Conflict

I'm so conflicted!

I don't know what to knit.

I finished knitting the back of my Honeycomb sweater & I've started the front.  I really want to get this sweater finished. My To-Do list says it will be done by the end of the month.  Silly To-Do list.

But I accidently started something new.  I try to keep a garter or stockinette stitch project on the needles at all times to work on while I'm reading my email and I'd finished my other projects.  Well, I'd finished a few of my others.  Okay, I was bored with my others & started something new.

It's a no pattern, make-it-up-as-I-go short row, elongated triangle shawl.  It will be stripes of color separated by thin stripes of white.  Part of my 'going minimalist' plan (I know, I still laugh at that too) is to knit up a significant amount of my yarn stash.  I'm using Knit Pick's Palette because I realized I have two full drawers plus a giant Rubermaid bin full of nothing but skeins of Palette.  I'm not sure if that's something to be proud of or embarrassed by.

I'm knitting outdoors because the weather is GORGEOUS!  (And I'm using the soon-to-be-a-deck lumber pile as a table.)

It's 72 degrees and a mostly clear, blue sky.

Tomorrow it's supposed to be 19 degrees.

73 degrees vs. 19 degrees.  How is that even possible?

And while I sit on our half-built deck, enjoying the warm sunshine, dreaming of summer, and looking out into the woods behind our house, I realized something rather amazing.  I'm not ready for winter to end yet.  We've only had one snow and I had some kind of horrible, horrible lung rot plague and barely even got out of bed to see it.  I LOVE looking out at our backyard view when the woods are covered in snow.  I'd like to have one more good snow before spring arrives.

And wishing for one more snow before spring made me think of summer and the Virginia heat and humidity....  and I realized, Oh Lord, I start work this weekend.

While my bank account is screaming that I should have gone back last month and I'm looking forward to reconnecting with my coworkers, I am SO not ready.

Conflict!


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Knitting with books

It's Wednesday so we're talking knitting and books. Join me & others who are linking up with Ginny for today's Yarn Along.

Honeycomb Sweater & The Secret Garden

Perhaps you can tell from that fascinating photo that I've finished the back of my Honeycomb sweater and have started the front.  (And that I also need to clean the fish bowl.)  Honeycomb is a cabled sweater from Knit Pick's Woodsmoke Cable Collection.  I'm knitting it with Wool of the Andes and it's knitting up fairly quickly, despite my grumblings about its slowness.  Considering how little time and effort I've actually spent knitting on it and considering how long it's been since I knit anything heavily cabled, it's progressing fairly quickly.

So that's my knitting.  As for reading....  I've been a little embarrassed about my choice of books lately. It always seems everyone else participating in the Yarn Along is reading uplifting and/or educational books and I'm over here reading a YA vampire romance or something.  I decided 2017 was going to be the year I read better.  I'll always read and enjoy the ridiculous romance fluff but there's no reason why I can't read an occasional uplifting and/or educational book too.  One a month, that's my goal for 2017.

So, laying in bed the other night, I started Wuthering Heights.  I got all of about three paragraphs into it and vaguely remembered the entire book being cold, rainy and rather depressing. (I read it for English class back in high school.  Which means I skimmed the first few paragraphs of each chapter.)  Anyway...  Wuthering Heights wasn't the right choice for a cold, icy February night.

I noticed The Secret Garden was on my list.  Gardens, flowers, spring....  that sounded like a much better choice.  So, that's what I'm reading - and enjoying.  It's just that books on the Kindle don't make for interesting photos.


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Knitting with books

There hasn't been too much knitting nor reading going on here this past week.  I've knit a few more rows on my Honeycomb sweater,

and I'm still reading The E Myth.  I'm a little upset with myself for neither meeting my knitting nor my reading goal last week.  I'm proud of what I've accomplished instead though.

Instead of knitting and reading, I've been purging my junk.  Over the last few weeks, I've taken three full car loads of junk to Goodwill, the used book shop and/or other collection places.  I'm proud of that, I just wish you could look around the house and tell.  Good grief!

Did I mention I was going minimalist?


Okay, I'll pause while you clean the coffee spit off your computer screen.


I know - me, a minimalist.  It is a pretty funny idea. And I'll never be a true minimalist.  Just the idea of it makes me twitch.  But.... you know how hard headed I am.... and when I jokingly told my family I was considering becoming a minimalist, they all laughed just a little too hard.  So of course now, I'm out to prove I meant it.

I'm getting rid of all my stuff, needed, wanted or not, simply because I'm stubborn and feel the need to say 'I told you so' to my family.  Good Lord.

If you're interested, you can help me out by checking out my Etsy shop.  I've been listing a few crafty items there each day.  They are all under the Stash Buster section and if you buy four things, I'll refund the shipping fees.  So please, take a look & help me get rid of my stuff quickly so I can scream 'I told you so!' at my family then get back to hoarding restocking the craft room.  I've got a lot more to list so check back often.

Join me and many other's over at Ginny's Yarn Along to discuss what books we are reading while we knit.  Or in my case, what I'm not knitting or reading.

Owning it

I was going to call this post "Insert Curse Word Here" because, well, dammit!

