to wear and I have another one I would like to try and make for this season.

However, on the soon to be started front, I am going to add something to the queue. Knaked Knits has asked for donations of two preemie hats and I think I am going to do it. I did some searching around on Ravelry and found some cute options and I know they won’t take long to knit and if there is one thing I love, it’s babies! So, I need to look at the stash and see what inspiration I can find!

Have a great day and look for your own inspiration in your stash!

Change of Priorities

I have been a little absent as of late and I am not sure what the exact reason is – lack of preparation is probably the biggest reason and the kid was on a trip with his father for a week and a half and when he is gone, I have to get a lot done in the other areas of my life. My guys (the kid and the ex)have returned and all is right in my world again.

In the past few weeks, I feel like I have made progress on some open projects and I have started to make a small dent in the stash pile. The other area where things have been different, is my commitment to not add to the stash. I don’t know that I will resist the whole year, but it really makes me stop and think about whether to buy or not to buy and so far, I have resisted.

On the knitting front, I have been working away on my Dayflower Cardigan. I came to the realization that this is a sweater that I can wear over the next couple of months and everything else I am working on can’t be worn for quite a while. This weekend I got the back done up to the armhole bind offs and I have both sleeves done. I did start the heel flap on my Spring Forward Sock and I did a little work on the Lace Ribbon Scarf, but for now I am going to focus my energies on the Dayflower. I love the color of the yarn, the thick and thin aspect of the yarn and quite honestly the way it feels in my hands.

I will post some pictures tomorrow. I hope everyone is doing well and staying cool. It is in the mid 90’s here today. Not my kind of weather, but thank god for air conditioning!

Trust but Verify

Around our office we live by the saying, “trust but verify” – not a bad way to operate in the business world. It’s also not a bad way to operate in the knitting world as well. That is why we hear so often about the importance of always doing a gauge swatch before you begin a project so you get the best results.

Do you see where this is going? This weekend I had to frog the Spring Forward sock. Down deep, I knew it was probably going to work out that way, but I wanted to believe in the pattern as written and I had already committed to what I had started. Wednesday night I went to Knit Night at Knit Picky and I got to the heel flap. Then when I got home, I started working the heel flap. I tried the sock on and I just knew it was going to be too tight. Thursday, I was tied up all day and evening with my conference for work and Friday I was too wiped out to deal with it, but on Saturday I did the horrible and I frogged the whole thing! I can now say that I am happy with my choice. I debated staying the course so I wouldn’t lose forward momentum and then dealing with the results in the end, but I knew I ultimately wouldn’t be happy. So on Sunday I began knitting again, this time on size two needles and I am thrilled with the results. It is a great pattern and I really enjoy working on it – even more so now that I know I will have a pair of socks that fit right.

This whole odyssey of mine to reduce my Wip-n-Stash is an ideal, but I don’t want the end goal to create an environment where I am just trying to get stuff done with little regard for the finished product. I know I am going to have a pair of socks that I love when they are finished and if it takes a couple of extra weeks to get there, then so be it.

Oh by the way, I am fighting with myself right now – I really want some Dream in Color! So far I have fought off the urge, but man this no stash enhancement is hard!

In Knitting We Trust?

Do you trust the knitting process? Knitting is definitely a leap of faith. You choose a pattern and yarn and you cast on in hopes that you will have a project that you love when it is all said and done. I have decided that you just have to keep the faith and trust in the pattern and trust in the process. Why am I talking about this topic today?

Well, I am making progress on my Spring Forward sock and I am loving the way that it looks, but the pattern calls for size one needles and in my very limited past sock experience, I have worked on size two’s with usually 64 stitches. With these socks you cast on 66 stitches, but two extra stitches is not a lot when you are working on ones. I haven’t gotten to a point where I can test this sock for size. I think that I am going to be okay, but I am not totally sure and it is gnawing at me. Don’t you hate it when things take up room in your brain - playing in the background of everything else going on your life?!?! I have ten more rows to go when I get to the point of working the heel flap and I know at that point I will be able to try the sock on and see how it fits.

What’s the worst that can happen? I will have to frog it and start over! At least we are only talking about 75 rows or so – eeek! When you are trying to reduce Wip-n-Stash, the thought of taking a step backwards is well,distressing. But, I have chosen to continue and trust in the pattern and trust in me even though I have continued to experience on-going knitting challenges this week. There are those that say knitting is a reflection of where you are in your life at a current point in time. Right now I am frazzled for some unexplained reason – could be the conference that I am involved in planning at work that takes place tomorrow and Friday. Could be life in general. Could be the meds I am taking that have me a little off-kilter. I am hoping that by Friday, I will get to a calmer place in my world and that will be reflected in my knitting.

