alisonknits

Time Time Time/See What's Become of Me

The race that is my life continues as my resolution to be a better blogger this year falls by the wayside.  It was another crazy-making week, full of stress and frustration, but also joy that I get to make a living doing things that I love.  So I count my blessings and keep moving.

In knitting, I've been consumed this week by the sampler baby blanket.  The knitting is more than half done, and I'm loving trying out so many different stitch patterns.  Here's a really sucky picture, the best I do take on this cloudy day as my camera batteries were about to die on me:

See the pile of yarn in the upper left corner?  That represents how I keep having to rip out when I realize that I'm not going to end on a good row of the pattern, or when I realize that the square is coming out too wide or too narrow.  It's sort of a fascinating study in how different stitch patterns effect gauge.  Since the squares are only 6"x6", they don't take very long to work, and ripping out is no big deal.  My design life is all about trial and error.

I figured out that the border will be crocheted - a row of single crochet, and then a row of reverse single crochet, which is also called crab stitch.  I just learned this stitch on a sample for the store, and it is very attractive and simple to work.

Limited as my knitting time is these days (I had to drive in to work last week, so I didn't even get my train time), other knitting projects have been untouched.  Like my blue socks, which are nearly finished.  I have a major issue in my life with finishing what I start.  In many arenas, not just knitting, I will get about 80% of the way through a project, and then get distracted or tired and stop.  This is something I should work on.

Like this weekend when we finally took down our Christmas tree.  It's a good thing I wasn't doing this alone, since several times during the process I stopped, checked e-mail, got more coffee, read some blogs, and only returned to the tree dismantling when I guiltily looked up to see Scott still going strong. 

Are we the last people to take down our holiday decorations?  At least we got it down while it was still January; I'd started imagining us turning into one of those families that still has their tree up in the summer and then decides to just leave it until next Christmas season.  This tactic works less well with a real tree, as we had, than an artificial one.  The resulting piles of pine needles were so massive that I thought they deserved photo documentation.  But as I was uploading the photos I realized that piles of pine needles make very boring pictures.  So you'll just have to use your imagination.

January Juggernaut

My, January is a busy month.  This happens to me every year: during the holiday season I push through the month of December, putting things off until the new year.  And then I'm really surprised when the new year arrives and, instead of a nice break, I am extraordinarily busy and stressed out.

So please forgive my lack of posting.  I want to do better.  I need to start going to bed earlier so I can get things done before work.  Because my days have been so relentless that when I get home, all I want to do is crash in front of the TV.

And knit.

So although you haven't seen it, dear readers, quite a bit of knitting has been accomplished.  I finished a square of the Aran Afghan:

And then I went ahead and made another:

Much progress was made on the blue Trekking socks (love them!):

And I also finished a blue sweater, the cutaway-inspired cardi that I designed.  I say "inspired" because it didn't really turn out like I'd planned.  More on that another time.  I haven't been able to get a decent photo of it yet anyway.

And yesterday I started a little something new...

It's "Karlsro" from the first Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton Noro book.  The cardigan is knit side-to-side, starting at one wrist, across the body, and going down the other.  The yarn is Silk Garden, in a black/fuschia/turquoise/green/ochre mix.  This was a spur-of-the-moment project.  I was hanging around the yarn shop after my shift waiting to be picked up, and this sweater caught my eye.  I couldn't justify spending $100 (with my discount!) at that moment... so I'm buying the yarn on an installment plan.  I put all the yarn aside and I'll pick up a couple skeins a week.  Yeah.  It'll be good.

I have no regrets about my spontaneity.  It's a lovely sweater, and I'm enjoying the pattern so far.

And now, I will leave you - I have yet another guest staying the weekend, and I've ignored him long enough.  This makes four weekends in a row with company! 

Like I said, it's been a relentless month.

Good, though...

As Fate Would Have It

So I sit down on the commuter train and begin doing a sudoku puzzle.  It's not the train I usually take - it's a much later train, heading to a different station.  As the train fills up, a woman sits down next to me and I move my bag off the seat between us to make more room.  She sees the puzzle and comments, "they're so addictive, aren't they?"  "Yes, I got this book for Christmas and already I'm on #45."  I glance at her.

"Tina?!"

"Alison?!"

The woman is friend from high school who I haven't seen in years, but have often wondered about and hoped I'd reconnect with someday.  We catch up until the train arrives at her stop a half-hour later, and she takes my email address.

Isn't life amazing sometimes?

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Well, I thought I'd start the New Year off right by working on some UFOs this past weekend.  (By the way, how did it get to be Thursday?  Just know that this blog post has been percolating since Monday, but this is the very first moment I've had a chance to post.)

So first, inspired by finished Rogues by Julia and Teresa in the last few months, I pulled my Rogue out of it's hiding place.  I abandoned it in disgust when I completed the hood last spring, only to find that the decreases were completely unacceptable to me.  I don't think this was really the fault of the pattern; my row gauge was probably off or something.  Anyway, I finally did rework them, and added some extra rows to the top of the cables to address some other puckering issues, and re-grafted the top shut.  It's better, but I'm not completely happy with my grafting.  Whatever, it'll do.  I'm not knitting on this thing any more.

See, no puckering hood decreases?  Sub-par grafting cleverly hidden by camera angle.  I'm doing the cardi version, so I made applied I-cord for the front edges.  And I sewed in one sleeve.  That was a lot of work for one weekend.  Maybe I'll put in the other sleeve and the zipper... oh... sometime next summer.

But wait!  There's more!

I also picked up the Great American Aran Afghan again.  You've already seen three of the squares.  Here's another, that I completed this week.

There's actually another one that I did a couple months ago and somehow never posted.  It turns out that last year I hardly posted any pictures of finished projects.  What's up with that?  I'll try to do better this year.  (What resolutions?  We don't want no stinkin' resolutions...)

I was motivated to pick this project up again by my sister finally setting a date for her wedding - wouldn't this make a great wedding present?  And I only have until October to do 15 more squares, sew the whole thing together and knit a border.

So that was two UFOs resurrected in one weekend!  But in the minus collumn we have this

lonely sock, who may never have a mate, because I just don't love him enough to make him one.  I may give it to the store as a sample.  Because life's too short to knit with sock yarn you don't love.  There's nothing wrong with it, I'm just not feeling it.  So instead of casting on for Crazy sock #2, I cast on with some lovely blue variegated tweedy Trekking.

But hey, 2 out of 3 ain't bad.