July 2010 – Knitting Up North

White Knuckling It

Do not attempt this at home. Although no cars were harmed during the taking of this photo, it probably wasn’t a good idea.

While traffic around the Duluth area has come to almost a complete standstill, it feels like my life has shifted into overdrive. Here’s an idea of what my non-nine-to-five working life has been like lately.

I finished up a consignment piece I was working on and got it taken to the new (temporary) owner. I’ve been working on the sock you see above in tiny chunks of time. It’s the second sock and although it seems to be going faster than the first because I have the pattern memorized, it is still suffering from a bit of Second Sock Syndrome. I also am working on a second mitten for someone. The mittens are going to be part of a trade; he did some work on my car in return for the mittens. I have a wrap that I’m carrying around in the hopes that it might actually be cool enough some night to work on an alpaca shawl. And I may have ~~accidentally~~ cast on for a new project 2 weekends ago while at the cabin. In my defense, I ran out of UFO knitting. I had forgotten to bring the consignment piece (even though I brought all the extra yarn for it) and there was some glitch with the mittens that meant I couldn’t work on that. For some reason it seemed completely reasonable to cast on 479 stitches for a Faroe Island Shawl. Reasonable to me anyway, my mother-in-law and her niece didn’t think it was so reasonable that I would ask them to recount my stitches for me. They kept asking me if it was really so important that I get the correct number of stitches.

I’ve also been busy with the Optimist Club. We had a picnic last week at Chester Bowl for Mentor Duluth.

We saw a dinosaur…

And we’ve had people coming and going from our house all week long (I’m not complaining, I love the visitors). Add to this my workout routine in the morning, and I am completely wiped out. I hope to make it to August without getting sick or completely breaking down. In the meantime, check out Treasure Adventure down at Bayfront Park this week or next. If you see a knitting Pirate Wench, say hi to her, she could really use the encouragement.

Seafoam Scarf

Another knitting project done! For anyone who ever watched the TV show, Monster House, I desperately need a "DONE" stamp to put over these projects. Because this one is done baby, done!

Although this is in no way my oldest finished project (we probably won’t even talk about some of those!), it is one that has been weighing heavily on me. I started this on New Year’s Eve or there about. I thought it would be a real quick project, and it should have been, but I got bored part way through the 2nd skein. This scarf has travelled with me to Florida, to Alaska, to Chicago, and to numerous cabin trips. In fact, this project actually lived in my carry on bag for many months. There was no reason to take it out as it was my go-to project in case I finished whatever I was meaning to work on during any one of those trips. The kicker is that I never really needed that go-to project.

You can see the true colors a little better here.

The crazy part is that I really didn’t need to do all that much more on the scarf. I probably finished about ten pattern repeats over the last week before I called it done.

The Details:

Pattern: Based on the Seafoam pattern from Barbara Walkers Second Treasury of Knitted Patterns. Here’s one of the many patterns for this scarf.

Yarn: Panda Wool in Neptune.

Like all lacy knits, this one didn’t look like much while I was knitting it. It was shrivelled up and just plain short. I kept hoping that it would block out well and I wasn’t disappointed. Other than turning the wash water an amazing shade of blue, it really blocked amazingly well. I think it was just over five feet long when I blocked it, which is plenty long for me. I have slightly under a skein of yarn (100 yds or so), it might be enough for baby socks.

Things Are Getting Finished Around Here

I may have finally escaped from the black hole of knitting that was sucking me in. You know the hole I’m talking about, right? The one where it feels like you’re never making progress even though you’re knitting and knitting and knitting. Then, all of a sudden you look down and you’re much further along than you thought you were. Suddenly, you’re free from the black hole, crusing along towards the bind off.

The black hole applies to spinning as well. I started this at Sock Summit last year. For the longest time I just had one bobbin full and the rest was just sitting around while I finished up some other spinning. I love this colorway, it makes me happy.

Fiber: Superwash Merino in Vintage Garden

Company: Susan’s Kitchen – I bought this at Sock Summit last summer as an impulse buy. It is some super soft fiber. I’m hoping she’ll be at Stitches Midwest so I can buy more of her fiber in person. If not, then I’ll just have to haunt her etsy shop. The pansy colorway is really calling to me.

Yardage: 133 yds, 3-ply, approximately a worsted weight.

This project I’ll tell you more about tomorrow. Right now it’s blocking on my dining room floor. It turned the water a very interesting shade of blue.

My friend Diane finished these great socks last week. She’s going to have the toastiest feet in town this winter! Diane is an amazing knitter, and one of the sweetest people I know. In a lot of ways she reminds me of my Mom. She’s always so supportive at knit nights. Even if your sleeves come out 2 different sizes, she’s the one that will be there telling you it will be ok and will even help you rip it back. Diane is having surgery tomorrow so please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

Please send me your items as you finish them, I’ll either post photos or just jot you down as you finish things. I’m keeping track of finished items for one of the prizes.

It’s the Simple Things

It’s not too late to enter The Contest. It officially starts today, but it runs until August 13th so you have plenty of time to get a few projects finished up. I don’t believe that knitting should have hard and fast rules; let’s have fun and get some Unfinished Projects (UFO’s) done. It doesn’t matter if you have 1 project to get done or 100 (I hope you don’t have 100), everyone is welcome to join in. I am still also looking for another donation or 2 of yarn or related items for prizes. I think it would be great to see some homemade stitch markers or something like that.

I’m always amazed to see how little time it takes to finish these old projects. Sometimes I was just a day or so away from finishing and I don’t really know why I ever stopped.

This was not an UFO, but a quick little knit that I powered through to give to my little sister for her birthday. It’s a Simple Things scarf from Rainy Day Goods.

Yarn: Pagewood Farms Alyeska Hand-dyed Sock Yarn; 360 yards (329 meters); 80% superwash merino, 10% cashmere, 10% nylon. The colorway is Fushia Fizz – very appropriate.

Needles: Size US 4, 24" circular.

Modifications: None. It’s an easy brainless knit. You increase on the knit rows, purl on the backside and just keep doing that until the very end. I would have liked to have blocked this a little more strenuously, but I was at the cabin and was limited to the materials at hand. i.e. I didn’t have pins.

I already have my yarn picked out for a second Simple Things. Maybe even a third, although I’m kind of leaning towards a Brandywine Shawl instead.

A Contest

It’s a Finish-a-Long!

Gather up all of your unfinished projects and let’s get them done together. I want to be able to free up some of my needles. And let’s face it, I want to be able to free up some of the mental capacity that’s stuck keeping track of ALL of my unfinished projects. My goal is to get this done by the time Sitches Midwest rolls around. That’s right, I’m going to Stitches!!

So here’s what we’re going to do:

Gather up all of your projects and figure out what’s reasonable to get done in the next month or so. I think you’ll be surprised at how little there is left to do on some projects. There’s no reason this has to be only knitting. If you have sewing projects that need to get done or spinning that’s be languishing on the bobbins, by all means those count too.
Send me an email (jposkozim at duluthnews dot com) saying that you want in on this contest and what you will be completing. OR leave a comment on the blog with your name (user name is fine) and what you will be completing.
Tell me when you are done.
Contest starts July 6 and runs until August 13. All projects must be finished by the 13th to be counted as a prize winner.

The best part? We will have prizes!! I am donating a skein from my stash for the oldest unfinished object that gets completed by August 13th. Barb from Fabric Works is donating something yarny for the person that gets the most projects completed. I’d love to give out another skein or 2 for participants in the contest. If anyone else would like to donate a prize, please email me at the above address and we’ll add you to the list of sponsors.