WIP Wednesday: I just can't help myself

Frequently, I say to myself, "This year, I'll cut down on my WIPs." Just like a person for whom this bag of chips is their last bag of chips or someone who really really intends to go to their next exercise class tomorrow, I promise myself that I'll institute a one-off-the-needles, one-on-the-needles policy, or even finish projects and just not cast on anything at all, resulting in an reduction of total number of WIPs. I make a proclamation on my blog or to Sam that this time, it'll be different - I really will frog, fix or finish my way down to five WIPs or fewer. Really!

But then I get what I can only describe as a compulsion and start rifling through my stash, pairing up patterns with needles and yarn and starting the whole thing all over again.

This is a simple scarf in linen stitch in some Mirabol Hachu from the deep deep stash. It looks fantastic but it, like brioche stitch, is really slow going - the distance between the markers is what I knit yesterday with this as the only project I worked in all day (in fact, linen stitch basically is brioche stitch, instead that rather than wrap the yarn around the needle you move it to the front or back). I cast on provisionally because I like both ends of the scarf to match perfectly. At this rate, it'll be over a month before I finish it but it looks really gorgeous so far, so I think it'll make a gorgeous scarf.

And once I'm done, I really will wrestle those WIPs down!!

2014 FO# 6: February Bendy Birthday Socks

The sock finishing parade continues!

Today's Friday FO was actually F'd at the start of February, but I finished it on the same day I gifted it so I didn't have a chance to get any pictures before it was opened.

Yesterday, after a month of repeated demands requests that the recipient send through some modelled shots, I gave up and went to their house, iPad in hand ready to click away.

Don't they look comfy and warm?

Four pairs of socks to go!

(Deets: the yarn is some Bendy sock wool I got on sale before Christmas. I used 2.5mm needles, cast on 72 stitches and knit the sock top down with a heel-flap and gusset heel. The wool was lovely and very cheap (I think maybe $7.50 a ball?) so a great, enjoyable good value project)

WIP Wednesday: Instagram edition

It's nice to be back online! Last month I used my entire monthly data allowance in 10 days which, frankly, both sucked and was completely ridiculous. I couldn't go into my office at uni because of O-Week and the first week of classes (so many people! so much beer!), so I could only check my email or do fun stuff like read blogs or play on Ravelry if I could access someone else's wifi. I've finally sucked it up and signed up for a fixed broadband plan with lots of data that is double the cost of what I pay now but it irritates me incredibly that data is so expensive in Australia. Not only does it limit the competitiveness of Australians internationally, access to data will be an increasingly large socioeconomic issue. Grrr!!

However, on the plus side, the lack of ability to hang out in cyberspace meant I had lots of time for knitting and other crafts.

Well, only knitting, really. The cross-stitch does now looks like a bird but I also remember why I stopped cross-stitching in the first place...knitting is much more fun! I am determined so I will finish it...not so sure about the other three patterns I bought though.

I finished the brioche hat and started working on the matching cowl.

I'm not sure how much cowl I'm going to get out of this amount of wool, so instead of knitting it in the round I'm going to knit it scarf-style and then sew it up at the end. It might be a while away, though - I find brioche stitch ridiculously slow going. That 10cm of knitting is the result of two movies' worth of knitting! It might end up being my scarf for next winter.

Finally, I've just turned the heel on the Bendy blue sock. I am loving knitting this wool - it is soft and squishy and the colours are pretty and harmonious. Now I would be happy if this project was the one that took a long time to get anything done, but unfortunately it is just zooming by and they'll probably be finished by the weekend. On the positive side, it means I'll have one fewer pair of socks on my to do list, which is also a good thing, so I shouldn't complain.

So, very glad to be back on line! But also have noticed I spent rather a lot less time working this morning than I did last Wednesday, where I had no choice but to put my head down. I'm not sure what conclusions we can draw from that...

Bi-craftual

This week, I am sad to report that the first signs of winter arrived. For me, the two biggest signals that the cold weather is coming is Lucy waking me up in the middle of the night so she can get under the blanket for extra warmth and me wearing my  my purple fluffy dressing gown and pink fluffy slippers for warmth when working at my desk during the day. A third and less fixed symptom is an overwhelming nostalgia for comforts from my past. This could be a weekend binge-watching Scrubs or Robert Redford movies or an unstoppable craving for my favourite childhood dessert - chocolate self-saucing puddings with a glass of cold milk (yummo!).

This year, it's manifested in an overwhelming desire to revisit what used to be my favourite craft before knitting - cross-stitching.

The design is a Charlotte Alexander beginner pattern. I'd forgotten how addictive cross-stitch can be. It's mesmerising watching the picture slowly emerge, one stitch at a time. Me being me, I bought four patterns so there will be a lot more cross-stitching in my future! Maybe instead of socks I'll give everyone a personalised design for Christmas this year? Babe steps :)

Oh, and I made mini scones too. They were a) delicious and b) the reason I get fatter every winter. I'm like a bear who bulks up for warmth in the colder months and then sheds its blubber when the summer months arrive. C'est la vie grande, n'est-ce pas *gallic shrug*.

