Day 31: A Ghostly WIP Wednesday

The sky today is overcast and the light is glarey, giving all of the photos I took from WIP Wednesday an odd ghostly cast. This seems strangely appropriate for Halloween! 

I am pleased to report that working on a few WIPs at a time is doing wonders and I have not one but two projects blocking at the moment. As you can see the Herbivore is growing slowly but surely and I've pulled out the secret socks from the naughty corner in an effort to get them finished before my anniversary on the 14th. Both of these black projects need to be done by the second week of November so I'm going to focus on just these two for the next week and hope I can at least get one of them knocked off by next week. Yay for focus, GAAK and getting things done!

Today is the final day of Blogtoberfest. I have really dropped the ball over the last few days. This is exactly how I finished Dry July (I had a glass of wine on the 31st) so I think I need to start committing to daily stuff in the *shorter* months.  Regardless of my total lack of endurance, I am pretty chuffed with how I have done. I've written 28 posts, only a few of which were about my cat, discovered some great new jobs and attacked my WIP problem head-on and with great success. Most importantly, I really enjoyed myself. Once I've had 10 months to get over the stress of thinking of things to post every day, I may give it another go next year :)

Maybe...

Day 24: WIP Wednesday

Last week in an effort to wrestle my WIP pile into some sort of order, I decided to pick just two projects and concentrate on them. It worked! One of those pairs of socks is effectively finished (dear weaving in ends, why do you suck so much? love me) and the other one is almost complete.

Since this plan was so successful, I've decided to expand it to four projects and work only on those:

The Barefoot Dream socks are my new handbag stockinette stitch sock. They need to be done by December for my mum's birthday, so no hurry. The mitered square blanket now has nine of the 12 blocks joined. It's being held up because I need to unpick and restitch the first three blocks I joined and, I know it's childish but I just don't want to! The Rainy Day socks are almost done. These are the quickest and easiest socks I have ever made. I keep them next to the computer and pick them up and do a row or two whenever my computer or I am thinking and wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am, these are almost done. I have to start making more socks on 2.75mm needles!

The final project is the Herbivore that I cast on for during CAST ON MANIA then promptly forgot about. The yarn that I'm using, the completely divine Madelinetosh Pashmina in Thunder, was a gift from my friend Christian. I'm seeing Radiohead with him in three weeks (woot woot!!) and I'd love to have this finished by then. The last Herbivore I made only took me about five days, so it shouldn't be a problem.

I love watching the list of of WIPs get smaller and smaller in number...

24 down, 7 to go.

Day 14: Waving Lace in Recycled Wollmeise (2012 FO #13)

I am very excited to finally be able to share with you my finished Waving Lack socks!

This yarn was originally used to make a Triinu which I photographed, wrote about on Ravelry and for some bizarre reason never blogged about. The scarf was really lovely but I just never wore it and I didn't want to waste the gorgeous Wollmeise on an unused project, so I unravelled it and knit it up again.

One criticism of Wollmeise is that when you knit with it it feels like cotton and can be quite rough to work with. That was totally consistent with my experience from knitting the Triinu. However, once this yarn is soaked and blocked, it really softens up and it kept that softness after being unravelled. Knitting these socks with washed and recycled Wollmeise was a completely different experience. 

The stitch definition of these socks is incredible and the finished socks feel comfortable and warm. I have previously stated my love for Wollmeise as a shawl yarn and now I am a Wollmeise sock convert as well. These socks are divine.

One important note: count your repeats accurately! Don't be like me. You can see that one sock is a little bit higher than the other one but it's only really noticeable if you look hard and who really looks hard at other people's feet? If you do, stop it, it's weird.

This pattern is from my new favourite book, Favorite Socks. It might sound crazy but I think I actually want to knit them all! There's only 25 - I can totally do it. Although I also kind of want to knit at least another three pairs of this pattern, so maybe it's not a realistic ideal...we'll see.

Hope everyone is having a happy, fun and relaxing Sunday. Sunny Sundays are the best!

14 down, 17 to go.

Day 8: Oopsie!

