I noticed something while reviewing my “active” projects the other day. Everything I’m working on is lace. Stoles, shawls, more shawls…all of it. Not a single sock, sweater part, hat, glove in the pile. Just something lacy followed by more lacy. This could constitute a rut.
First there’s my main project, the handspun Comfort Shawl sampler. I am so close to finishing this that I foresee a marathon knitting session sans break to finish those last few rows. I’m on the second to last color/fiber on the last ball of yarn. The last two new fiber sections took up around eight rows before merging into the next segment, so there is really about a dozen rows until the end. A dozen. I must finish this.
My even more mindless than a feather and fan project is a Wisp that I started in March with the intent of using the entire ball of yarn. I’m so bored with this project that I may just measure and decide it’s long enough. This project gained a few inches while we sat in the theater Thursday night waiting for a midnight showing of The Dark Knight. You know how much I hated (spoiler warning) the latest Indiana Jones? I loved this new Batman installation with the same intensity of feeling times a million billion. Seriously, it’s that good and I’m not just saying that because Bats is my favorite super hero and he can kick your super hero’s ass.
Finally, I’ve pulled Mellifera out of hibernation. She’s still a little baby shawl. This is another handspun project using singles made of merino and tencel. I’m hoping to make at least a bit of progress on this before I get distracted by another project.
I could almost kill for something cabled and not lace, but if I stop what I’m working on, I’m afraid I won’t pick them back up.
My time has gotten sucked up into a complex balance of reading novels, playing WoW (I know. I got sucked back in. I didn’t mean to), baking bread, carding batts, medicating the FrankenFuzz, processing alpaca, spinning and trying my hand at a little design work. I also sleep, work and sometimes eat in all that while thinking about doing yard work. In an attempt to plow through my MP08 list, spinning got higher billing than some of the other things on the list…at least while I wasn’t playing Warcraft.
As a refresher, this is my MP08 list with relevant updates:
- process & spin alpaca purchased at SAFF 07 processing
- fingerless mitts and socks for the little sister
- complete the mates for both the Herring and
Shimmer socks frogged Shimmer
- spin every bit of roving and top purchased up to the end of 2007
- Bee Fields Shawl
Mystery Stole 3 completely lost this project. Poof! Gone.
- finish Fattie’s Fish Fish, you know, because the baby’s already here
Shedir also a “poof! gone” project. Was in the same bag as the stole.
- design and knit a sock for Mom
- use 50% of the oddball yarns in stash
- design a
sweater something for some stash yarn
- use up the bits of yarn left over from other projects
I finished spinning up the yarn for Mellifera, aka Bee Fields, but still need to set the twist. I got slightly less total yardage than my goal, but I’m going to pretend it doesn’t matter and keep going. I squeaked in with approximately 1100 yards of merino & tencel singles from 4 ounces of fiber. 1100 yards is exactly the amount listed in the pattern, so we’ll see. The roving was courtesy of Carrie at Funky Carolina. I’m knitting this up on US 3’s.
I also spun up some BFL from Gale and went for chain plying. I loved every single step of spinning this project. Then I finished and thought “eh”. I’m no longer in love for absolutely no (good) reason at all. I got 300-something yards of fingering to sport weight 3-ply yarn. I think I was disappointed because I’m still aiming for more yardage.