Lockdown Day 5: Stuffed chicken-style cat

Today is Day 5 of my thesis-writing lockdown. It is going both well and poorly. The poorly is because the isolation of only working on my thesis at home by myself is driving me a little bit crazy. That said, I have been able to get a good chunk of work done - I'm between 50-70% finished with the rework of my chapter, which, although not as much as I'd hoped to get done, is pretty good because I think it's solid almost-ready-to-submit quality. I've also done pretty well on my self-imposed Ravelry ban, only popping in a few times to check messages and download a pattern.

A pattern, you say? Yes, although I have committed to getting my socks under control - and I am working on them a bit every single day - it has become unseasonably cold in Melbourne. I am currently wearing woollen socks, gloves, a scarf and hat IN SUMMER. Brrr! Upon raiding my knits drawer, I discovered that I am a bit sick of all of the woollens I have. Conveniently, I own a lot of wool and I like to convert that wool into warming handknitted garments, so I started this brioche hat out of the 'wool from a sheep' wool my friend brought me from Berlin.

I found brioche-in-the-round a lot harder to understand than I thought I would so this picture actually shows my third attempt at this project (obviously spending all of my brain power thinking about stardom and genre theory). I do love the way brioche stitch looks and feels - this is going to be a ridiculously warm accessory! However, I suspect this hat is going to be too big for me but there is no way I'm ripping back again now and I figure even if it doesn't fit me, it'll fit someone. I won't find out for a while, unfortunately - last night it took me a whole episode of Northern Exposure to knit four rows!

 

Lucy is ridiculously unimpressed with the current cold snap. She has taken to sitting in what I call her stuffed chicken pose in protest. Protesting what to whom is unclear, but the unhappiness about being cold is explicit. Poor little thing :( 

Help needed: procrastination central

Happy Monday, y'all (I have recently started dropping "y'all"  in conversation regularly in the hope it catches on. It's so much better than the bogan "youse" I hear all over the place). How was y'all's weekend? (I suspect that's not the correct usage…but I shall charge on regardless).

Mine was okay but in no way exciting. As I mentioned last week, I am in the writing phase of my thesis. In general, I'm a pretty good with words but what I'm discovering now is that I am a far better editor than I am writer. I am also an even better procrastinator than I am editor. For example, this morning I got up early and wrote 50 words. Then I checked the internet…for an hour. Then I revised the 50 words I wrote earlier. Then I went for a swim.  Then I went to the supermarket. Then I had a sandwich. Then I checked the internet again. Then I opened the Word document I was working on this morning, looked at the 50 words I wrote and promptly opened Blogger. Help!!

My current plan is to ban myself from Ravelry for the next week except for updating projects and to re-work the 10,000 words I have written as part of my second chapter into a format that my supervisor will approve of by next Monday. I'm 30% of the way through it and I think I'm on the right track so hopefully if I just stay focused and keep my eyes on the prize I will get there. If I don't, I'm not exactly sure what is going to happen next!

While all of these academic machinations rumble in the background, as always there's wool floating around at the front. I picked the knee-length socks I've been working on last week and I realised that, frankly, I absolutely hated them.

I didn't like how irregular the striping in the Shi Bui looked. I hated my placement of the yellow stripes. I didn't like knitting that sock yarn at the gauge I was using. I'd done the increases too quickly at the top of the calf so the shaping was off and I needed to unravel at least the last five centimetres of each sock to fix them so…I just frogged them.

For last three years these socks have been taking up space on my needles and, in 15 minutes, that was all undone. I bought a pattern I've wanted for ages, Whippoorwill, and when I get my chapter finished and sent to my supervisor I'll cast on immediately. Until then it's stardom, celebrity and classical Hollywood cinema all the way!

(PS: That means four out of the eight socks are gone. I just need to finish two more pairs and I'll be at a level I find acceptable.)

2014 FO #5: Rainy Day Socks the Second

Sometimes it's a real pleasure to come here and write for my blog. Yesterday, I spent over an  hour trying to make one paragraph look and feel right. I moved words around, replaced some words with other words, read the sentences out loud to see if I could figure out where the issue was, argued with strangers on the internet about things that don't matter, and still I wasn't able to capture to concept I wanted to using my command of the English language.

So, for inspiration, I read a paper on another topic, found a paragraph that described exactly what I wanted to say but using a sophistication that I may never be able to achieve, promptly cracked the shits, packed up all of my stuff, drove home came home, downloaded a move on to my iPad and did some knitting. Very grown-up of me. Not helping me get my thesis done at all!

In knitterly news, the parade of finished socks rolls on.

These are my second pair of Rainy Day socks made with Jo Sharp Alpaca Silk Georgette. All the details are the same as the last one.

I even found a super cute box to put them in.

The recipient seemed to like them very much, which is really the most important thing. I wholeheartedly recommend this project as a gift for when you want to make socks for someone but aren't completely sure of their size or calf width - the lace in the pattern is unbelievably forgiving.

Of course it wouldn't be a blog post if it didn't feature my (apparently not very interested) favourite two living beings in the world. 

And the zucchini plants that are slowly taking over the entire back courtyard. As the plants get older and bigger, so do the (delicious) fruit. At this rate, by the end of summer I'll have zucchinis as big as my cat is.

Five pairs of socks to go!