Now that's more like it

I finished a baby blanket a couple of days ago, and washed it last night. I was more or less ambivalent towards it before I washed it, but afterward? My goodness. it's nice. It's just a basic knit/purl pattern, but in such a way that one is in a pattern against the other so that they make the shapes of bears. Washing it really made the bears pop out more like they should, I think. Confused by what I mean? Here, let me show you!

Well, first, this is what I started out with:

That would be two skeins of lots of yarn. A pound each - 1020 yards. I made one into a center-pull ball (quite a beautiful one, which I have yet to be able to replicate well) because I couldn't find the end of yarn that normally pulls from the center of store-bought skeins like that. I ended up pulling out a huge chunk of yarn from the center, and just couldn't find it, and it was messy, so I just took the one on the outside and turned it into a ball. It took like two hours, though, so since I pretty easily found the inner end of the yarn on the other skein, I didn't bother balling that one. It is quite a space-saver, though!

Anyway. Here's the finished result, pre-washing:

Not too bad, I suppose. But it looks a lot more polished post-washing:

(The hat is also going to my friend who's getting this blanket. It's one of my older baby hats that I just happened to come across a couple of weeks ago. Since she's having a boy, I figured, hey, might as well give it to someone! But, like all baby items I make, I don't know if it's the right size or anything. Oh well.)

Last week, I also made my first real alpaca item, which I've worn...a lot since then. I love it.

Anyway. It's pretty basic, but it's so warm, and so so so soft. And I kind of love that it has a hint of the smell of animal. Maybe I'm just making that up, but oh well. I like it. (Of course, this coming from the girl who has been known to "crave" the smell of manure at least a few times while I've been in DC. I like farms.)

Last night, I also cast on a new project - probably my most challenging to date. It's sort of a lacy shawl. I'm using this yarn that's part bamboo blend! Pretty excited about that. (Also, ignoring the fact that I literally have at least five projects on needles right now. But, you know, different situations call for different projects! I'll be finishing at least one of them today, too, so that's good. Of course, I'll probably just turn around and start another one, but whatever. :-P )

Well. Now it's off to send a couple items to their new owners!

Do-over

Well, remember that infinity scarf I mentioned the other day, the one I was knitting with Malabrigo yarn? I finished it last night, or two nights ago, and while it would have been ok to leave as-is (or, as-was, more appropriately), I decided it wouldn't do that fabulous yarn justice for me to have something I was ambivalent about. So, project was frogged, yarn was re-wound (and my goodness, how happy I am to have figured out that I can make center-pull balls with yarn I wind up! Before I was just winding it in a straight-up ball, and working with the outside yarn. Doesn't work as well that way. Center pull? I loves me a center-pull ball). Trying the scarf thing again, but with different yarn. I'll have to contemplate a bit more what I want that Malabrigo to become. I think I found something, but it'll have to wait a bit.

So tonight, I got down to the business of starting a new one. Except, here it is, hours later, and I'm still trying to figure it out. I've cast on and undone and re-cast on and knit a few rows and undone again, multiple times. I can't figure out the right needles, and decided to try a different pattern. And then the pattern I decided on had me cast on what I consider an insane number of stitches, but I didn't really realize this until I had already gone a row or two. Hopefully I'm settled down now, and things will finally progress. I'm anxious to have it done, because the yarn I'm using now is an alpaca yarn. And let me tell you. Alpaca is my new favorite animal. Goodness. If you've never felt alpaca yarn, be my friend and come over and I'll let you pet it. It's delicious. So, assuming that when I join the stitches (so I can knit in the round - because boy oh boy, I have a great dislike for stitching up a project) I don't twist it, which has happened once or twice tonight as well, I should be off and running. And I should hopefully be able to get this thing done by the end of the week.

Of course, there's also still the other blanket to finish. Plus the baby one. Plus a couple scarves promised to a couple of people. (But I'm trying to stay simple on those, so they're not so time-consuming.)

