Tag: frog pond

WIP Blitz

The last, oh, while, I’ve been feeling quite determined to finish off all the knitting projects I have sitting around partly done.  Which is good!  Right?  Right.  It feels like I’ve done more knitting this year than I actually have in terms of finished projects (though the Knitting Meter in the side bar tells me that I’ve knit 2023 yards in the last year… and I’m only putting entries into that when I either finish a ball of yarn, or a project).  But maybe that’s because I still have seven projects on the go.

I had planned not to start any new ones until I’d finished several of those I had lurking.  But well, best laid plans and all that.  Mum asked me to make a couple of things for her, and then I finished my basic “portable project” socks, so I just had to start another pair for that purpose, didn’t I?  And now Christmas is fast approaching… eek!  Still, I am feeling more organised and purposeful about the whole thing.  My knitting, I mean, not just Christmas.  And bizarrely, I think a lot of that is because I finally made the decision to (temporarily) frog my Ishbel and restart it – probably after Christmas – on larger needles.  I checked my gauge again, and I had 23½ sts / 4″ where I should have had 20sts.  No wonder it’d come up so small, and the knit fabric was probably a bit too dense.  I shall swatch again with 4.5mm and 5mm needles and see how it goes.  Whether I’ll end up running out of yarn again I don’t know, but I’ll give it a try, anyway.  I’ve weighed the re-wound ball, and it’s as it should be, so I assume the yardage is correct too.  But the best thing is, I feel much better – obviously that one had been hanging over me without me even realising it!

Now, I know I’ve said this a thousand times, but I’m going to knuckle down and sew up my two “UFOs” – the jumper and the cardigan.  I’ve decided that the pieces of the mohair jumper really do need blocking before I sew them, since mohair is so floaty, but at least now I have the table sorted out and ready to sew on.

So my plan is to finish my Gap Year Travels shawlette / scarf (which frees up the needles for whichever cardigan I go for, I believe), and also my Menace jumper (block, sew, crochet, block again).  Then to start my Christmas knitting and… just keep knitting until I have finished stuff!  I reckon that’ll work.

To Frog or Not To Frog?

… That is the question. The other question is, hey where did the last week disappear to? Bzuh?? I know I was quite busy, but I didn’t realise it had been that many days since I posted last. Whoops! My Secret Pal package did arrive on Monday as expected, and yay, it’s awesome! But I’ll babble about that more in a separate post, because I haven’t uploaded the photos yet.

What I am going to babble about now is my frogging dilemma. Forest Canopy so far; click for larger versionSee, I’m about 10-15% into my Forest Canopy Shawl, and it’s very pretty and all. But I’m not quite sure that Eva is the best yarn to use for it. It’s gorgeous and shiny, but it hasn’t got as much elasticity as an all-wool yarn, which means that the sl1 k2tog psso decreases look a little baggy. I’ve hibernated it anyway until I’m done with my Christmas knits, so I was thinking that maybe I should rip it. Because it also occurred to me that Eva would make the most beautiful Clapotis…

I know, I know: everyone and their dog / cat has already made a Clapotis, and I’m the last person in the world to jump on this particular bandwagon. You know, I wasn’t even particularly enamoured of the pattern until I started thinking how well Eva would suit it. And suddenly, it clicked for me. Well, I’m late to everything else, why not this too? It really would show off the yarn soooo well. Posh Yarn Emily in SelvaAs for the Forest Canopy? Well, I have a skein of PY Emily in some lovely shades of green that strikes me as rather… forest-y. Is that too predictable? I think it’ll look good, though, and I like green. So there ;-) Plus, I’m pretty sure that it’ll knit up better Emily. My other choice would be YY Merino, or possibly Sock, but I don’t have a colour in either of those that I want to use for the shawl, unless I used the YY August club yarn. But I have that earmarked for a particular sock pattern, so I don’t think I will.

I have another frogging dilemma as well, although this one is less of a real dilemma. A couple of years ago, I started knitting a zip jacket that was actually a man’s pattern by Debbie Bliss featured in Simply Knitting mag. Well, I say I started knitting it. I went out and bought the yarn (a substitute, but pretty well identical: Sirdar Denim Sport Aran instead of Debbie Bliss Denim Aran), and cast on. Aaaaaand that’s as far as I ever got! I spose I was distracted by other things (this was right before Dad’s accident) and somehow I never picked it up again. And then, in the most recent issue of Knitty, I saw Mr Greenjeans. Ooooooo, I thought. I like that! My first idea was that I could maybe use some Jaeger Matchmaker Merino Aran that I have lurking in my stash for it – it’s a lovely dark green colour, and I’ve been wanting to find something to use it for for ages. But when I double-checked, I don’t have enough of it. D’oh!! (One of these days, I might pick up some complementary yarn and make a Tubey with it. That would be nice.) So I kind of figured I’d have to give up on the idea of that cardigan for a while, until it suddenly struck me that I have that Denim Sport Aran sitting around not being knitted. Was I really ever going to knit the zip jacket? Probably not. So I think I’m going to use that yarn for the Mr Greenjeans instead. The only thing that’s vaguely bothering me is that I’m not 100% sure the yarn is actually very me. Will I wear a blue denim-effect cardi? Oh, I spose I will. I could think of it as work clothing! At-the-computer attire. After all, it won’t show the cat hair as badly as all my black clothes do. *g*

I spose that’s decision made, then. Zip jacket thing: Frog, and re-purpose the yarn as a Mr Greenjeans. Forest Canopy: Probably frog, re-purpose the yarn as a Clapotis, then re-start with the green PY Emily. Hoorah! (This isn’t helping my startitis any, you know….)