I am a bit embarrassed to admit that the reason I didn't post yesterday was because I forgot. No excuses except for plain old absentmindedness. I took photos, planned some words in my head, uploaded the photos to my computer then got so caught up in reading my new book (Feminism at the Movies, if anyone is interested. It's great, and theory-lite so very accessible) that I never got around to actually posting anything...oops!

Mind you, I didn't have anything super exciting to share anyway. I've noticed that this time around, Blogtober is turning into a 'this is what I did today' journal. Yesterday I had an appointment on campus so I decided to spend some study time in the library beforehand.  I gave my poor crooked back a rest and (for once) didn't lug the contents of my entire study to the library with me. Vital ingredients for study: pen and paper (I did not see one other person using a non-electronic device to record information in the entire packed library. I am clearly a dinosaur), water (important to stay hydrated), Blistex (using Blistex is like smoking - you should never start and once you do, it's almost impossible to quit) and knitting, for sanity purposes. 

On the subject of knitting, I have I ever told you how much I love knitting socks with 5-ply yarn and 2.75mm needles? I have basically just looked at this project and waved my arms in its general direction and it's already a third of the way up the foot! After the black never-ending socks of doom, this sock is a minty-green fresh breath of air. Although, disturbingly, how puffed up and deformed does my foot look in this photo? It looks normal in real life, I promise.

For an update on the mitered square blanket, I have finished all the vertical seaming of the blocks and now I just need to do the horizontal ones.  It takes me one episode of Big Brother to join two squares (I know! Don't judge me) so I figure by the time the next two housemates have been evicted, I should be ready to start the border. The only thing is that with the first blocks I did (the column to the far left) I used a different technique to the other three and so it doesn't look as good as the others. I'm trying to work out if I care enough to unpick and re-seam those squares. My perfectionist instinct says yes but the realist in me reminds myself that it took me five years to get to this point and that if I lose momentum it may be another five years till I get it back again...

In case you were in any doubt as to whether this photo is authentically mine (the consistently shitty unedited quality of the photo not begin enough), please note not one but two cat toys placed carefully between the blocks. Welcome to my house!

Eight posts down, 23 to go.

Day 7: Never learning from the past

Just as I predicted yesterday, I woke up this morning feeling a million times better than I did yesterday. Sometimes having a good night's sleep, along with some ibuprofen and a really nice glass (or three) of white wine, can make all the difference.

One of the five socks of shame is now finished, which is very exciting.  I was incredibly stoked to get one of the pairs off the needles and get down to four, but then I started thinking... The needles looked so lonely and bare, I've got the yarn from this failed hat rewound into gorgeous soft mint-coloured balls just waiting to be made into a pair of weather-topical Rainy Day Socks (seriously, what the hell is going on with this weather. I feel like the Wicked Witch of the West and if I get rained on one more time I will actually melt), I love the feeling I get from starting a new projects and who doesn't want more happy when it's cold, grey and dreary outside. And, well, the rest is history.

I have five socks on the go right now. Clearly, I never learn from my mistakes.

7 down, still heaps to go.

Day 5: Review - The House of Memories by Monica McInerney

I have had mixed opinions of Monica McInerney's previous books. I liked The Alphabet Sisters, loved Those Faraday Girls, thought At Home with the Templetons was interesting but uneven and hated Lola's Secret (dear publishing gods, please spare us from any more books that centre on wise, all-knowing elderly women who know how to use technology and are able to use their wisdom and all-knowingness to communicate with young people. These women are unsufferable and make me want to throw things - ie the book I'm reading that features these irritating protagonists - at the wall. Thank you.). With this varied history, I wasn't sure what to expect from this book. McInerney has a nice, easy writing style, so I figured even if her new book wasn't great it would be a relaxing way to spend a few hours away from the high stress levels of my everyday life ("CAPS LOCK IS HOW I FEEL ALL THE TIME, RICK!"). Boy, was I wrong.

The House of Memories opens with a chapter detailing the childhood of Ella Fox/Baum/O'Hanlon and the special relationship she has with her uncle, Lucas. After we wade through the standard broken-home childhood tale (parents divorce, remarry, step-brother, new baby, jealously, et cetera cetera et cetera) we get to the crux of the story - Ella's baby has died. The book then separates into chapters told from the point of view of different characters, with some (very annoying) email chapters and others alternating between the first and third chapter.

