Sunday, December 25, 2011

70% is the magic number..

I just realized that I knit to about 70% of a project then seem to stall out. I either get stuck, bored, or end up at some fixing point.
20111225_RavProjectStatus
Do you see a pattern here? 

Fortunately, the first one, the cardi is kicking right along - I'm at about 70% because the body is done, and i'm working on the sleeves. I've modified it, but that's normal for me. The only thing potentially holding me back on this is that I hope I won't be too bothered by the color change on this beast. The one that my camera detects, that the cardigan's top is more brown gray than the bottom which is a chocolate brown with more chestnut brown highlights. I know, it's not hair, but it's the best description I can give at the moment. I've started the decreases on the sleeve, and have been trying it on as I go. I did knit about 2" longer so that the cardi matches the one I normally wear.

Project 2 - Dahlia Cardi is only at 15% - that's because i'm about 70% done with the chart (there's that "70" number again - hmmmm...) and think I might have to frog back..not sure. my stitches are a bit off on one of the repeats and tempted to keep going, just to be going on this so-called Knit-a-long (KAL). The rest of the pattern is stockinette so it should be peasy. 

Project 3 is a actually a simple shawl..one of the first patterns I ever made "Branching Out" in a cashmere that is to just to dye die for knitting pleasure on my hands. but I put it down..and am working on Project 1 full out now.

Project 4 is Spectra - also stalled at 70%. I knit this when we were at Cornerstone Cafe and it was pretty smoky there. I got tired of having to block and re-block this baby. Now, I'm at 56 wedges of 80 and thinking of binding off earlier rather than later - before I really lose interest (bwaaahaha).
I wound it around my neck to just get an idea if I could bind off and looks like it'll be at least another 6 or 7 wedges before I can do that..just to get the length I want after it coils around my neck. Pretty close though. Could be a 2011 project, after all.

Project 5 - Watershed cardi - this was supposed to be an easy cardi that I just whipped out last January. Hah! right. I ended up totally ignoring the designer's intention with the pattern and doing my own thing. (sometimes my hands become possessed while holding the needles)

Even though my gauge was fine, my row gauge was way off, and I ended up having to do some major math. Then, I misplaced the pattern most of the summer, and had Juanita help me re-do the major math in late August with intentions to fix it all. I frogged back, and was all ready to finish this off by joining the parts to make one long big back and forth, AAAAAND here we go again, realized that the left front had some fudging that I have to go back and fix..so, time to rip this one back, and then, re-join yarn. Neither quick nor easy for me apparently. So, it's somewhat on hold, and not hibernating because that would put it so far down on my project page, I'd forget I was making it.

Project 6 - this was my last december's hot-to-trot pattern that I couldn't wait to cast-on. I was sur e I was going to finish it in the month of December. It's the Kelmscott cardi. A lovely thing knit in a lovely yarn. Blue Sky Alpaca Suri Merino - I'm swooning just thinking about it. sadly, I forgot to read ahead on this one, and missed decreasing at the neck AT THE SAME TIME (the knitter's blasted words I say!)  as I was doing the armhole decreases and had to rip back.

Once I was in the mood and had ripped it back, I went  back to the pattern. It's still hibernating because the designer doesn't say how to adjust the lace as the decreases are eating up the lace pattern.
Also, I think the post-it note I was using to keep track of rows on multiple charts may have fallen off (after a year, it just doesn't keep it's stick), so I have to go back and read my knitting.

I think the neck decreases will anyway be hidden by the shawl collar anyway..so even though I say i'm at 70%, I'm probably really just at 50% because there's this huge shawl collar also in lace that still needs to be knit once the fronts are done. ::sigh:: this one could be a 2012 project.

back to knitting the cardi..oh, and I've cast-on another little neck thing, which I expect (ahem) to be a pretty quick knit. more on that later.







2 comments:

Natalie B said...

Michelle, you're hilarious. Though, I swear, if Christmas wasn't an actual deadline, I wouldn't get half of my projects done either!

mprsdrose said...

haha - luckily, my christmas projects weren't firm..so they're birthday/other day projects now.

black friday

I've updated the sale page with some key sales for Black Friday. I'm not doing a lot of yarn buying these days, so these are the on...