Seed stitched up

Posted on 25 May 2006 by Kris

On Saturday afternoons, I can be found knitting at Rebecca’s with local bloggers. More specifically, for the past few Saturday afternoons, I could be found knitting the Forest Path Stole borders at Rebecca’s. I’ve deliberately brought this project, and only this project, because I find seed stitch incredibly tedious, and I knew that if I bought something else with me, I wouldn’t touch FPS at all. That, and the conversation makes the tedium much less painful.

Until this week, I hadn’t had time to knit outside of the weekly SnB. Unforeseen changes at work led to overtime for the bulk of this month. Lots of overtime means little energy, and little energy means lots of sleep, and lots of sleep means little knitting.

So while I’ve barely touched any of my other projects, hey, at least I made fantastic progress on FPS!

I’d just finished the left border before leaving Rebecca’s this past Saturday, so I spent the past couple of nights working on the top border. I finished the actual knitting Tuesday night and completed the bindoff last night. (I did the sewn bindoff called for in the pattern, and while it looks nice, it takes forever).

All I have to do now is block. I’ve borrowed Jessica’s blocking wires, so the latter process should be relatively painless.

Needless to say, I am very excited about this!

I rewound the leftover yarn, just for kicks, and this is what remains of the 8 ounces I started with:

Makes me even more glad that I stopped knitting the lace and entrelac part when I did, instead of knitting two more tiers. Because man, what a close call!

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May 2006 goals

Posted on 01 May 2006 by Kris

Last month’s goal roundup:

  1. Finish Eris – Not done
  2. Work on Forest Path Stole – Done!
  3. Hold off on pipeline projects until finishing at least one WIP – Done!

I knew I shouldn’t have said that I was on track to finish Eris in time… I totally jinxed myself. I screwed up one of the sleeves yet again. More on that in an upcoming post.

This month’s goals:

  1. Finish Eris, because I’m thoroughly sick of this sweater and want to start a new one already
  2. Finish Forest Path Stole
  3. Finish at least one sock
  4. Make some sort of progress on the remaining pair of socks
  5. Hold off on pipeline projects until finishing at least one WIP

Place your bets on goal #1, folks! Or publicly nag me. Or both.

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April progress report

Posted on 19 April 2006 by Kris

Haven’t finished a project yet this month, but I have made progress on most of them!

Eris:

The sleeves continue. Slowly. This project has been hurting my hands, so I’ve been keeping work on it to a minimum, but I should still be on track to finish by the end of the month.

No pictures yet, because they’re not particularly interesting, but just know that the current sleeves already fit better than their predecessors.
 

Forest Path Stole:

I pinned out a section of the stole to see how large it would block out, then did some math. Stopping at the end of tier 15 should give me a stole just under 6′ long, give or take a couple of inches, which is a good length for me.

I’ve almost completed the top seed stitch triangles.

Next up, the uber-boring seed stitch borders!
 

Pomatomus:

One sock down, one to go!

Don’t let the picture fool you – the stitch pattern is actually a little less clear when it’s stretched out over a human foot. That’s variegated yarn for you. Oh, well. At least the colorway’s pretty.

I decided I’d try a Dutch heel with this sock, as the round ones seem to be too loose for me. This heel fits okay (and will probably fit even better after blocking), but I’ll have to keep playing around with different types to see if there’s another one that fits me better.
 

In other news, I’ve been absent from local knitting meet ups lately. It’s not because I’m deliberately being antisocial, though! A couple of weekends ago I was sick, and the weekend before last I was up in the Bay Area visiting family (which is my excuse for forgetting to hit East Bay yarn stores). And this past weekend, well… I just forgot. Oops! Hopefully I’ll be there this Saturday, though.

Oh, and I have no willpower. I went to Common Threads on my lunch break yesterday, just to get size 3 DPNs (for the FPS borders). I came away with not only the needles, but with two skeins of Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in Mineshaft. It’s a good thing that they only stock one other colorway that I like, because otherwise I might have come away with even more yarn.

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Too early for cheating

Posted on 07 April 2006 by Kris

So, as anyone who knows me well enough may have guessed, there’s no possible way I could achieve April goal #3 without sneaking a new project in at the very end of March.

What? I wasn’t exactly going to sit and twiddle my thumbs when I was sick, and a new project is about all the excitement you can get while bumming around the house. (If you live alone and have quiet neighbors, that is…)

I started Pomatomus last Friday.

This is actually the second attempt at the leg.

I’d completed one and a half repeats for the leg over the weekend. (The pattern calls for three, but given my row gauge and how short my legs are, I could practically get knee socks out of that many repeats. And I don’t like knee socks.) I’d also gotten the heel and gusset done.

But I couldn’t quite suss out how to do the foot. Maybe it was the cold meds, maybe not, but in either case, I didn’t know what to do with Chart B. I mean, I couldn’t just start with row 12, because the chart doesn’t work that way.

So after several attempts I gave up. That’s when I ripped back to the ribbing and decided that I would start the leg on row 11 of Chart A, rather than at the beginning. That way, I could just start the foot with row 1 of the second chart.

I’m happy with it so far. I normally find that variegated yarns obscure stitch patterns, but I think the color distribution actually works pretty well here.

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April 2006 goals

Posted on 02 April 2006 by Kris

March didn’t go as well as planned. But what else is new, right? Last month’s goal round-up:

  1. Finish Eris – Not done.
  2. Finish Mom’s cable-and-bobble hat – Not done.
  3. Finish at least one sock (either the second River Rapids sock, or a toe sock) – Done!
  4. Complete at least two tiers of the Forest Path Stole – Done!
  5. Re-start Channel Pullover – Not done.
  6. Start Odessa – Done!

New goals for this month:

  1. Finish Eris (This is ridiculous. How many months has this been a goal, now?)
  2. Work on Forest Path Stole
  3. Hold off on pipeline projects until finishing at least one WIP

I have several pipeline projects. The Channel Pullover has been next sweater on the list for awhile (I already have the yarn for it, and I even started it once before deciding I didn’t like the fabric I was getting). And I think my next lace project is going to be the Tina shawl, though I’ll probably modify it into a triangular shawl – I likely won’t use a square one as much, and while I’ll definitely knit one someday, now isn’t the time. As for socks… well, I always want to knit more socks.

So to further elaborate on goal #3: I will not start a new project until I’ve completed one of the same type. No working on Tina until FPS is complete, for example. Yes, I’m aware that there’s a loophole. But I’ll try to avoid it…

As far as social knitting this weekend goes, my immune system made the decision for me – I ended the week with a cold. So, no Rebecca’s yesterday. I probably won’t make it to the Whistlestop today, either; while I’m feeling a lot better, I could use more rest. That, and I still have chores and errands to do.

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