Knitting fulfillment

I bought a sweater last night. Seems like cheating, especially since I had that stereotypical knitter thought recently: I could go for quite a while without buying a sweater. That was in response to my WIP/UFO list. The sweater is a deep purple angora blend cowl neck, purchased at Target for the princely sum of $6.24. Soft, cozy, and cheap-- how could I resist?
So, here's a rundown of my UnFinished Objects and Works In Progress. I need some sort of knitting/life coach to tackle all this, but in the mean time, I'll do my own analysis.
Here are all of my projects and the reasons why I haven't finished them:
* Colinette Tagliatelle moss stitch scarf, a gift for Margaret.
This has been lingering on the xmas back burner. I justify it by thinking that I have until opening to finish it.
* Socks in Lorna's Laces watercolor for Grandma Helen
I had a xmas reality check regarding knitting presents. No rush to finish now.
* Auracania colorblock raglan pullover
I bought three balls of Nature Wool in an electric shade of green to finally make the sleeves. Now all I need is to get around to it.
* Phildar mod sweater.
Love it, totally lost in short row instructions en francais. Ordered a translation of the pattern from Canada.
* Phildar Cecilia wrap cardigan
Missing collar piece. Ordered a replacement skein from Canada. I have a sneaking suspicion that the lost piece will be found in the clusterfuck of cables under the mixer at work.
* Colinette wrap cardigan from the latest issue of Interweave Knits
In progress. Will have to think out front neck shaping, as I think I have found an error in the pattern.
* Top down, cashmerino sweater
My current fave. Oh, those tiny needles!

Planned/stashed:
* Kureyon fingerless gloves.
Maybe I can work the thumb better this time.
* Two pairs of laceup fingerless gloves in Malabrigo.
Purple for me and green for Rita. Should get moving on these while it's still cold!
* Phildar (see a pattern developing here. I can't even buy it in the States and I've become a Phildar addict!) Onde cardigan
I've had this kit stashed since 2004, but hope springs eternal.
* Another yukata, in Tahki Cotton Classic.
This time, not swimmingly large. The yarn is a beautiful burgundy, but I must be a real masochist to remake this pattern. And I'm not a big fan of cotton.
* A Malabrigo hoodie, for me this time.
Lewis proclaimed that it would never look good on a woman and that I should give him this one too. Then I told him that he was wearing a ladies' sweater. I switched my (back)order from Bobby Blue to Polygala, a lively violet.
* A couple of rolled brim hats, in Manos
* Something out of R2 Print, maybe a handbag.
I bought it to make a poncho, but the time for that has passed. Sometimes a little procrastination goes a long way.
* A scarf out of Cascade Quatro and Rowan Kidsilk Haze, originally purchased to make a pair of legwarmers.
* More boucle scarves

Oh, and I'd love to make:
* Phildar Fall '04 couture jacket, tres elegante!
* My beloved Phildar boucle cardigan ("the Paris sweater") in other colors

In other news, I am trying to pull together my faux spring break. I realized yesterday that if I want to get decent prices on the flights, I need to stop being an indecisive Pisces. So, I hit all the usual travel sites: Orbitz, Travelocity, BA, American, Air France, etc. That was an interesting exercise in price comparisons. If you're going to Europe, it is cheaper to fly to London and catch a commuter flight than to take a direct flight. That's the advice that everyone dispenses. But what about cheap flights to London? Funnily enough, I discovered that it's cheaper to fly to Dublin and hop another flight (One euro before taxes! Gotta love it!) to London. However, if I tell the airline that I'm flying from Chicago to London, it routes me the same way and charges me another $100! Fleece the Americans, eh? Actually, I think the price difference has to do with the ridiculous federal taxes here in the States being levied on both legs of the trip, instead of just the transatlantic flight. I was initially surprised by all the cheap flights from Chicago to Ireland, then I had to laugh. Of course there are lots of flights between here and there, the city is full of Irish-Americans!

Today is a pretty blah day. Our beautiful fifty degree weather has come to a wet, grey end. It's January again. Thank goodness I have so many things to occupy me indoors--and no pressing engagements.
Last night, I finally gave the script of my next show a good read. Yikes. I have done plenty of lousy plays in my time, but this is a real turkey. The prospect of seeing it thirty-odd times doesn't thrill me. That's why they call it work. Still, this is going to be a big change from my last show.