And, oh yeah, did I mention, those five graduate classes I have. Right, those.

Thankfully, the worst part of any project for me is the beginning. And it's especially bad when it requires casting on 100-200 stitches, because having to redo that many is time-consuming. Casting on 15 or 20? No biggie. That's the trade-off between knitting in the round versus doing seaming afterward. Ah, well. At least once this one is going, everything I have going is pretty simple. So that's good.

Now, back to it.

I take it all back

You guys, it's finished. The edge has been undone and redone. (The whole blanket was knit with size 10 needles; I ended up doing the edge row in size 15 needles. And it worked beautifully.)

It can now be packaged up and sent off to its new owners, and fulfill its blankety destiny in whatever way they see fit. It's about 64" in diameter, all told. (If I hold it up to the top of my head, the other side hits the floor, so it's even wider than 64" if it's stretched a bit.) It'd probably look better on a bed, but I have not an appropriate bed for this sort of thing. (It's a twin. And pushed up against the wall. This blanket wants a bigger bed, I think.)

I hope the recipients like it. And I hope they don't tell me if they don't. :-) All I know is, I'm quite satisfied, and feeling a lot better about life than I did last night. Sometimes it's worth it to put in several more hours of work on something that's finished but not up to standards. Anything worth doing is worth doing well, right?

Mmm. I love finished products. (Except when they're disappointing finished products...)

Setback.

Today has not been a very good day in general, and in knitting.

I'm currently working on my first-ever Malabrigo project (a delightful and delicious yarn I'm so excited to try, and the color I bought a few months ago - and yes, am just now getting around to using - is called Azalea. Hello, perfect?). I realized today that I really wish I had used a size or two larger needles for it. I like squishy things, and with the needles I'm using, it's not turning out so squishy. But I'm so close to being done (and really, it's not a big project and I just started it a few days ago) that I'm just going to finish it, but not cut the yarn or tie the end off, and see how I feel about it. If I like it, great, if not, I'll just have to start all over. No biggie. But still. Kinda disappointing.

Then tonight, I finished up a scarf I started (back in December, when I got way over-ambitious about Christmas projects) for my nephew, and realized both that it looks shabby thanks to the number of times I went back and forth between colors, and that I seem to have tightened my gauge halfway through so it's not exactly even as it should be. Which wouldn't be noticeable except for the fact that I decided to switch colors every 15 rows. So, I'm rather bummed about that. He's almost 6, so I doubt he'd really care or notice, but I care and notice. Still have to figure out what I'm going to do about that one.

And last Saturday, I worked hours and hours and stayed up late to finish this blanket project I've had going since November (which also was meant to be a Christmas gift). First of all, I'm not entirely sure that I even like it now that it's done (except now that it's washed and soft, I love the yarn - I always love the after-wash result when I make blankets and things out of Caron Simply Soft. Acrylic it might be, but it sure lives up to its name). It's a circle. Who wants a circle blanket? Sigh. Plus, the worst part is that, as usual for me, the edge (which is all bind-off, obviously, since it's a circle done from the inside out) is too tight. I should have used bigger needles, or something, been more careful about it, but by the time I got to that point I had already been working on it several hours longer than I had originally planned (but I decided to add four extra rows - which isn't a small thing when the rows have almost 600 stitches each), and I just wanted to be DONE. So I did it quickly, and not loosely like I should have, and it kind of curls in. I was hoping it'd relax a bit with the wash, and it did some, but not enough for my liking. So, ridiculous though this is (especially since I was hoping to get it in the mail tomorrow), I'm undoing the edge. All 576 stitches of it. Gah. And then I'll redo it in a larger needle, and hopefully that'll help it a lot. If not, it just wasn't meant to be great, and hopefully the recipients will at least appreciate the gesture.

And people wonder why I don't think I'm very good at knitting. It's because I'm not. Duh.

Back to the never-ending blanket. Sigh.

Lackadaisical

My knitting + blogging has been a pretty failed endeavor thus far. Oh well.