Honeycomb Arrow Panel

So, I've been knitting away on my Honeycomb sweater and I've been noticing that the lines on the left side of my arrow panels are squiggly while the right side are much straighter.  And I've been thinking (hoping) it will block out and then I remembered I'd had the same issue on sock gussets and you kind people had told me what I was doing wrong.  Of course, I don't remember what the answer was, but I do remember asking and being told.  And I've also been wondering why the pattern designer didn't write better instructions so that this didn't happen because I am following the instructions.

Except,

Dammit!

I'm not even close to following the instructions on the arrow panel.

Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!

So now my question is.....  I've already knit 16 or 17 inches on the back of the sweater.  I'm not frogging it now.  I'm just not.  So, the question is, once the back is finished, and finished the way it's been started, should I, Option A, continue knitting the rest of the sweater the same way; Option B, find the answer to my sock gusset issue and make the left side of the arrow straight like the right side for the rest of the sweater; or Option C, actually follow the directions for the rest of the sweater? You can see what it's supposed to look like  here.  The difference isn't huge, but it's there.

Do I fix it for the rest of the sweater, or should I just own my design modification?  What do you think?

Yarn Along Wednesday

Can you believe it's already Wednesday? Where has this week gone?

Oh yeah, it was wasted reading angry political posts on social media.  Good grief!  I'm deeply saddened and frankly, worried, about how angry & divided our country has become.

But enough about that.  Let's talk about it being a Yarn Along Wednesday.  As has become my tradition, I'm joining Ginny's link up to discuss knitting and books.  Sadly, I haven't gotten much reading done this week.  I'm still working my way through The E-Myth.  I'm still enjoying it, but I've been enjoying my knitting more.  My copy of The E-Myth is an actual hard copy, paper book which I find difficult to deal with while I knit.  I'm also not talented enough to cable and read at the same time.

Honeycomb & Hats

And my Honeycomb sweater has a LOT of cables!

Despite the extensive cabling (it has cables every right side row. Every single one of them!) it's coming along nicely.  Inauguration Day helped.  I spent the entire day knitting in front of the TV.  I don't believe I've ever watched that much of the inauguration hoop-la in my entire life.

Okay, okay - enough about the inauguration.  I'm determined not to discuss politics.  The point was, I got a lot of knitting done that day.  Otherwise, I'm averaging an inch, sometimes less, a day.  At first I was a little upset about how long it was taking, however now that I've got a decent amount of knitted fabric in my lap, I think I'm glad it's taking me a lifetime.  Now, I'm just hoping that it will take me so long that the hot flashes of menopause are loooooong gone before I finish knitting this sweater.  With all those honeycomb cables knit from worsted weight wool, it's going to be a very thick and warm sweater.  I may have to move to Alaska to wear it.

I also finished knitting a couple of hats this week.  If it ever stops raining, I'll get them photographed properly and listed for sale in my shop.  Both hats have hanging loops and I'm super pleased with the way the fair isle stripe turned out on the one hat.

Well, I think I've let this post drag on long enough.  When I sat down to start typing, I was expecting it to be a photo and two sentences.  I should have known better.  When have I ever said what I had to say in only two sentences?

Join me over at Ginnny's Yarn Along to see what others are knitting and reading.

Knitting Cables

I hope you like gray.

Honeycomb Sweater, Woodsmoke Cable Collection

Because you're going to be seeing this Honeycomb sweater for a long, long time.

My great grandchildren's children will be old and gray by the time I finish knitting this sweater.

Every row, every single row, has a cable.

But despite the probability that I won't live long enough to knit the back, much less the front and sleeves, I'm loving it so far.  The pattern is well written & easy to read (and will be even more enjoyable if I can memorize the arrow pattern.)  It's also knit with worsted weight yarn (Wool of the Andes) so the rows are stacking up quickly.  Well, not quickly, but a lot faster than they'd stack if I was using fingering weight.

Can you blame me?

Okay, so I messed up my zero spending perfect track record.

Woodsmoke Cable Collection

But can you blame me?

Back around Thanksgiving, I bought a sweater's worth of wool with the intention of knitting a Christmas Day Cast On sweater for myself.  I didn't cast on on Christmas Day though because I hadn't found the perfect pattern yet.  I knew I wanted something with lots of cables, I knew I wanted a loose fit through the body but not overly loose in the arms.  I knew I wanted a sweater, not a cardigan, or at least I didn't think I did.  But if I found the perfect cardigan pattern before I found a sweater pattern, the cardigan couldn't have a collar. It also needed to be knit from worsted weight since that's what I'd bought.  Oh, and it had to fit.  None of those patterns that have a 34 inch chest as the XL size would do.  So, yeah.  I had a lot of stipulations on what the perfect pattern was.

I looked and I looked and I looked some more.  I was starting to worry that I'd never find the perfect pattern.  I was starting to think that my Etsy shop would be selling nothing but gray hats in 2017.

And then magic happened.  I opened my email and there it was. KnitPicks had sent me an ad for Woodsmoke, a highly cabled collection of sweaters, scarves, wraps and hats.  I couldn't help myself.  I had to order it.  Absolutely had to!  I want to knit every single pattern in the collection.  But first, I'll knit the Honeycomb sweater.  It's perfect!