Well, I found it! I’m working on Lia from Knitty. I’m pretty excited.

The sweater is coming along nice and quickly for the most part. I’m enjoying bulky weight yarn!

I did have to restart it like 5 times because I decided I didn’t like the fabric on 11s and actually needed to swatch, and then I couldn’t get the cast on to work and went with long-tail on larger needles after deciding to knit on 10s. After all that fuss, though, the sweater seems pretty easy. I was lazy and cabled sans extra needle for most of the front, a skill which I’m glad to have these days. At this point I’m almost done the bust short rows. When I tried it on last night while hanging out with SCA friends, everyone said “you should make it a knit corset”. It’s an entertaining idea, but I want a sweater.

The poor Crazy Ribs Mitts have been put aside yet again- I did a row on them today out of guilt, actually. I will finish them someday! It’s just hard to keep working on teeny tiny needles when I have this large, easy-to-knit project over here…

Yes, it’s a silly picture. It’s also what I wear most days along with my coat if I’m going to leave the house.

Garter Stitch Mitts: One of my earliest projects and I still wear them daily in the winter. They are suriving ok, although I’ve learned all about how much alpaca stretches. I rarely wear them as intended and instead turn them over as wristwarmers or sort of make a muff. But I still love them. Eventually I’ll finish the Crazy Ribs Mitts and I’ve a got a simple fingerless pattern in mind for a superwash wool to replace these before they become too shapeless to wear.

Sweet Marguerite: It’s very warm. I wish I’d made it a little slouchier, but I still love it.

Picky Hubby Scarf: He wears it. It got much use in our holiday travels.

Not Pictured:
- Mistake Rib Scarf: Too scratchy, never wear it. It is the second thing I ever made, to be fair.
- Everyone else‘s mitts: Jasper wears his occasionally although he says its almost never cold enough for him to wear them. Mom was very excited to get her Treads for Christmas this year, saying “It’s finally my turn to get some! Everyone else wears theirs all the time.” So I guess my brothers must wear theirs? I didn’t see it when we were up but I didn’t really see them leave the house much. I did see Dad put his Thanksgiving Day Mitts on every time we left they house. I restarted the scarf I was making to match that with different needles and I’m thinking another pair of mitts for him this year, maybe something with half fingers? We’ll see.
- Stormcloud Shawl: I still haven’t blocked it.
- Blue Ellen: not warm enough for winter, but I’ll probably wear it a lot this spring again.
- Lemongrass Socks:  I wear them whenever they’re clean. So warm! Makes me wish I could stand knitting on small needles more often. Hand knit socks are awesome.

I ended up throwing two last minute Christmas knitting projects in, both hats. To match the Green Treads I made earlier this year, I made my mom a hat with the linen stitch in a black band.

Dec 17-27

For Jasper’s Nana, who I want to be when I’m 90, I knit the 16 Cables Hat in a yarn I just discovered, Neighborhood Fiber Co. It’s a nice worsted washable, and the color is totally not captured by the picture. I almost came home with it in orange and red and green too– all the colors are just gorgeously  intense and variegated.

December 17-24

She seemed to really like it, and told me that no one knits anything for her. Plus she asked for the pattern, which you know is a good compliment from a knitter!

I only had my iPhone with me on our endless trek, which made me sad because the photos are not up to par. We drove from Virginia to Cape Ann in Massachusetts to Pennsylvania to Maryland and home over 2 weeks. Also, through a blizzard the day after Christmas. I need another vacation where all I do is lay around the house!

Jan 16- Dec 17

I finished up the seemingly endless Picky Hubby Scarf tonight. There he is, enjoying it.

“In case of emergency — say, if your chainik has broken into a thousand pieces — zavarka can be brewed in an ordinary mug. This procedure, however, requires skill and care. First off, you’d have to find some way to cover the mug in order to preserve the aroma. Secondly, pouring the right amount of zavarka out of an ordinary mug without a spout is a task very far from trivial. You have been warned.”

You have been warned!

—

Right now I’ve been drinking a lot of my favorite cheap tea: Ikea’s Christmas Tea. I know, I know, what is wrong with me that I love this stuff? But I do. I have friends who think that Christmas tastes like Eggnog, and others who think it tastes like Starbucks Peppermint Mocha. These things are delicious, but nothing tastes so much like Christmas as this tea. It’s got nutmeg and citrus and all the other perfect flavors.

I’m on my last bag of it, which means a trip up to  Woodbridge to Ikea soon, and  hopefully they still even sell it. My biggest complaint about Ikea is they always stop selling things I like before I’m done wanting to buy them.

