I realized I’ve been leaving you in suspense over my purple sweater! It did get finished, and I literally had to take it to Colorado unblocked and block it in a friend’s washing machine, but it got finished. I wore it a lot and really, really enjoyed it. Several people commented on it (in a good way). Yay! The photo, or rather a piece of the photo, I snagged from a friend’s picture of the trip. We were playing an acting game called Freeze.
No, I am not starting to knit sweaters for birds. I have made excellent progress on the Raven’s Wing yarn, and I want to show you! Ta-da. My first wound-off bobbin of the single ply. Looks pretty nice, eh? I’m so excited about the way it’s turning out.
And, for the second half of our program, I give you my sweater progress. I finished one of the sleeves and started merrily in on the cowl. Supposedly the accepted and generally used method of sweater knitting holds that you must knit both sleeves one after the other, but who wants to do that?
For the past two weeks I’ve been decidedly under the weather. So much so that I was (and still am) forced to give up many responsibilities and sit around, resting as best I can. Sometimes it’s more irking then others, but for the most part I’m content. The sitting around has led to some amazing progress on the knitting front. Think about it, what else can you do when you’re supposed to be resting? Besides read, and I did that already. Four new books worth.
The sweater body is finished, and I’m a few inches down the first sleeve. Unfortunately, it won’t be ready in time for my original goal, which was today, but that’s okay because the event I wanted to wear it to doesn’t fall under the category of resting.
After a mad dash to the bottom hem and the subsequent beginning on the sleeve, my knitting self just snapped. I had had enough of purple worsted weight. I would start a new project or die trying!
So I’m nuts. I want to finish my sweater project before the nineteenth. I see many late night efforts in my future.
As you can see, it’s grown quite a bit, and I’m now into my third ball of yarn out of nine. I’ve had to make a conscious effort to knit tighter once I got to the easy part, because the garment was expanding when it wasn’t supposed to. By now I’ve gotten down to the waist decreases, so it feels like I’m making more progress faster. I have a feeling knitting sweaters with heavier weight yarn could become addicting. They’re so quick when you actually take the time to knock out four or five rounds at a time.
I really hope the rest of the year won’t decide to follow January’s pacing. At that rate I won’t get much done!
I mean, we’re already almost through a twelfth of the year. Yikes! It would be so much easier if I had only one, or even two hobbies. Then I could focus on them solely and really get stuff cranked out.
But would it be as fun? Part of the fun of hobbies is to be able to do different things and keep them fresh. If it’s not interesting, why do it? Now, granted, I’ve taken hobby-gathering and turned it into an extreme sport, but I only keep the ones I enjoy. The trouble is that I enjoy a few too many to maintain with sanity.
The solution? Rotate them out as the mood strikes, and try not to leave any unfinished projects. The first part is easy. I’m still working on the second part. Although I am proud to report that I still only have one knitting project going, despite a red sock yarn’s constant pleading and a shawl pattern’s lingering glances.