Rules for Feeding the Stash

Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Slow Moving


Are you all sick of seeing this yet? I know I'm struggling with ways to photograph it that feel interesting. Fortunately, I have just three more inches left on this sweater front. It worked out that each green-pink stripe is one inch, which makes measuring super easy.

I've been struggling a bit with this sweater, and I don't really know why. I love the stripes - they're perfect potato chip knitting - and I can't wait to have this finished sweater in my wardrobe. I'm probably just tired in general. The library eats up my daytime hours, and I'm in the middle of production on this play, which eats up most of my free time, and when I have time to myself in the evenings, I just want to snuggle the dogs and recharge. So anything that can't get knit during lunch and rehearsals isn't getting knit, and my progress is really slow.


Monday, January 29, 2018

Half a Sock


My Easy A front is still a few inches away from being finished, but we're doing a run of the whole play tonight, and I'm hoping to get it finished at rehearsal. Yesterday I wanted something more portable to bring to choir, and I pulled my Darjeeling socks out of my WIP bag.

Longtime readers will probably recognize this project, as it's been a WIP since 2012 (making these my oldest active WIP), and I've had plenty of setbacks along the way. When Darjeeling last appeared on the blog, I was getting ready to frog it for the third(?) time, and modify it for my preferred construction. Yesterday I finished the leg and the heel, and I'm about halfway through the gusset decreases now.

I'm still as charmed as ever by this yarn and the stitch pattern. and I really can't wait to have this pair finished and on my feet. I'm definitely not the prolific sock knitter I was in college, so I'm not even going to pretend these will be finished anytime soon, but it feels great to reach the halfway point on this sock and not have major issues.

Linking up with Crafting On

Friday, January 26, 2018

Weekend Plans


I feel like I've been "almost finished" with the front of my Easy A all week. I'm constantly reminding myself that just because this knits up quickly doesn't mean that it knits up instantaneously. There's about six inches left in the front, which is really only a couple hours of knitting, so I'm sitting pretty good.

This weekend we really need to finish getting all our xmas stuff packed up, and I also have an absolute mountain of library books that I need to get through. It'll be a miracle if I can finish just one over the weekend, but I'm going to try. I also have to be off-book for play practice after the weekend, so I'll be spending lots of lovely quality time with my script over the next few days.

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Snow Days and Sweaters


I didn't mean to skip posting on Monday, but we had a fantastic blizzard and I really just needed to snuggle up with the dogs and a cup of coffee. You understand, don't you? I think we got about 12 inches, but it's hard to tell with all the drifting. It was really gross out for a couple days, but now we're settling into our new winter wonderland.

We're in the fourth week of the Easy A-long and I'm starting to feel the need to play catch-up! I'm a little more than halfway done my front, which is a hair behind where I'd like to be. Initially I figured that the eight-and-a-half week KAL would be split into three weeks each for the front and back, then a week each for the sleeves and the last few days for seaming and blocking, but clearly I'm not quite there. Still, I have more than enough time to make up for being distracted by my yellow hat and legwarmers, and I really am looking forward to having a new sweater in the next five weeks.

Friday, January 19, 2018

Moving Along


I've been ticking along at this legwarmer during my lunch breaks this week, and it's now just over halfway finished. Mirroring the cable has been a lifesaver in terms of second-thing-syndrome, which I am super prone to.

This weekend I'm hoping to finish getting the pattern for the yellow hat ready for my editor and to pull together the pattern for these legwarmers. I keep taking moments to remind myself that I'm in the middle of rehearsing a play right now, and things are very busy, and kind of hectic, and it's okay if I'm not as productive as I am when all I have going on is library work and design work. Over the past year I've made tons of progress in being able to listen to myself and let myself step back and do nothing for a while when I'm feeling overwhelmed, and that's definitely a skill I want to keep working on.

The legwarmers should be done by the middle of next week, at the latest, so I'll be able to start focusing more on my Easy A-long project. It's in pretty good shape - there are almost six weeks left in the KAL and I have almost half the front done, so I'm not too worried about finishing it on time.

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

On to Number Two!