Thanksgiving was good. Friday after Turkey day proper I got to see my baby brother #1′s new place and we met his cat, who is very docile. He also apparently doesn’t mind playing spider-cat at all, as you can see:

I got a bit of knitting done, including FINALLY finishing the first of my Crazy Ribs Mitts. I had been putting off the fingers and thumb for months, but it’s done and I’m even about to start the thumb increases on #2:

The second is going a bit faster as I’ve gotten much better at pfbs (nothing like practice, right?) but I can’t work on them for very long at a time before my hands start protesting the omg!tiny needles. I will never ever be a knitter of socks that aren’t at least sport weight yarn. (I’m wearing the Lemongrass Socks right now, actually.

I’ve also been working on the seemingly endless scarf for Jasper. It’s long enough to be a finished scarf for me and then some, but still not even close for him. Someday I will finish it. Someday. That’s about all the knitting I’ve managed… I keep wanting to knit a hat to go with the Green Treads since I have a whole ‘nother skein of the yarn, but I have not had the brain power for hat design at all.

At least the weather has finally changed. I was over 90+ degree weather months ago, but it wouldn’t cooperate. It was rainy last week (thanks, Tropical Depression Nicole) and then Friday & yesterday it was perfectly gorgeous fall weather. Just hint of a bite of chill in the air, sunny and fun to be out in in a nice hoodie. Love it!

With the weather cooling off, thoughts of knitting other projects have returned to my mind. I’m not sure what to do, though. I realized that I’m in a knitting funk because I’m terrified to knit the thing I really want to knit (a vest) but can’t really get inspired by anything else either. I also haven’t had much free time to knit for the last few months.

Why so scared about the vest? Well, for all the knitting I’ve done, I haven’t really made fitted garments more complex than a hat or mitts. What if it comes out wrong and doesn’t fit? What if its not the perfect thing I  have in my mind? Plus, the desire for a knitted vest to wear over blouses that hits me every fall only reminds me of how unsatisfied I am with my existing blouse collection. I have like 3 I wear regularly and quite a few more that occasionally get brought out because they don’t fit quite right. The prospect of trying to fix this opens a whole ‘nother kettle of worms, especially now that Petite Sophisticate is out of business. (I’m open to recommendations of stores that actually carry petites in small sizes.) I’m currently frustrated enough by my attempts to find shoes and bras that actually fit, expanding this hunt into more of my clothing is downright terror-inducing.

So I’ll just keep knitting this scarf, thanks.

There was some knitting, nowhere near as much as I hoped. I finished Green Treads. They started out as a random fun project but I think they’re going to be a Christmas present for mom. Bonus fun, they only used one of the skeins I had of the cashmerino, so I’m going to make a matching cowl. Other than that, not much knitting got done. I got fed up with Crazy Ribs Mitts again, which is why I started these. I am just not cut out for knitting on size 1s for any length of time.

So what else did I do?

Well, I finished my masters’ degree (in Education), which took up most of June. Yay! Done! Then there was a lot of travel and people visiting. In July there was an awesome trip to Vermont with friends from college. We did some hiking in some very pretty places:

My family visited for a week, which was nice. We spent a couple of days at Cass Railroad Park in West Virginia, which was neat:

Most of the rest of the family visit was spent playing video games and board games. We are nerds.

I also had some good friends visit  last week and we indulged in our tea hobby, going to Tea, Lace & Roses. It was quite nice: good food, delicious tea, nice atmosphere and a dress up room. I had their Midsummer Night’s Dream, which was a fruity green & black tea blend. It was very good. My friends tried the Ice Wine tea (good and very unique) and the Madame Grey (a good, cream, Earl Grey). Definitely a place I’d recommend to tea fans.

Besides all that, there’s been a lot of doctors visits and I started physical therapy last week. (Problems with my left knee that probably should’ve been addressed a while ago. I’m excited to get to work on it, even if it is a pain.) All in all, a really busy summer, with not a lot of knitting time. Ah well.

Well, this weekend that officially changed. I actually got bored of alternating stockinette and garter stitch. So I got down the Crazy Ribs Mitts and have gone back to work on them. (Still not sure about the texture of the yarn knit that tight but I think I’ll give it a chance. ) Rather than feeling like an insane challenge, it was pleasant to have some knitting that took a little more brain power to focus on. Funny how summer starting makes so much difference.

The lesson from this for me is to accept sooner when work and life mean I need knitting to be simple and relaxing and when I’m in the mood for a little more and not push it.

I’ve brought it to work the last couple of weeks and the students keep asking the exact same questions: “Is that a scarf?” “Who is it for?” “Why are you making a scarf in the summer?” (The answer to the last one is “because then I might actually get it done by winter.” I am a slow knitter.)

I started testing out the new version of this pattern yesterday, only to realize that I’ve forgotten how to do purl increases without leaving holes. Oops!!!

I really wanted something easy and fun but not Jasper’s scarf to avoid dealing with the Spiral Shale hat. I still haven’t frogged it or fixed it. I shoved it in a bag and have been ignoring it. Now it looks like I need to rip and start this over because of too many holes. I seem to have a hat curse lately.