At Great Expectations – In Knitting We Trust. It’s just the way it has to be if you want to experience the best from your knitting.

From Frustration to Ahhh!

Does your knitting ever frustrate you? Thursday night and Friday morning was the most frustrating knitting time I have experienced in a long time. Thursday night I cast on for the Spring Forward socks. I thought I wanted to do a picot edge for the ribbing and that was a disaster from start to finish. I did the provisional cast-on with one yarn and it was too thick – so I ripped that out and started again with a different yarn. I got that going, but I still wasn’t sure whether it was going to work. I got up on Friday morning early and went right to work where I had left off the night before. I managed to get to the point of joining the cast on stitches with the live stitches and it was awkward, but I worked my way through it and I was pleased with my efforts and then I looked down and saw that a stitch had dropped somewhere along the way. Ugh! Usually I can fix these kinds of things so I went to work and what a MESS!! Between the dropped stitch and my continuing ambivalence about the picot edge (I was afraid that it was going to be too big an opening), I decided to frog the whole thing. I was aggravated and I knew that it just needed a new beginning, but then I had to take the kid to get his braces put on, so I decided to take the Lace Ribbon Scarf with me to work on while I was waiting. Well, wouldn’t you know it, I must have gotten distracted with all the people in the waiting room and somehow I made some kind of mistake somewhere along the line. So at that point I was totally out of sorts with all things knitting. But, Friday night after work I got the Lace Ribbon Scarf back on track.

Once I could sit down in a quiet area and concentrate and really look at what had happened, I was able to get all the stitches back on the needles the right way. In this pattern there are a lot of double yarn overs as well as a lot of ssk’s and with those you have to reposition the stitches to get them back in the right direction. I was exhausted last night, but it felt good to go to bed knowing that at least one of my frustrations was fixed. Then this morning after looking at other SF socks on ravelry, I decided to do the twisted rib cuff, so the first sock is back on the needles and I love the color and I love how the twisted rib is looking in the yarn and color (STR – Algae). I am excited to get going on this sock and after I finish my first pair then we will revisit the whole picot edge situation. I definitely want to master that technique so it has not gotten the best of me yet!

This morning I also realized that I have the perfect project for Knit Night. I started working on the Dayflower Cardigan while we were at the beach and the back of that cardi is knit in all stockinette stitch. I am absolutely loving the color and the feel of the yarn. It is definitely something that I would be smart to finish ASAP since it would be perfect for our North Carolina summertime weather. So in the end, all of my frustrations to turned to a great big ahhhh!

Making Progress

Last night I went to Open Knit Night at Knit Picky, one of my local yarn stores. It was my first time and it was great to be in the company of other enthusiastic knitters. It will hopefully become a regular part of my Great Knitspectation odyssey. I definitely need a project to work on that is fairly basic and does not require a lot of attention while I am at Knit Night. There is so much good conversation going on that it is easy to get distracted. So, I have been evaluating potential projects in my WIP-n-Stash to find the right thing for next week.

I read Margene’s post yesterday where she talked about her WIP-n-Stash policy. She believes in few WIP’s and no UFO’s! She said that if a project doesn’t grow then it goes bye-bye. She actually frogs when needed. I hope that some day I can get to the point where I can follow her policy. I think she is absolutely right – if you only have a few things on the needles then the growth rate for those projects is quicker which insures a greater level of success and completion. I keep debating the best way to approach my reduction in WIP-n-Stash and I think that will require on-going evaluation. I do know one thing, actually doing the knitting is the only way to make progress and I am trying to do that every day.

I haven’t really shared a lot of information yet about my WIP. I probably have about 20 projects in varying degrees of completion – many aren’t very far from crossing the finish line. A lot of the projects are wool sweaters for me and it will probably be about three and half months before I can wear any of them - so my goal is to have them done by the end of October. I have a few heavy sweaters that I would like to see done by Christmas and then some other odds and ends like hats and bags that I would like to see get done by the end of the year. How much of a dent can I make in my WIP list by the end of 2008? Let’s set a goal that I will reduce my WIP list by 50% by the end of 2008. That will equate to about 10 projects which I think is doable. I took one off the list with the Einstein Coat and I will just have to keep making progress every week. It feels good to know that at some point I will get passed the point of having too much WIP. The stash I can deal with, but the WIP has been bothering me for a while now.

