So, I ran into a hiccup or two in my plan for causing the Apocalypse. I was knitting Rick's scarf last night during a break in our D&D game (I'm very jealous; this is actually going to be a kick-ass scarf ... If it ever gets done) when some muscles in my arm cramped up... My *knitting* muscles. ... Not good. Last time that happened and I kept knitting anyway it got to the point where I couldn't extend my arm and when I went to the doctor about it (I couldn't extend my arm for like a week before I finally caved and went to the doctor) she forbade me from knitting for a month! A month!!! I almost died then and I think I might actually die if that happens again! So, I'm trying to think of ways to give that particular muscle a break while still working toward finishing my projects. So, I did some crocheting this morning (mostly works a slightly different muscle) and then decided to give all the muscles a break as I looked through my craft room for yarn and WIPs.
Actually, my Aunt Debbie texting me with a "subtle" hint that she wanted a ruffled scarf in bright colors for Christmas from me was what prompted my foray into the craft room. Her request reminded me of the ruffle yarn I'd started a scarf for my mom with sometime earlier in the year. Problem was, I couldn't remember where that WIP was - only that it was in a white paper bag along with at least one other project and the yarn leftover from a hat I'd made for my Aunt Tina while she was going through chemo. So, I first looked on the table next to my bed since that was the last place I'd remembered working on it. No such luck. I'm sure Seth complained about how messy my table was and insisted I put away any spare knitting projects.
Since lately "putting away" knitting has consisted of discretely shoving them into my desk drawer, I checked there next. Nope. That meant that it actually got put away in the craft room... Not good. The craft room is even less organized than my bedside table or my desk, and it's obviously much larger. So, I spent the next couple hours searching through my craft room.
Yes, I did say hours. In the process of looking for my ruffle yarn, I found more yarn for Mary's sweater shoved away in a hanging device I'd been sorting my knitting to do projects in before forgetting about the thing completely and allowing it to get shoved in between two of my towers of overflowing yarn drawers. Just yesterday I almost bought more yarn too but the line had more than quadrupled since I'd come into the store, so I decided I'd pick the yarn up some other time. I'm glad there was that line, because I found four more skeins of the yarn. That should be enough... I hope. If not, I'll just have to frog the matching woven hat I made and use that yarn.
I also found quite a few FOs that I'd completely forgotten about. I think I'll be gifting some of those this year so that eliminates some of my knitting requirements by Christmas.
But the ruffle yarn... After searching in all of the easy spots and places I probably put recent projects when trying to get them out of way.. I still hadn't found it. That's when I started pulling out tubs. Needless to say, the living room soon looked quite different. If Seth had come home while the living room was like that, he would have had a heart attack for sure.
I started pulling projects out and laying them out on the table that was still up from D&D the night before. Here's the table:
Eh, it's really not that bad, but Seth still would have had a heart attack. I just noticed that you can see our cat, Missy, in the top right corner. As you can see, I also found a good deal of loose needles that didn't seem to belong to any particular project but were thrown in the tubs anyway. I rescued the ones I noticed.
Moving along, each project on this table was one that I was/am considering picking back up for a Christmas gift.
This is one of those project that's almost done but I completely forgot about it. They are fingerless mitts and the one is completely done - finishing work and all. The other one has only the thumb and finishing work left to do. I almost picked this one up and just finished it right when I found it. It'd only take 15 minutes or so and most of that would just be finishing work. But alas, the needles that seemed to be with it, were a different size than the one needle still attached. So, I'm going to have to go searching for size 9 dpns in order to finish this one.
This is actually just a picture of Mary's sweater - not a good picture, but it was on the table too so, I took a quick picture. The part to the right of the needles is actually my last attempt from last Christmas that I've been frogging to use the yarn as I go. That's all the yarn I thought I had left until I found the four other ones today.
That is a sweater that I believe I started knitting when Mary was pregnant with Clara. We didn't know the gender, hence the green, blue and yellow. Can't quite see in this picture, but there's also a giraffe on the front. Only thing left is finishing work, but by the time it had gotten to this point, Clara had already outgrown it anyway. So, I'm thinking of cheating and giving this to Michael for his baby instead... I'm not sure yet. We'll see.