I have started a new project, a beautiful top-down raglan sweater designed by Wendy Bernard. A new project makes me feel a wee bit guilty, as I've a few going already. Still, I just finished a project, so it's just maintaining equilibrium. The sweater is knit at a mind-numbing six stitches to the inch on size five needles. This sweater isn't moving nearly as fast as my #11 wonders, but it's more refined. Look at the elegant raglan seams. There aren't any real seams in the garment (a big plus for someone who hates seaming projects). These are a clever illusion created by mirrored increases. Even though it isn't instant gratification material, I really enjoy working on this.

I will not develop startitis. I will not start a dozen projects at once. Really, I swear! I am sorely tempted to start on this yarn though. I went to Nina yesterday and bought a couple of skeins of Malabrigo, the yarn that I used for Lewis's excellent sweater, to make fingerless gloves for Rita. Oh, and a pair for me while I'm at it. The Hannah silk ribbon took a trip to a second yarn shop today, while I had a strong bar smell about me. Not that nasty, uncleaned tap drain smell, but the musty cigarette smell that is quite out of place in a yarn shop. I was a wee bit self-conscious, but I don't go there very often. My fingerless gloves from last year got a very-predictable hole under one of the thumbs, through which I would inevitably put my thumb. That's no good. I really like them, but I recall thinking as I made them that the thumb wasn't very well engineered. Time has proved me right.
How did I get that bar smell, you ask? Well, I went out with Rita and drank like we were in college again. Rita knew the bartender and we lured Ken and Joe there to join in the fun. Everyone's got some sort of theatre connection in this town. I drank, I think, five gloggs. I wasn't really counting, which is rare for me. We shut the place down. The room spun as I lay in bed last night. It's been a long time since that happened. My liver isn't an undergrad anymore, so this can't become a regular occurence. Still, I can see how people become regulars there. I had a great time hanging out there with my friends.

Here's a photo of Lewis in his sweater. He looks so happy about it that you can't tell that he's miserable with pneumonia. When I gave it to him, he put it on, looked at himself in the mirror, then declared that he wants to be buried in it. Just a wee bit morbid. I imagined keeping it in a drawer and taking it out every once in a while to wear and think about him, but he can have it his way.

I'm taking a break from my Colinette sweater. I realized that if I want to get a Valentine's gift to someone in the UK, I need to hustle to get it in the mail. So, I started on this funky boucle scarf. I picked up the yarn when I took back my freaky identical secret santa gift. There's nothing as appealing to a knitter as free yarn. The structure of the yarn is a bit tricky to stitch, but I've worked with worse. The fabric has a muppet-like quality, with lots of texture and surprising density. Check out the funny contrast with my old man pyjama pants.

The sweater

Look, I'm wearing Lewis's sweater! I had to try it on to make sure that it wasn't oddly misshapen. It has sleeves of a length appropriate for long man arms, but way too long for me! It's very cozy. Makes me wish that it was for me (minus oddly long sleeves)! So, I'll just have to make another one. Not identical, though, unless Lewis and I want to look like the Supertwins. Maybe I'll make mine a bit more girly.
I was totally stumped as to how to attach the hood. It's a big rectangle, with a border, not hood shaped at all. The pattern very helpfully says, "sew hood on". I guess safety pins are only a stopgap measure! So, I put out a call for help on the SnB listserv. Then I realized, I just have to fold it in half. Simple knitting origami. I feel like such a little idiot!

Here's a picture of part of a sweater that I plan to keep. It's the second sleeve, in progress, of my Colinette wrap sweater. This is my third project with their yarn and I totally love it. If only it wasn't so goddamned expensive in this country! It's going fairly quick, on the same needles that I used for the glorified drug rug for Lewis. That name would probably give its designer a conniption fit, but that's what it looks like! I've got some crazy, ambitious plan to knit a sweater a month this year, or as long as my hands can take it.

