A Year in the Making

I am very pleased to announce that my Celtic Dreams is finished.

This has been my longest on the needles project to date, and my first aran ever. I have a ton more like this in my queue on Ravelry, but I must say, while it is not really difficult to knit per se, these suckers sure are time consuming. The yarn is Classic Elite Skye Tweed, and once washed up it is so soft and felty feeling. Its a little rough right out of the ball, but changes dramatically after a bath. Its also warm - like sweating the whole time I did my little solo photo shoot this morning, even though its cool in the house. All of the project details are in my notebook on Ravelry here. The only real mods I made were to spread the sleeve decreases out a bit further to avoid a really odd shaped arm.

The fact that I have completed this in mid-March pretty much guarantees that warm weather will rear its head here any day now, thus denying me the pleasure of wearing my hard work until the fall, so take heart fellow New Englanders, the end of winter is nigh.

Now I get to plot and plan my next sweater to hit the needles, after I get a few smaller projects out of the way. I have three options bopping around in my head, all of which will feel like instant gratifcation projects compared to this. I might let you guys choose whats next and have a little poll.

Another Wednesday

Once again, I find myself home from work on a Wednesday. This time, its PumpkinBoy, feeling too mopey with a cough and low fever to go to school. A mere 3 weeks after my last WIP Wednesday post I am pleased to report, that despite starting and finishing and entire adult sweater, I also met my WIP goals for my long term knits!

• Morning Glory: I finished the last half of the lingering repeat and am 2 rows into the next. Still painfully slow going, but progress. Goal for end of March is one more full pattern repeat.

• Celtic Dreams: Goal was to complete sleeve one by end of February, and I did it with 4 days to spare! New goal is completion (ends, seams and blocking included) by the end of March.
  

WIP Wednesday, February Installment

My last post was 3 weeks ago - I did a WIP Wednesday post, as I had the day off to care for PumpkinBoy , who is so utterly recuperated and has SO MUCH newfound energy now that he sleeps well, that Dan and I are wondering if the surgery was really in our best interest*. I find myself home mid week again, this time for Dizzle, whose daycare is closed so that the owner can have a brief maternity leave after delivering her 3rd baby.

Here's the roundup:

• Mad Weave Socks - No goal. I exceeded that! I cast on for sock #2 and am about 1 inch into the leg. These will remain goal-less.
• Baby Surprise Jacket - Goal was complete to give to Lisa before baby was born. Goal was technically not met, due to my inability to count stitches. BSJ was frogged and a new sweater, below was begun and completed and gifted a week before baby arrived - hooray for me!
  

(details of this sweater on Ravelry)

• Morning Glory - Goal was to have one full repeat done by end of January. Goal not met. I completed one HALF repeat by then, but not the full. Februrary goal is to finish that repeat and at least get partway into the next.

• Celtic Dreams - Goal was to complete body by end of January. GOAL MET. I have sleeveage going on at a good clip. Getting re-addicted to this knit was most of the reason I missed my mark on Morning Glory, actually. Goal for Feb. will be finish sleeve 1 and get into sleeve 2
  

• NaSpiMoMo - goal was to spin 2x a week, every Thursday night and some other time. I did make every Thurs. but there were a couple times when I missed the 2nd time a week. I still managed to finish 3oz of some gorgeous merino/silk/cashmere from Franquemont Fibers called Sargasso Tweed.
  

Again, details on Ravelry

This is destined to become Chalice Handwarmers for me, very soon. I really liked having a night dedicated to spinning each week, so I plan to keep my Thursday evening date with my wheel.

*for those who are humor-impaired this is meant to be tongue in cheek.

WIP Wednesday

Before I get to my knitting post, I want to thank you for your well wishes for PumpkinBoy. His surgery went great, the weather didn't hinder us too much at all, and he is back home resting and recovering. It truly does lighten the heart to read all your comments and know that people are thinking of us.

Having him home means I am home playing nurse all week, which means I actually have time to take daylight photos and write up a post for WIP Wednesday, as started by Anne at the beginning of the year. I've been wanting to follow along, and post my WIPs and make goals, but I just can't get my shit together mid week to do so.

Mad Weave: ready to graft toe on sock #1. I have no real goal for these, as they are just my "must have socks on the needles all the time" socks. They'll get done when they get done. Still adore the yarn and the pattern.


