Patience is not my strong suit

Patience is not a virtue that I was blessed with. Even though the tragedy is over and I know exactly where my Knitpicks harmony needle set is (namely Wisconsin) I am still not a happy camper because it means I have to wait for my roommate to first take them to the post office and then wait for the post office to deliver them to me. I have tons of needles that I could use... a full set of straights, a full set of double points, and two of the Boye circular sets from before the Knitpicks ones came out but I've grown picky and now I really only like the harmonies. In general I'd probably be perfectly happy to knit with the other if the harmonies were tied up but because I can't have them right now they seem like the only thing worth using.

The Nintendo Cozy that I cast on for two days ago is all but finished, all I need to do is get some buttons and add them.


I used about 3/4 of a skein of Noro Silk Garden and loved it. It was quick and easy but there was enough pattern to keep my interest as well. Now I have the most stylish Gameboy around.

In darker news I frogged Andrew's sweater the other day. It took less than 45 minutes to undo hours and hours of knitting. I can't bring myself to try the pattern again so soon so I found a new patter and will try it. Here's what's left of the sweater...


I washed the yarn and re-balled it so it's ready for another go... as soon as the harmonies get here. That's about all the news. The baby sweater is still waiting to be seamed and the shawl is in perpetual hibernation.

Tragedy

Tragedy struck as I moved out of my dorm room and took the long drive home from Wisconsin to New Mexico this weekend. My parents came to help me move and while I was taking my last final of the year they packed all my boxes into the car. I had left a pile of things that needed to be packed close to the top for easy access and told my parents to let ME pack that pile. When I got back from the final my mom told me that she had packed it very carefully and put it all close to the top. We got in the car and got on the road and low and behold my Knitpicks Harmony interchangeable needle set is nowhere to be found. Worse, I keep many of my most used notions in their pouch with them. My mother was certain that she packed them and insisted that I would just have to wait the THREE days until we got home to find them. Not as terrible as it sounds. I had two projects with needles in them, the baby sweater, and Andrew's pair of socks that he gifted me for the summer. I finished all the pieces of the baby jacket but couldn't sew it up because my darning needles were in the Knitpicks case. Still OK because the sock got me through the rest of the trip. When I got home and went through everything... no Knitpicks needles! One of my roommates still hasn't moved out yet so I'm praying she find them but she hasn't answered my message to her yet and I'm unreasonably worried.

In other tragic news, the sweater that I'm making for Andrew is WAY too big WAY.. as in 5 inches too big! I swear I swatched. I must have been under super stress that day because I know I was on gauge for the swatch and now the sweater is suddenly a 42'' chest... Andrew is stick skinny. The whole thing has to be frogged and I'm going to look for a different pattern because I can't bring my self to start this one again just yet.

To comfort myself I just cast on for the Nintendo Cozy from the Stitch n' Bitch page-a-day calendar. Hopefully it will help take the edge off.

Not sure about this blogging thing...

Since I'm already on Ravelry and have a hard enough time keeping projects updated there I'm not entirely sure that I'll be terrific at this blog business. However, there are so many knitting blogs that I enjoy reading that I thought I might just give it a try and see what happens. Also, who doesn't need another distraction from studying for finals? Politics and Human Nature BAH! Temporal Monarchy, Autonomous Collective, Representative Democracy... who needs it. Any way don't expect any sort gushy life details in this thing it's going to be purely about knitting... with the occasional complaint about school thrown in. And anyway my life doesn't have any gushy details to share so bugger off if that's what you want.

Now knitting.

I have three (maybe four depending on how you count) WIPs.

The first and most urgent is the Baby Baseball Tee from Knit2Together. It is for my boss who is preggers so there's kind of a time line on finishing. So far, the back is completely finished, the pocket lining is finished and knit into the front (but not sewed down) and I'm up to the decreased on the front. I am very happy with this as the baby is not due until September. While I could care less about the Green Bay Packers the mother is a huge fan I mean HUGE and the baby is a boy, so I'm knitting the sweater in Packers colors, gold body and green sleeves. I'm knitting it in Plymouth Encore which is 75% acrylic and 25% wool so it's machine washable, cheap, a baby skin friendly. I'm not a big fan of acrylic and like I said don't care about the Packers so the yarn/color scheme isn't too appealing to me but it makes me happy to knit something for Jenny because she's a good boss and cool person.


Second WIP is going on a full year now. It is an acrylic and nylon blend boucle wrap/shawl/wide scarf. The yarn is fun to look at and touch but terrible to knit with--it's splitty and impossible to frog; the stitches might as well be glued together. It Jo-Ann's Sensations Rainbow Boucle I like the fabric that I have so far, but I'm only half way done. The pattern needs 36 4-row repeats over 80 stitches and I have 20 done. It's not at all a hard pattern, it's a simple drop stitch patter--basically a way easier version of the Clapotis. It's boring and fussy which is why progress is slower than a snail's pace. Hopefully I will like the finished product as I like the bit I have now. Otherwise, I will cry bitter bitter tears of sad regret for my wasted time. Obviously it needs some blocking...


The last WIP is coming up on a few months shy of a year now. It started out as a sweater for my brother who is pretty skinny but 6'8'' tall and makes me look like a rag doll when I stand next to him. I quickly realized that even though he's skinny I would not have enough yarn/time/sanity to finish. My dad said he hates wool because it's scratchy after glaring at him and making him hold my softest merino sock yarn until he admitted that it's not too bad gave up on him. I thought about just wearing it myself since I had cast on for a 36'' chest anyway but then my boyfriend said hey that's a cool sweater who's it for. I told him if he liked it is was for him and the darling accepted. Sweater curse be damned. It's in Cascade 220 wool and is a pattern from the Rowan Pure Wool Collection: Eden.


The last WIP is sort of not mine, but really it mostly is. It's a pair of socks out the Trekking Pro Natura done one-sock-at-a-time, cuff down, on two circs. It's supposed to be Andrew's, he said he wanted to learn to knit. (OK maybe I pushed a wee little bit but he agreed to learn in the end.) He didn't want to buy any yarn In case I don't like knitting, instead he wanted to knit out of my stash. No problem, I love the kid so I went through my stash and laid out before him all the things I was willing to part with for him to learn on--of the two balls of sock yarn he chose the green one and not the pink, green, purple, and yellow striped one... go figure. Now I know that socks on size 1.5 needles is not the most encouraging fist project but he didn't want to buy his own yarn and that worsted weight already has a project assigned to it damnit. And just so I don't come across as selfish, that sock yarn was supposed to be my first pair of Monkey socks... now that's sacrifice. Andrew dutifully learned to cast on, do the knit two purl two ribbing and the simple garter rib pattern for the leg. The pattern is from Sensational Knitted Socks The sock is on Knitpicks fixed circs which I love because they are very pointy but Andrew has no knitterly blisters yet and his fingers start to hurt after one or two rows of 72 stitches per row. I frequently pick up these socks and work on them when I'm in his room because it's knitting and it's there so I've probably done more of the knitting on them than he has... but it's still his project right...

Alright I'm going the "publish" this now and then try to figure out how to go back and add links and photos... we'll see...

ETA: Success! I'm a natural born blogger.