I'm in the home stretch on Lewis's sweater. Only the hood remains to be knit. That sounds small, doesn't it? Sadly, it's 26 inches long, with a moss stitch border, so not as quick moving as I would hope. As I was knitting it last night, I actually thought that I might like to start sewing the sweater together, as a change of pace. I hate finishing sweaters, because it can make or break a garment. You can spend weeks knitting beautifully and ruin the garment in an hour of bad sewing. Eeek. Instead, I read a refresher on finishing, which was very exciting. Very good tips on sewing sleeves to a body, though the ilustration was pretty humorous, showing the stitches between armhole and sleeve like big shark's teeth. Now I face a decision: do I want to put dangly cords on the hood? The sweater is shown with them, but they're pure ornament. That can't be used to cinch up the hood, so I don't see the point. And I'm afraid they might be a bit dainty for a man's sweater, but suspect that they may hide some horrible join between neckline and hood. Hmmm... And, well, I'm looking forward to starting my next project.
One of my regular online reads, blue blog, pointed me in two delightful new directions: another knitting blog and a knitting podcast. The blog, knit and tonic has some delightful designs and great attitude. I even bought one of her patterns, the Somewhat Cowl, which I hope to make soon. You know, after all of my current things. I think it's swell (you can check it out here) and plan to make it up in teal Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino. I snapped up a millpack of it on ebay on the cheap recently.
The second find was a knitting podcast, Cast On. It seems like it wouldn't be very interesting, as knitting is very visual. Maybe I like the idea of knitting podcast because it brings out my supernerd: knitting and sound all in one! The podcast is like having a long (one-sided) chat with a friend, with excellent music breaks. Highly recommended!
You're probably wondering why I haven't referenced that photo yet. It was attached to an email from one of my knitting comrades from Sound of Music. Other people had a lot of free time on that show..

She knits all her own socks

But not lately.... It sounds kinda creepy when someone else (my cousin Chris) says it, but yeah, I knit my own socks. When I wear them, which is rare. Lately, my knitting attentions have been elsewhere, such as the three scarves I gave away at Christmas. All of them were previously featured in this blog, but none of the recipients seemed to recognize them. More proof of what a vanity project this blog is! I've also made three hats lately, and started a pair of socks for my grandmother ridiculously close to Christmas. She has two feet, so three days really aren't enough! Maybe they'll be her birthday socks instead, which gives me six months to finish them.
I was rummaging around in all the pre-chrimbo madness and came across a long-abandoned UFO. It was supposed to have been my first sweater with sleeves, but I never got around to making them. First, I had to remember what pattern I was using, because the dark navy of the body made it damn near impossible to do any knitting archeology. Yes, a little joke. Hypothetically, I could have charted out all my decreases and designed a matching raglan sleeve cap to match, but the idea alone makes my head hurt. So, I tracked down the pattern and got out the needles. After finishing one sleeve, I realized that I don't have quite enough yarn to make the second one. Maybe that's why I didn't knit the sleeves in the first place... I'd used a formula to calculate how much yardage I'd need for the sleeves (since they're colorblock, this is an important detail), which clearly doesn't work for raglan sleeves. So, now I'm looking for the no-dye lots random yarn to finish the project, with little success. I may have to just start over on the sleeves, which means that this project is going back on the back burner.
I broke down and ordered another ball of the French alpaca yarn that I need to finish my sweater. The Canadian yarn shop, which I love/hate, carries the yarn, so I ordered it from them. Seemed more expedient. I also ordered a couple of balls of Noro Kureyon (which I heard pronounced as "crayon" in a very full-of-themselves NYC yarn shop once. It is colorful as a box of Crayolas, but I had to laugh on the inside.) to make a pair of fingerless gloves for Rita. Another project for the list!
So, I've been working on the long-promised Not Another Sweatshirt sweater for Lewis. It's moving so fast, I thought as I worked on it last night, until I realized that I'm knitting it on #11 needles, instead of the #6 ones that are the hallmark of most of my sweaters. I'm on the sleeves now, which I'm knitting concurrently. Since, it's a very variegated yarn, I'm afraid of the sleeves looking wildly different from each other, so I hop back and forth between the two of them. This is a bit slower than one at a time, but worth the effort. I think.

Next up? Hard to say. I really want to dive into my Christmas sweater. No, not with reindeer or snowflakes. My mom gave me absolutely amazing Colinette yarn to make the sweater on the cover of the current issue of Interweave Knits. It arrived two days after Christmas. This could lead to startitis, very easily, so I've decided not to even wind the skeins into balls until I have finished Lewis's sweater. It's such a temptation! I also have a bunch of little projects that I could do, like scarves and those socks. When I have a bit of cash, I'd like to check out the awesome cabled armwarmers I saw at Knit1. I hope that store takes off. It's tiny and carries a lot of high end yarn, but maybe it will find a following. Of course, I should concentrate on finishing the projects I have going now, knitting the yarn in my stash before snapping up anymore. Since I have a few weeks before my next show starts, I think I can make a dent in the current inventory.