Knitting goals for this year (and maybe next year, depending on how things go). Learn entrelac. Learn fair isle. Learn intarsia and other kinds of colorwork. Learn brioche. Of course, by "this year" I really mean "starting in May" because I just can't commit myself (or give myself the temptation) to learn something new like that. Unless the opportunity presents itself.

For example, tonight I was looking over notes from one of my classes from spring semester last year. I have been much better about this in my second year, but often in my first year I would write random notes to myself interspersed with class notes when I was getting particularly bored or just had to write something down so it'd get out of my brain and I could go back to concentrating. Anyway, at one point (from a class in February, I believe), I saw a note that said something about how excited I was that I had just tried cabling for the first time, and had finally learned how to knit in the round and how to knit on double pointed needles. And it's hard to believe, but yes, I've only had those skills for less than a year now. I believe it was the week off during Snowpocalypse that encouraged this. I also believe that the first hat I ever knit, a couple of baby hats aside, was during Snowpocalypse. Plus, there's only so many blankets a girl can knit before she wants to try her hand at other things. But the point is, for the first 4-5 years of my knitting life, all I made were blankets and scarves. And until 2009, it was two baby blankets, just a few scarves, and two and a half ish regular blankets. I mean, really, I don't know what I did with myself knitting-wise for so long! But then, I guess I didn't have a lot of what I do now. I knew basically no one who knit (aside from the influence of two of my college friends who were the impetus for me teaching myself in the first place), and didn't know the vast knitting resources that were online. 2009 really started it, and I got that afghan-making book and some large needles to go along with it, and thus started my obsession with afghans, and I did some baby booties and a hat...hm...how did I make a baby hat before learning how to knit in the round? Must have seamed it up the side, I guess...hm. Or I learned knitting in the round earlier than I thought. Except I know I didn't have double pointed needles when I made those baby hats...well, in any case, I avoid seaming now whenever possible.

Point is, I've knit more things in the last two years than I did the four-ish years I could before. And it's been so fantastic. Knitting has been one of my saving graces these last two years. Graduate school has been good for something! Haha. And it's fun because there are awesome knitting sites to go to, and I now notice knitting in movies and things (30 Rock mentioned knitting in one of its episodes in the fall, which was really funny, and tonight on the Office there was a woman knitting! Very briefly, but it was there. And another show I watch has had a character knit a couple of times), and I get distracted by pretty knit things in movies and in real life (at the March for Life on Monday, there were lots of hats I wanted to knit. I just kept seeing cute hat after cute hat. Not really the point of the day, but fun nonetheless).

I just love knitting. The more I do it, the more I want to do it, and be good at it. I've had a number of things in my life that I did for a little while, but wasn't disciplined enough to get really good at. Violin comes to mind (which is still a regret I harbor). Being a good graduate student is another...haha. But knitting? Oh, I just want to keep learning, and keep getting better, and ensconce myself in this world of yarn and needles and lovely gifts and projects. I want to work at this. I want to understand it better. I want it not to be just some thing I do once in awhile, half-assedly. I want to be good at it. I don't want to make disappointing projects. I have, many times, but I would like that to decrease exponentially. I want to be happy with what I make, and I want the people I make things for to be happy, too. And not just "Oh, I like it because you made it." Genuinely happy, and appreciative. That's what I want. I hope I can make that happen. I'm encouraged by the progress I've made in the last year. I want to keep going, though. When I'm settled somewhere, I want to start getting involved with a knitting group, somewhere I can go and learn from other people for once. There's only so much a person can do alone (although, I've managed to teach myself quite a bit thanks to the wonder of youtube and awesome people who want to help others get better at this lovely craft). It'd be nice to have a group, though. Much as I am an introvert.

Anyway. Rambling. I could talk about knitting all day. It's kind of pathetic, probably, but whatever. It makes me so happy. Almost as happy as pictures of Nutmeg. :-)

Knitting. The love of my life. Hahahahaha.