Monday, April 28, 2008

Still knitting

Really I am. I haven't completely given up on my blog but I'm having a hard time getting motivated to write about my knitting. Between my local group & Ravelry, I feel like I interact about knitting and yarn A LOT. I'd prefer not to let it completely take over my life, but it might already be too late!

This is my insanely busy time at work - literally I don't take a break from the time I walk in until I leave 8 hours later - I eat at my desk & run quickly to the bathroom. It's insane. So the absolute last thing I want to do when I get home is try to think of witty things to write about knitting. So this is turning into the "whatever the heck I feel like" today blog. Patrick & I have done some traveling lately & I'm in the process of writing up trip reports so I can share our experiences and photos. The Colorado trip is close. Then we took the road trip home to Louisiana & honestly, I think our car time is highly entertaining so I'm going to tell you about that too. Stay tuned.

Knitting: still working on kimono. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel but I just can't bring myself to work on it. So instead I cast on for a different sweater - Ophelia. I'm using Blue Sky Alpacas cotton & it is such a dream to knit with. I am putting sleeves on it because I love all of you too much to subject you to my upper arms, and now I'm stuck. I got all the way to the armholes then went to visit with Alissa to help me put sleeves on it. She helped me & I haven't picked it up since. Instead I bought a new book Knitalong: Celebrating the Tradition of Knitting Together & started ANOTHER new project - the Barn Raising Quilt made out of my scrap sock yarn. I finished 4 squares in 6 days so I think that's pretty cool. Here they are in all of their unfinished / unblocked glory:


It's a fun project but since I've only knit about 6 or 7 pairs of socks, I have a long way to go before I finish the 42 I'll need to make an actually blanket. So do you see a theme here? I completely can't commit to any one project, though I did complete a lavender scarf (Pasty Purple? Really, Berroco?) out of Berroco Plush yarn because I just need a dang break from patterns. It is SO insanely soft - this yarn would make great chemo caps. And I guess it will because I bought 5 balls of it 1/2 off at Rose Path Weaving several weeks ago & that scarf only took a little over 1 ball.

What else haven't I shown you. OH! I finished the knitting work on this Tovesta bag.

I LOVE this color & this was a fun project. As usual I haven't lined it yet & haven't done the finishing work. I actually don't even have fabric to finish this one - usually I pick fabric in the midst of a project because I love that part. No go this time around, I haven't even looked. I went to this one fabric store that I had never been to & whew. Let me give you a tip. If the fabric store has chandeliers, you probably can't afford the fabric that they sell. Just saying. The fabric I liked was $44 per yard. Holy crap! I get the whole quality issue, blah blah blah. I just need something that my stuff inside of my purse is going to sit on. I'm not wrapping my most precious bits. Geeze. I'm hoping to cure my fear of lining soon. We'll see.

I just thought of something else I haven't talked about - DFW Fiber Fest. Man I have a lot of stuff that I haven't told. Must get ready for work though - more later.