Baby Surprise Jacket: in Cotton Ease, for Miss Dizzle's daycare provider who is expecting manchild #3 at the beginning of February. Goal is to be able to gift it to her just before baby is scheduled to be born on the 5th.


Morning Glory Wrap: Completed one full 24row repeat since I "rededicated" myself to it on the new year. That means 2.66 repeats to go till I can graft the 2 halves together and block it. Its a mere 64 rows of knitting, but this pattern really saps my brain. I can make it through about 4 rows before my brain just fritzes out on it. Goal is one more full repeat in 2 weeks time.


Celtic Dreams: another project that I'm hoping to have done before it hits the 12 month mark. I'm about 2 rows away from where the body pattern gets interrupted for the skirt patterning - so close to having the body done. Goal is to have body done by February 1st. That gives me all of Feb and March to do sleeves.


So, thats where I stand. I think the goals are reasonable, though we'll see if I'm over-reaching in due time!

Inch by Inch

Celtic Dreams has is now joined at the armpits and the neck is done. I had been thinking about modifying the neck, but honestly I just don't have the time or patience to even look around for what I could do, so plain garter stitch it is. It looks good to me, and I like how it highlights the square neck.

Summer is flying by and I feel like I've been knitting a lot, but don't have much to show for it. I'm plugging away at the Trekking socks I started in freakin' December. I think as a result of them being unfinished for so long, I have a deep seated "Blah" feeling about them, but I'm forcing myself to finish them before I start any other socks. My poor Morning Glory shawl is languising too, perhaps I need to take the sweater out of rotation and work on that, but I just don't feel sharp enough to be knitting lace with no resting rows at the moment. I am studiously ignoring the Bee Fields Kit that landed on my doorstep yesterday, as I need another complex WIP like I need a hole in the head.

Lightbulb Moment

I have never been able to knit while on vacation. I traditionally return back from our annual two weeks on the Vineyard with all the knitting I packed left untouched. This has confounded me each year - I couldn't really figure out why I never really felt the urge to pick up the needles out there.

This year I knit, and I also solved the mystery of why I never have before. With 2 kids on our hands all day long, along with gorgeous weather that has us out and about during most of the daylight hours, the only quiet time Dan and I get is in the evening. Our little spot of heaven is so remote that we rely on LP gas lamps, fridges, stove and water heater. Our running water was provided by a gasoline-powered pump that you had to pull-start like a lawnmower to fill up two small-ish storage tanks.

Traditionally, the only electricity available was from a small generator which was really only run when one needed to run the washing machine or use power tools for working on the house. A number of years ago, we installed a small solar array so that we could have an electric water pump and not worry about running to the pump house in a towel when the water tanks ran empty during a shower. Last year, the solar system was enhanced with more panels and more storage batteries and some new items appeared in the house - two standing lamps, flanking the sofa. This year, I sat knitting, pleased with myself and wondering why I never did this before. Then the lightbulb went on, as I reached up and flicked a switch as the sun went down.



I promised myself before I left that I would stay monagamous to Celtic Dreams during my time off, and I was. I completed the top back and started on the top front. Not a ton of knitting, but knitting nonetheless. Now back to the daily grind and juggling three projects and spinning at once!

Distracted, Distracting, Distractable

Whenever I get more than 2 projects on the needles, I start feeling flighty and distractable. That is why I sidelined the red Trekking socks in favor of Mom's socks to begin with:

I am making decent time on them, and thanks to the luscious STR, they are never too far from my hands. In the above photo you see evidence of my only complaint against this yarn - the balls always-always fall apart on me! Its almost as if the yarn is too round and rolls off itself - anyone know the real reason this happens and/or how to prevent it?

My second project is my Celtic Dreams, you know - the sweater that'll help me be camouflaged when I'm on my deck?

I was trucking right along, knitting the back when project number three flew into my lap:

I'd been eyeballing Anne's progress on her latest design, realizing that I had the perfect yarn for it. You know, one of those patterns that just grabs you and you know you must knit it, and you totally can't wait to just cast on? So I was utterly delighted when Anne took me up on my offer to test knit it. My version of her Glory Morning Wrap is still sprouting here, so go look at hers and see it in all its, um, glory. It demands all of my undistracted knitting time now - so the Celtic Camouflage sweater is waiting patiently, with the Mom sock as my "I can watch the kids and knit a little here and there" project.