A WIP Moves into the Finished Column

When I first started reading blogs, there were several Massachusetts bloggers who attended a workshop that Sally Melville was holding at a LYS. When I read about the techniques that they learned and the types of things Sally was teaching in her book, The Knit Stitch, I knew I had to learn more and I was definitely not disappointed.

In reviewing the projects, there were a couple that I knew I had to make right away. I made several Shape It Scarves and then my big investment came in the form of the Einstein Coat. Living in North Carolina, I knew that I could get a lot of use out of a coat like that. So, I invested the money and more importantly the time. Over the course of the last couple of years I have worked away on the coat. It was perfect TV knitting since all I had to do was knit, knit, knit! For the last year, all that was left was seaming the last arm and putting on the buttons. Can you imagine that I let it linger that long?! Recently, I went ahead and finished seaming the arm and I went and picked out buttons. Last night I got the buttons sewn on and now I can take another WIP off my list and mark it as complete!!! Once again, there is a total feeling of satisfaction in getting this project done and I really do love it. I know come December and January I have the perfect coat to wear on those days when it gets cold enough.

It turned out beautifully and fits very nicely. What did I learn from this project? I learned how to do the crochet cast-on which I have used on other projects since it creates an edge that mimics the traditional bind off edge. This has been great on scarves. I also learned that garter stitch can be fashionable not frumpy and I learned that you can construct a garment essentially in one piece. The only seaming in this coat is the two shoulder/arm seams. Will I make this again? Probably not this version. There is a lighter weight version, but I think I would try one of the other jackets in the book before I made Einstein again. As far as another immediate project from the book, I am thinking about making Sally’s Favorite Summer Sweater. I have some Tahki Cotton Classic in my stash and although we can’t wear a lot of sweaters here in the summer, it may be light-weight enough that I can get some use out of it. I am thinking of trying my hand at continental knitting again, so maybe this will be the perfect project for that adventure.

I would highly recommend Sally’s books as valuable reference books to have in your knitting library. The explanations and pictures are extremely helpful and very clear. I can’t wait for the first day cool enough to wear this coat – it will be a long wait, but I am thrilled that this project is done!

The Satisfaction of Finishing

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend. It was so nice to have a long weekend and very productive on the knitting front. The son and I enjoyed our trip to the coast and many hours were spent happily knitting on our balcony overlooking the water. I grew up on the water and I just love being near it whenever I can even if that means just sitting by the neighborhood pool! Hey, you have to get it where you can when you live in an inland location like we do now.

I finished one almost two projects this weekend. The second would have been finished, except we got home to four hours without power yesterday! Finishing – the last frontier. I have three sweaters that are just about done except for the finishing. When it comes to finishing, my resistance meter goes way up for a couple of reasons. The first goes back to my perfectionist tendencies. I learned how to seam fairly well years ago at a LYS class and side seams are no problem, but I procrastinate about setting in sleeves and to a lesser degree shoulders. Collars and button bands can also make me doubt my abilities. I must say that Lucy Neatby’s DVDs have helped me a lot and I feel more confident about my technique, but when you get to the finishing stage, you are at the make or break point of a project. Once you get to this point, the project is either going to be great or it is going to be a flop and don’t you just hate the possibility of a flop?!?!

So, without further ado, the first completed project of the Great Expectations’ odyssey is Cookie A’s Monkey socks. This was my first experience with the Monkey and it was a real pleasure to knit. The pattern is interesting yet easy to memorize and I made them in Socks that Rock. This project was a double first – my first pair of Monkeys and my first experience with STR. The yarn was great to work with. The colors are so rich and the yarn is so soft. I have several more skeins in my stash and I can’t wait to use them. I think my next pair of Monkeys will be done in one of the tone on tone colors so that the pattern really stands out. So, what did I learn from this project? Socks can be a lot of fun and the rate of progress is very gratifying. I also learned a new technique for the Kitchener stitch and that worked out really well. I also learned that I will always have a pair of socks on the needles! Next up? Spring Forward from the new Knitty and they will be knit in Socks that Rock Algae.

Indepedence from my yarn dependency

Today our country celebrates its independence. One of the goals for Great Knitspectations is to document my independence from my yarn compulsion. I am always going to want to be creative and I will probably always have a queue of projects, but I want to get to the point where my wip-n-stash levels are reasonable, but how does one define reasonable? I think for me it would mean having a couple of projects on the needles and maybe one or two in waiting with actual stash yarn. I think you also have to reserve space in your stash to acquire yarns that become available at a price that you can’t ignore or that are one of a kind, special. One of my biggest problems is that I use yarn purchasing as a coping mechanism when things bother me. It’s better than eating, but there comes a point when enough is enough. Also, what is more important – reducing stash or completing UFO’s? As I have been planning things, I have had a formula in my mind of one or two stash projects for every uncompleted UFO on the needles. That would have me working on about 3 projects at a time which provides variety. What do you think?
I am at the coast for the long weekend enjoying the beach. I have brought a few projects with me to work on and hopefully on Monday there will be at least one if not two finished projects to show. Have a happy 4th!

