Startitis Strikes Again
I thought it was done. I truly thought that casting on four shawls (plus one secret deadline project) in 14 days would be enough to satisfy the beast that is startitis. But it would seem not.
Saturday morning over coffee I started doing the math for a sweater. Why? For sh*ts and giggles apparently. (I still don’t know why I thought this was a good idea.) Then I charted it all out. (Just to see how the shaping would work in pattern of course.) And then I cast on. (Because the cast on number seemed a little high and I wanted to see it in real life.) At this point I was doomed. I cast on, started knitting, and soon Saturday, Sunday and Monday were all gone in a puff of smoke, while I was left standing there with 5 inches of sweater.
If all of this seems a bit haphazard, and not very well thought it. It was. And I’m still trying to wrap my head around it all. I even made a list.
Things that probably could/should have been better planned/thought out before casting on, which will now come around to bit me in the a$$:
- the needles- one full size women’s cardigan/jacket on 3.00mm needles (that’s tiny folks)- check
- the steek/yarn combo- three steeks in a superwash merino/silk blend- check
- the steeks- a knitter who has never done steeks before- check
- the numbers/design- a knitter/designer who has never successfully completed a sweater before (the Rhinebeck sweater still isn’t finished, and my first sweater doesn’t count, I might have knit a few other sweaters but I obviously wasn’t paying attention)- check
- the yarn- a full size sweater begun with only one ball of each color on hand- check
Rather than freak out about the fact that I really don’t know what’s happening with this sweater, I tried to convince myself it was going to be ok because I didn’t have a sweaters quantity of yarn. I was knitting with the left overs from the mittens, and even though Cascade Heritage Silk has crazy yardage (437 yards per ball), I would eventually run out of yarn before the sweater was finished. At which point I could put the sweater down, back away slowly and focus on other things. At least until I bought more yarn.
(Which turned out to be this afternoon.)
So armed with two more balls of each color, which I’m guessing will get me through the body (no, I haven’t calculated yardage, remember the whole haphazard thing?), I’m giving up all hope of working on other non-deadline projects, and am just along for the ride.
PS. Aren’t steeks pretty!
Yearly Bout of Startitis
It’s a very serious condition that can’t seem to be avoided, staved off, prevented. It leaves everything a complete mess, the stash, the desk, the bookshelf. It’s ruthless, and before you know it you have four simultaneous shawls in the works, (or maybe that’s just me).
The Tosh Prairie, and beads got cast on, into crescent shaped shawl. Every yarn over has a bead in it (what was I thinking). Even though you can’t see them right now, they are there, and hopefully everything will open up in the blocking, they’ll become visible and I won’t have to rip all my hair out. Fingers crossed.
This is the ponycorns handspun from the last post, in the same pattern as the Prairie (no beads this time), because I wanted to see if the pattern would hold its own in an extremely busy yarn. I think it’s working out, but I want to put a couple more inches on it before I fully make up my mind. Fingers crossed on this one too.
I bought three skeins of this yarn (Tosh Merino DK in hearth) at the end of the summer fully intending to knit up a completely different shawl. I even cast on and got through most of the first skein before deciding that, that shawl simply wasn’t working. So it’s now destined to be a large, cozy, blanket masquerading as a large, cozy, socially-acceptable-to-wear-out-of-the-house, shawl. Hopefully this time yarn and pattern will match.
And finally,
Mirror World‘s cousin. Shortly after knitting up the sample for mirror world, I decided that the stitch pattern would make a fantastic stole, but I didn’t have the time then to work it up. So, that’s what this is. It’s also giving me the chance to knit up the lace yarn I got from Bittersweet Woolery at Rhinebeck this year, colorway ‘ghost violet,’ which (if it’s even possible) I’m loving even more knit up, than I did in the skein. I’m also almost positive that this shawl will work out. (famous last words.)
But sadly all these new shawls mean that my mittens have sort of (read: completely) fallen aside.
Though they have progressed, and now have all their fingers, those ends are looking very daunting at the moment.
Maybe in a few days, once the temperature has dropped and I really want a new pair of mittens, I’ll come back to them. But for the moment at least I’m quite content in my world of lace.