Here's that ruffle yarn. I did eventually find it - tucked away in a white paper bag, just as I thought. The problem was that it was in a bag at the bottom of a tub. Good thing I got the tubs out! The yarn was black, grey, and white - not colorful. But Aunt Debbie did say she liked black, grey, and purple. So, I frogged what I'd done so far (about an inch) and tried to go up needle sizes to make it go quicker, but the holes in the material only allowed me to go up so far in needles size and it's very slow going. I was thinking of doing a scarf that had the ruffles on the edge only, with the body of the scarf being plain worsted - possibly in purple. That's where the WIP at the bottom of the picture comes in. I'm debating frogging it to use the purple yarn for a scarf for Aunt Debbie... But, the purple yarn is currently attempting to be Hermione's hat from Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter). I'm not super happy with how it's turning out so far, but I'm not sure I want to frog it.
Here's a close up of the pattern for the hat. Wow, I just noticed that this picture makes it look even worse than it seemed in person. I think I need to use DK or fingering weight yarn to get it to look right... For some reason it just looks too bulky, and it looks like a spiral more than Hermione's did. - though the spiral isn't quite showing up in the picture yet. I don't have enough done.
Moving on, I also found this WIP. It was meant to be a Christmas/Birthday gift for Sra last year (at least it's only one year late?). All the knitting is actually done. All that's left is embroidery and seams. Actually, on second thought, there may be an i-cord that still needs knitting. Anyway, I plan to switch over to the embroidery for a change of pace if my arm muscles start acting up again.
This isn't technically a WIP since I haven't cast on, but I want this yarn to be
these awesome wristwarmers eventually. The yarn on the right is Slytherin green if you can't tell from the picture. It looks kind of black on my screen.
These would make another nice pair of those same wristwarmers, but in non-Harry Potter colors. They would make a good gift for someone who's not crazy about Harry Potter like myself.
This project in green was also pulled out. It looks to be a felting project I started. It's either a hat or a bowl or a bag... That got put back in the WIP tub to be examined at a later date.
Here's
The-Scarf-That-Never-Ends II. I thought it wasn't finished, but it turns out it was. So that should be gifted to someone... not sure who yet.
This hat is questionable. I'm not sure who it would fit better: an adult or a child. The lime green color suggests a child and that may have been my intent, but I think I made the brim come down too far. It would probably be baggy on Clara and the brim would cover her face, but on my head the design strip lays way too high on my head making it look too small for me even though it technically does fit. Maybe I'll hold onto it for a couple more years and give it to Clara once it'll fit her? Not sure. It is a completed project though.
This was the hat that I knit while I was teaching my brother, Michael, to knit. He knit the same hat for his (at the time) girlfriend. His got finished and gifted to Mindy. Mine got shoved in a tub to await finishing work where I found it today - years later. Whoops. But all I have to do is seam up the side and I have a nice ribbed beanie to gift to someone. It's not intended to cover an adult's ears so I have to be careful to gift it to someone who wants a beanie, not a winter hat. The only person who comes to mind would be Michael.. but that seems problematic...
This is a cute little hat for Clara that started as a mouse hat. If I want to continue with that plan I still need to add mouse ears for her. I should find pink yarn for the inside of the ears. I think I have some baby yarn lying around in a nice soft pink.
This hat did have cat ears on top and one ear cover thing, but I ran out of yarn for the other ear. Since it was garage sale yarn or something, I didn't have anymore or know what it was to buy more. So I frogged the ear cover and cat ears and now it's just a plain purple hat. But it is finished! Maybe I'll throw that in for the white elephant gift at the Wing family Christmas. There's enough boys to make a purple hat funny and I made it long enough ago that I won't feel of a loss if no one likes it. And it's made out of some sort of micro-fiber so it's almost like it's store bought - which is a turn-off for me, but most people would probably prefer it.
This is a super long plain scarf that I knit one time awhile ago. It's finished. Not sure what to do with it... It's reaaaallllllllllyyyy long.
This is the first of The-Scarf-That-Never-Ends 'pattern'. It's made in really soft yarn/commercial roving and it's actually a bigger circle than I remember. Completely done. Just needs gifting or using...
This one's a twisted cowl I made out of the small amount of yarn I had left after making my second knitted heart (it's not finished). It started as an experiment to find out just what would happen if I twisted the stitches when joining in the round. Turns out this is what happens. I'm not positive that I'm going to keep this one. I might frog it to use the yarn toward it's original project - the heart. I think I technically will need some of this yarn for that in order to finish it and this cowl is a bit small and not soft enough to be overly useful.
This is another small cowl, but this one is so soft... mmmm... Incredibly soft. Finishing work only, then gift or use.
I've noticed as this blog goes on, I'm becoming a bit more selfish. It started out as gift everything and now it's "gift or use" that keeps cropping up...
This is a reallllly long post. I'm going to end it here and get some knitting done. Toodles!
