Beginning and Finishing

Geesh, I am such a slacker when it comes to blogging! I really thought that once I had more free time I'd be posting all the time about all my crafty endeavors. Now I have the excuse of being too busy crafting to blog about it! Pathetic!

It's been a busy month, both with my crafting and with life in general. I've been knitting and sewing almost nonstop. The weather here has been beyond sweltering, so I've been staying inside in the A/C as much as possible. Today however is blissfully cool with a high reaching only in the mid-80's and the sweetest breeze. Right now I'm sitting outside with Scout and our neighbors' dogs enjoying the cooler still evening weather. I was surfing around a bit on my laptop and figured that now is as good a time as any to write a blog post. I have so many finished objects to share with you that I hesitate to rattle them all off with descriptions for fear of boring you to sleep. I'll just give you a quick recap.

I finished the scarf I described to you in my last post in record time. I knitted until I ran out of yarn from the first skein of the gorgeous alpaca I got at our local fiber festival. The scarf ended up being longer than I'd originally thought, but overall I'm happy with how it turned out. Please head over to my Ravelry project page to check out pictures of the finished scarf. I wrote up some pretty detailed notes while I was knitting it, but I need to go back into Ravelry and put them into my project notes there. Note to self...

So after casting off the Alpaca Scarf, I had a whole second skein left with no plans for it. Then I came across Jared Flood's Ptarmigan pattern. It just called to be knit with the alpaca yarn I had left over. I cast on almost immediately (without even swatching!). It knit up very quickly, and the lace pattern is breathtakingly beautiful. Surprisingly enough, I found that my finished cowl exactly matched the schematics in the pattern. I wet-blocked it just to set the stitches. There are a few more pictures over on my Ravelry project page. I highly, highly recommend this pattern. The resulting cowl is so luxurious and impressive-looking.

As much as I wanted to cast on for something totally new, I forced myself to return to a pair of socks I'd put down with less than an inch to knit left on them. I think sometimes it's good to do that with handknits every now and then. It allows you to indulge yourself in that "I'm so tired of knitting on this!" feeling, and it's so satisfying to pick the project back up later, work on it for only a fraction of the amount of time you've already invested, and then have a beautiful finished project at the end! The socks were from some Socks That Rock yarn from last year's Rockin' Sock Club, and I used the basic information from an article in a past issue of Interweave Knits to knit up toe-up socks according to the recipient's foot measurements. This is my favorite way to knit socks. There's just nothing like the soothing round-and-round of plain stockinette sock knitting.

I've had a few small projects on and off my needles since my last post (like this and this). Each have only mildly and temporarily satiated my startitis. For some reason I can't stop thinking about new, big projects. Like full size garments. Maybe it's that nagging need of mine to knit up my (thankfully!) dwindling stash. In fact, I swatched today for the Pimlico Shrug using the alpaca sportweight yarn I purchased at the Maryland Sheep & Wool festival in May. Of course, true to my own personal form, I'm changing the gauge and the body's stitch pattern. You know I can't just leave well enough alone. Patterns are supposed to serve as inspiration and framework, right?

I'm going to limit my goings-on to my knitting for this post. I'll be sure to catch you up on my sewing, quilting, and spinning in the next post. I'm off to work on my Tea Leaves cardigan for a little longer tonight. I'm determined to get it finished before allowing myself to cast on too many other big projects. I've been trying to decide whether or not I want to participate in the the Tour de Fleece activities this year. I'm very tempted as I'd love to spin up some of the fiber stash I've accumulated, but I worry that I'm not ready for the challenge of it. I'm still such a new spinner. If I do participate, maybe I'll just set a goal of spinning for a set amount of time every day during the Tour de France. We'll see. I need to make a decision soon though; it starts on July 3rd!