This week I started more stuff, faced my tough issues in knitting, ripped out/started over several timed, and generally made a little progress on a lot of things but finished nothing.
I'm going to try some new section headings to bin my updates and keep me on track. Since I've always looked at my life as a journey I'm imagining my quest for creativity as a series of wanderings, each one a sort of hike. Some are morning strolls, some more rigorous stomping, and others may be multi-day backpacking treks through isolated forests but all paths bring me back home to a place where I can drop my bag, rest my feet, drink a tall glass of liquid and contemplate my next outing.
Here are the major headings:
- Packing my Bags-Any preparations, planning or activities before the knitting begins
- First Steps-What I'm casting on
- Morning Stroll-Projects that are moving along easily, that I'm making progress on, or are otherwise on cruise control
- Uphill Path-Stuff that I'm working on that takes effort, a new skill I'm working on or something challenging. Also knits that seem to take for ever or that I've had to start over on and I have to tell myself to keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep going. This is where the disasters get documented.
- Homeward Bound-The finishing, blocking and other stuff that needs to be done once your done knitting
- Final Destination-A place to show off finished objects
- Back Porch-Other creative chit chat
So without further ado...
Packing my Bags
Getting ready for all the projects I have planned for February I made lists (I like lists) of all the things I needed for each project and started matching yarn and needles with patterns. I realized that I didn't have enough sock needles or longer cables to do some of the things I wanted simultaneously and since I didn't think I'd finish my other socks until after this month's KALs I decided to order some more needles. I also took the time to hand ball my Crave Yarn Filigree in Red Earth Sunset and my Abstract Fiber O'Keefe in Solid Red. Thats when I discovered that although I had bought the Red Earth Sunset for my SolidSocks challenge (the theme is Fire this month), it was too tonal to qualify. But I fell in love with it for my Sacre Coure Shawl KAL, which is due to start in the middle of February so I replaced it with the Solid Red for the sock challenge and I'm happy with the results.
First Steps
This week I cast on a bunch of stuff. First was the cuffs for the SolidSocks Mystery KAL, Buttercup's Heros, themed after the heroic men of one of my favorite movies, the Princess Bride. Each clue tells a bit of the story of each hero, includes a quote and relates back to it in the pattern. Next I cast on the 1st of 5 clues in my CBD Cowl Mystery KAL which focuses on stranded colorwork this month. I'm doing it to practice my colorwork skills, not so much because I want to do this pattern or really enjoy the format of the group. Then I started my entry for the Fire challenge, No Purl Monkeys pattern, a variation on a CookieA sock in my beautiful deep Solid Red yarn from Abstract Fiber.
Morning Stroll
The cables on Buttercup's Heros went really well and were so easy to do. I added more rows to the ribbed length of my shiny pink V-Day scarf. The No Purl Monkeys pattern is actually really easy to work and is fairly straight forward to understand so I made some good progress on the leg, almost finished with 4 of 6 repeats of the pattern and then I can start on the heel. A lot of my knitting time has been dedicated to keeping these and other stuff I've already cast on moving forward.
Uphill Path
I have been making continual progress on the wrap I'm making from a Meagheen Ryan Mystery KAL design I call my ALS Keep Warm project. So far its a stockinette triangle with a cabled pattern running up what I think is the bottom. I've made my fair share of mistakes but its been somewhat easy, with all the repetition, to figure out where I am and fix it on the main body. Its just taken a lot of knitting to get there and at times I've been impatient and lost my place and have to count back to the last cable cross to figure out what decrease I should be on. Would have been easier if I had placed a row marker at the start of the last clue so I wouldn't have to guess.Where I'm struggling now is figuring out how to pick up the cable edge to do the finishing fringe on the body and get it to some out on the correct side. I had to do it several times and then start over because I ended up purling on the knit side and at 152 stitches to pick up it takes a bit of time to re-start. But I did it and now I cant wait to finish it and get to wear it.
Homeward Bound
I have a bunch of things that should be blocked and with all the bigger scarves, shawls and sweaters that I want to do this year I figured I need a better solution than a towel on the counter so I invested in some blocking mats and those came in this week. I didn't get around to doing any actual blocking but I'm looking forward to trying them out on the finished hats I have laying around.
Final Destination
No FOs this week. Hopefully I'll have more next week.
Back Porch
I'm finding that keeping track of what I do on a daily basis can be really helpful. I'm using a pre-designed 365 day creativity journal that someone gave me, that's been sitting on my shelf for years. Its got half a page for each day and while I'm ignoring the creative prompts that come written into each day I'm using the blank space as a place to do several things. I'll note which project I worked and which rows I finished or where to start. I'll make notes about the other stuff I've done or when I've changed out to a new skein of yarn. I'm also documenting the official weather temps for my Temperature Scarf project so I don't have to go knit on it every day, I'll just go in periodically and catch up when the mood strikes me. Its been really helpful when I set a project down but don't get back to it write away and I don't remember where I dropped off and its been essential when sometimes I knit from the pattern on the screen, sometimes a printed copy, sometimes just sticky notes...I have the final word on what got done in one place. And on days that I don't have lots of knitting I use it to write out plans, lists, or other notes to help me organize my many ideas, wants, needs. At some point I think I'll add in other stuff and translate some of that from there to here but for the moment I like having a physical book to write in.
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