The Wip-N-Stash Parade

So, last week I got out a bunch of my containers and bags and started sorting through all of my various wip-n-stash. In some ways, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but there is still more to go through. I had needles everywhere and I got them organized again so that was productive.

I have this really beautiful red colorway of Fleece Artists Basic Sock Merino that I have been wanting to use. At first, I thought I would make a Flower Basket Shawl, but I didn’t like the way it was working up. I am probably spoiled by the fact that my first Flower Basket Shawl was made in Koigu.

Anyways, I went on Ravelry and did a search to see what projects other people had made with the yarn. Ravelry is just so wonderful for checking out projects and getting ideas! In the midst of all the socks, I found a couple of people have made a Veronik Avery scarf with the yarn. All three looked beautiful and it was a Knitty pattern – so I found the perfect project for the yarn! Ravelry really is great because the pattern did not speak to me when I saw it in Knitty, but when I saw the ones made in Fleece Artist, it was a different story! It’s a fun knit and it is looking great. I am just loving it! Another stash item on the sticks with serious progress being made! Pictures coming soon!

Screwed by the Corkscrew Fringe?

The first WIP that I am attacking is my Nicky Epstein Corkscrew Fringe Scarf. I bought the book, Knitting on the Edge, when it first came out. I saw this scarf and I just thought the corkscrews were cool. I also really wanted to try Koigu. I had been reading about all the Charlotte’s Webs that were being made at the time and I didn’t want to tackle that, but the yarn intrigued me. The project was perfect for easy, no-thinking knitting and I worked on it from time to time until I finished the main section of the scarf and then the corkscrews totally SCREWed me up!

So, the scarf got put away until last weekend. When I got it out, I was once again struck by how much I love the yarn. I looked through Knitting on the Edge to see if there was another edge to use for the scarf, but in the end I still really liked the look of the corkscrews. So I got out some Cascade 220 and my size 8 needles and played until I got the gist of how the increases work. Trying to do the corkscrews originally on size 4 needles was part of my problem because I am a fairly tight knitter. So, I decided I would make the corkscrews on size 5 needles. It all came together and now I am on my way to finishing a WIP. Yippie!!

Houston, we've had a problem here

Hello, my name is Tracey and I have a problem. I am a knit-a-holic. I have enjoyed a love affair with yarn and knitting since I first picked up needles and yarn. In my teens and early 20’s, economic factors kept my stash building to a minimum – although during my college years, Webs (when they were in Amherst) did get a fair share of my hard earned spending money. Once adulthood set in and steady employment found its way into my life, I started building quite a stash and I still have things in my stash that are almost 20 years old!

When I moved to North Carolina, my knitting went on the back-burner. A new baby and a lack of knitting stores were mostly to blame, but then a few years ago, my son was starting to play baseball and I needed an activity to keep from going stir-crazy while sitting through games and practices. At that time, I discovered the world of knitting blogs. I was excited. I got to read about something I loved and I thought, this will be an inexpensive hobby. I have all this stash and I thought I could find new patterns to breathe new life into all the old yarn I had. Well, that lasted like – not at all! New yarn stores opened up locally. I found on-line retailers. I saw all these projects on line that I wanted to make and of course all the books and magazines. I hate to admit it, but at this point I have enough stash to probably last several years!

There are a couple of things going on when it comes to my compulsion to buy new yarn. The first thing is that I love being creative and knitting has been one of my most proficient expressions of my desire to be creative. Second, there are some parts of my life that are not quite what I would like them to be and when I am bored, sad, lonely, etc., my fingers start clicking on the old mouse and next thing I know I have bought more yarn. Now this wouldn’t be all that bad except that I have a bad habit of starting things and not finishing them for various reasons. So, the bottom line is that I have tons of Stash and WIP.

As the economy gets slower and my bills have gotten bigger, it has become clear that I have to do something to change my ways. Of course, I placed orders with Knit Picks, Blue Moon Fibers, Handpainted Yarn.com and Jimmy Beans like a junkie trying to score one last fix! So here is the plan or more aptly stated, my commitment. For the next year (oh, did I really just say that?!?!), I pledge to work through as much WIP and Stash as possible and I promise I won’t buy anything new.