I have no problem with having multiple narrators, even if (as is clearly signposted in this book ALL THE TIME for the benefit of those who have memory problems, I imagine) these narrators are unreliable. I have no problem with epistolary writing - The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society is one of my favourite books. What I do have a problem with is books that are so predictable that, after reading the third chapter, it is possible to plot what happens in every chapter until the end. There is pleasure in reading genre fiction - it's nice to know that the right couple will get together in the end in a romance novel, for example - so I understand that books can be about the journey rather than the destination. But if both the journey and the destination suck...step away from the book. I strongly advise you - step away from this one.

I am a bit bummed about contemporary fiction at the moment. Ian McEwan's Sweet Tooth was a massive disappointment. I started Zadie Smith's new book NW but abandoned it because of the stream-of-consciousness writing style. This book completely sucked. Am I picking bad books, or has the standard of published works dropped recently? I'm about to start Gone Girl, which has received great reviews. If that sucks as well, I might stop reading anything published after the turn of the century and stick to books that have passed the test of time!

5 down, 27 to go.
Cross-posted at Here I Read.

Day 4: Fixing what's wrong

I am halfway through the foot of the black socks and I have reached the stage that when whenever I pick them up instead of knitting them I want to stab myself in the eye repeatedly until the socks magically go away (die, socks die!!), so I figured it was time for a break. Well and truly time for a break!

I took the failed Waving Lace socks outside so I could get my daily dose of Vitamin D while fixing them (efficiency being the watchword at Chez HereIKnit). I laid them next to each other to make certain I was shortening the correct sock...

..and I cut off the toe, unravelled half a repeat and picked up the untethered stitches (i.e. all of them).

I then started knitting the toe as normal, praising all of the gods above (who I don't believe in) that I'm working on something that is not soul-sucking soul-destroying black and never-ending.

I would like to take this occasion to share with you my favourite pair of at-home working pants. These are without a doubt the most comfortable item of clothing I own - the bottom half of a pair of winter PJs I got from Target half-price. They have snow bears with hats and scarves on them! I heart them completely. Their only disadvantages are a: pyjamas are not generally considered appropriate daytime wear, so I have to change before answering the door every time it rings and b: I suspect that if my clients knew I was working on their documents while admiring my toasty warm and fashionably attired polar bears, my professional cred would decrease. I don't care - I'm wearing them anyway! Although never in front of another person...

4 down, 28 to go.

Day 3: All Socks All The Time

Anyone who has read this blog for any length of time knows that I am partial to knitting socks. I knit a lot of socks - I love that they can be complicated, with cables and fair isle, or pretty, with panels of lace and texture, or just a mindless simple stockinette tube. I love that they are so very comfortable and keep my toes toasty and warm. Socks are the best!

But, sock-wise, things are a little out of control Chez HereIKnit:

(look who figured out how to use a new feature on her computer)

FIVE PAIRS OF UNFINISHED SOCKS! Disgraceful.

I think the most embarrassing thing about this is that four of the socks are 75% completed. So clearly I start a pair of socks and then power  most of the way through before losing interest and starting another pair of socks.  Apparently, I will continue to do this until all of my sock needles are used up. It's insane behaviour and I really need to stop!

I probably won't, though. It's an illness.

3 down, 28 to go. Woohoo, 10% done!

Day 1: Blogtoberfest!!

Happy October, everyone. Can you believe it's October already? I have two months until my first piece of academic writing is due (eek!) and just under three months to get all Christmas shopping and knitting done... It doesn't really seem like enough time!

Because I love doing it and I haven't done it for a couple of years, I've signed up for:

I'm pretty excited! Blogtoberfest is great because it forces encourages me to really get into the blogging and writing process and challenge both my creativity and stick-to-itiveness. I also love the opportunity to discover new creative and interesting bloggers. According to the sign-up sheet there are currently 148 bloggers participating in this event. If I visit five blogs a day, I'll be able to see them all by the end of the month - I predict my google reader blogroll will be a lot longer by then...

I will be approaching this challenge in the spirit rather than the letter of the law - I'm aiming for 31 posts rather than a post each day for 31 days. I think I can do it...wish me luck!