WIP Wednesday: IT'S SO CLOSE TO DONE!!!

I promise you that this will be the last week you see this before it gets moved to the FO slot. If I'd actually purchased blocking wires you might actually see it in the FO slot this Friday, but I think if I'm going to get blocking wires at all it will be when I go to knit night at my lys tomorrow at the earliest, so I wouldn't count on an FO post just yet. It might be done, but it's sure not ready to show off until I make it look like more than a tangled up pile of string.

The "Big Damn Heroes" (I keep wanting to call it a shawl, but really it's a poncho, let's be real here) is officially off the needles. All it needs is an applied I-cord edging and a seriously aggressive blocking (using my newly learned blocking skills!) and then it will be ready to wear. With what, I don't know. I'm not exactly a poncho sort of girl, but I guess I'll see if I can't figure it out.

Currently, it looks like this:

It's going to be pretty cool once it's blocked, I think. The larger opening in the centre is the wide shoulder opening and the smaller one is for an arm to go through. Right now it's about half the length the pattern says it should be, so I hope a good block will set it right. I hope I am the sort of person who can give it a good block.

Reminders:

Pattern is "Big Damn Heroes" by Kimberly Golynskiy

Yarn is Wild Hare Fiber Studio Pinnacle Sock in the "Browncoat" colourway from the Nerd Alert Yarns series from Steven Be.

Meanwhile, I've cast on for another thing. It's not a WIP (it's not even technically "in progress" at all), but here's a teaser photo for you.

​​SM

(Another) Triumphant Return

Hi again! It's been a while, I know, and I'm sad to say that although I took a pretty awesome trip just a few short days after the last time I posted that I want to tell you about, I think I'm going to push it to next week in the interest of getting the photos a bit more in order and once again trying to regroup my thoughts. So I guess for now I'll just check in quickly and re-establish a bit now that I'm officially done with classes. I know I always make promises about posting and then life gets in the way, and I'm not going to promise it won't this time, but I will say that I'm going to give it my best effort to maintain a regular MWF(ish) posting schedule. Hopefully I'll be able to get back into my crafting in earnest and the content will be there and I'll have something more interesting to show you than just the same thing week after week.

For now I'll pretty much leave it at that. I'm (pseudo???) participating in Stash Dash, so hopefully some big projects are in the works (and hopefully I can complete them.) I'll be heading to a knitting retreat in June, so look forward to hearing how hard I fall off the no purchases train at that point (we're almost at the end of May and I've made 4 purchases so far this year! Only one of them was yarn!). Jonas is building me yarn shelves (and he's basically unskilled labour, so that should be an adventure). Plus, you know, all the usual shenanigans. So here's hoping we'll be seeing more of one another (and there will be new shop content!) in the next few months.

Thanks to any of you who are still bothering to read this after a 3 month hiatus. I promise to do better this time!

Sari

Knitting Firsts: Part 4 - Ravelry Competition

Fourth First (although I guess we’ve now established it’s my Sixth First): Ravelry Competition

Unrelated to all of the buying of yarn at festivals and receiving of yarn from swaps, I’ve decided that I need to do my part to decrease the amount of yarn I have. Now, compared to many people I don’t actually have that much yarn, but I also don’t have that much yarn space in my flat and it’s already become incredibly cluttered. Aside from the Kauni, everything I brought into my house from the festival was already DFA (designated for assignment) to a project in my queue, so I felt comfortable with it. I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Ravelry trying to match up the oldest yarns in my stash with projects so that when I finish the epic deadline knitting of summer (it’s getting wild around here) I will have clear directions for the older yarns in my stash. Problem was that because of the plan (knit the oldest first) conflicting with reality (knit all these things by these dates and also you need to buy yarn for them) I felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere. Enter the Knit Girllls podcast (which I don’ t listen to yet, but was mentioned on another podcast) and their StashDash 2014. The objective is between May 26 and August 2 (I think) to knit 5km worth of yarn. Which sounds impossible. The catch is … things already on the needles no matter how far they were in progress at the start of the competition, could count their full yardage. So here I was with a sport weight vest, a pair of knee high socks, and an 800yd sweater project already in the works and scheduled to be completed by July 9. So I’m doing it. I don’t think I actually get anything for completing it other than the satisfaction of having FOs and getting yarn used up, but that’s good enough for me. I haven’t really been participating in all the chatter etc.  because while I know other people feed off the social energy of these sorts of things I find it draining. I’d rather compete against my personal goals and not constantly compare my progress to that of everyone else who seems to either have all day long to knit or are the fastest knitters on the planet. I’m making progress, I finished one thing, I’ve established a rhythm for finishing the others, I have plans for the future, and I’m going to make it as far as I can and do my best to not buy yarn in the interim.