I finished my first legwarmer over the weekend, and I'm already a couple of repeats into the second one. I'm mirroring the cables on these because I really love how mirrored cables look across two items of a set. It's an extra detail and layer of thoughtfulness that I really appreciate.

It did get super cold again over the weekend - in the negative 30s! - but now we should be in our January thaw for the rest of this week. It's even supposed to get above freezing the next couple days, so hopefully I'll be able to bang this second legwarmer out and have a finished pair waiting for the next deep freeze.

In theater news, we've finished blocking and tonight we're doing our first stumble-through of the whole show. I'm planning on bringing my Easy A-long sweater to rehearsal tonight to take advantage of the time I won't be onstage, and hopefully I'll get several more inches knit up!

Friday, January 12, 2018

Bobble Hat!


All while I was knitting my Vianne I hoped that I'd have some leftovers. For a few months, I've had a vision of a bright yellow, cabled, bobbly hat floating around in my head, and I was super excited to have a skein of this yarn left after my sweater was finished so I could play around with it.

This is actually the second version of the hat. I had it all knit up and had done the first two crown decreases last weekend, then decided it was definitely not working and ripped the whole thing out. I did some more thinking, some sketching, some charting, and some swatching, and started again, even more bobbly and cabley than before.

I'm really enjoying knitting this up, despite the fact that this is the second time I've knit this hat (albeit, a very different version of it). Sometimes I power through uncertainty instead of ripping back and reworking something, but I'm so glad I started over this time.

Linking up with Crafting On

Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Stripes!


Last night I managed to finish my first legwarmer, and I tried it on and it was perfect...and then I noticed that I'd added in half a repeat sixteen rounds back by mistake. So I ripped out back to the mistake and fixed it and I'm about halfway done the top ribbing on that legwarmer now.

I managed to bang out several inches on my Easy A-long sweater front, and I'm loving it. It's worked out that each green/pink stripe is one inch, which is going to make tracking measurements so easy. I have play rehearsal again tonight, but we're actually starting blocking today, so I don't know exactly how much knitting I'll manage to squeeze in during practice.

Monday, January 8, 2018

Easy A-longing


Well, I didn't end up finishing my first legwarmer, but I'm not stressing out too much about that. I had to completely rip out and re-chart a hat design over the weekend, which took a few hours, and, honestly, getting that project back to a place where I was happy with it was worth it.

Tonight is my first rehearsal for Almost, Maine, which I'm really looking forward to. I'm hoping to finish the ribbing on the front of my Easy A and start the garter stitch during rehearsal, but we'll see how things go. I think that Easy A is the perfect rehearsal knitting project, and I'm really pleased that it worked out that play rehearsals are overlapping with the Easy A-long.

Linking up with Crafting On

Friday, January 5, 2018

Legwarming Along


My first legwarmer is almost halfway done, and I'm hoping to get it finished this weekend. This has been my lunch knitting all week, and in the evenings I've been alternating between a new design project and my Easy A-long sweater. I haven't gotten quite as much done yet on my Easy A as I thought I would have, but we're only on Day 5 of the KAL, and this will be perfect rehearsal knitting for the new play I'm in, and rehearsals for that start on Monday. 

Our current heat wave is supposed to last through at least the next ten days, so with any luck my legwarmers will be finished long before it gets too cold to go without them. I'm working on writing up the pattern for these as well, which I'd love to have ready yet this month, or early February.

Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Legwarmers for Cold Days


I carried over plenty of projects from 2017 (and 2016, and 2015, and...let's not think about it), but I've already gone and cast on my first  two of 2018. The first is my new Easy A for the Easy A-long (today is the last day to save 20% on the pattern with code EASYALONG and there's still plenty of time to jump in and join us!) and the second is a pair of legwarmers.

I wear a lot of skirts and dresses, but for some reason I haven't owned a pair of legwarmers in years. The past couple of winters have been on the mild side, so I haven't really had a problem walking around in tights, but last week we were hovering in the -30s Fahrenheit, which is just too cold to not have pants or legwarmers on.

The first one is going pretty smoothly so far, and I'm planning on mirroring the cable on the second one to help with second-legwarmer-syndrome. I'm really enjoying knitting it so far, but I definitely want to get these churned out before it gets super cold again.

Linking up with Yarn Along