Resolving a crisis of confidence

...or How a good blocking does wonders.

I spend a quiet day at the hospital yesterday and was able to get the stranded part of the Asian-Inspired baby sweater done. It only took about FIVE episodes of the Closer to get through this part of the sweater when I discovered puckering...! Argh.


It is not as visible in this pic as it really appears. I threw it aside, disgusted. Before ripping the whole thing out, I decided to wait until this morning when I could subject it to some serious steam ironing.
Hurray for irons! It looked much better after a little pressing. Enough that I can continue without ripping my hair out.
I have been very frustrated with my knitting these days, perhaps because I am not allowing myself to start new and exciting things, with the exception of the above project. I am trying to get those UFO's done but I am realizing that each is a UFO because it was a problem. With each one, I hit a snag and lost interest in the project. Something about it ruined my ability to see it as a viable finished garment. I may end up frogging more of them then I originally intended. The list in the side bar was culled from all of my UFO's as being the most likely to be completed, but I may find more of them get 'repurposed' then I thought.
Anyway, this project was a roaring success...

Name of Project: Sunrise Scarf

Weave: Plain weave

Warp: Purchased handspun

Weft: Handspun BFL, fiber from the Spunky Eclectic. Worsted spun, 2 ply

Rowan Kidsilk Haze, color Blush

EPI: 12

Width in reed: 10 inches

Finishing: Edged with Herringbone stitch.

Thrown in normal wash cycle, then pressed.

Final Destination: Christmas gift for my mother. She loved it.
And finally, a little handspun I finished before the first of the year. It is a merino/tencel blend from Chameleon Colorworks that I purchased at SOAR 2006. It is navajo-plied to preserve the color changes and I am very happy with it. I don't know the yardage off the top of my head.

Hell week

I am at the end of my third call in the last week. Fortunately, this was a quiet call and we did not a single delivery during the entire 24 hours. The complete opposite of watching the blood flow out of a young woman who did not want to receive blood products. I will never forget the grace and courage with which she and her husband faced the likelihood of her death, just after the birth of their son. Mike writes it off as pure stupidity, bordering on psychosis but I think they have something that many of us strive for but never near. Call it peace, or faith. I don't know, but it was a night I will never forget, and I hope never to repeat!

I am way behind on FOs. Fortunately, there are FOs. I had a big push just before the new year because I wanted to shorten the list of things to finish in the coming year. I want to enter 2010 with no FOs that are older than six months. That seems only fair to the projects that have been languishing in the closet for years.

When my mom visited over Thanksgiving, she fell in love with the yarn I was spinning and I promised a scarf for her for Christmas. The yarn on the left, below, is a 2-ply spun from a Spunky Eclectic club shipment. I think it is BFL. I spun it worsted, to practice that technique, and should have plied it a little more tightly but it ended up working well for this scarf. The warp yarn is on the right, a yarn I purchased on Etsy, I don't recall the seller. I used every last yard of the 200-and-some skein and warped my rigid heddle loom. My handspun, combined with some Rowan Kidsilk Haze, is the weft.

I was so in love with the end result that I could barely part with the scarf. I have enough weft to weave another, if I can find another suitable warp yarn. Ahh, a success!

I've been working without a purpose these last few weeks. My knitting has not really had a focus and I haven't been able to focus on getting a specific project done. I have done a lot of organizing. I now have a pile of projects that only need minor finishing (such as buttons or a few small seams). I have tried to avoid starting a bunch of projects but did start http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEsummer08/PATTshetlandshorty.html lovely little sweater using some of my Alaska yarn. It is a slow knit because of all of the K2tog but the yarns are gorgeous and I am enjoying it.
The other thing I've been able to knit are squares to make an afghan out of my fingering scrap yarn--mostly leftover from socks. The squares are a la Oliver's blanket from the Mason-Dixon website, and in this green era, it makes me feel virtuous to put all these little scraps of yarn to a good use.
I spent Fiber Friday working on basting the quilt from Last Minute Quilted gifts.

Next will be the actual quilting, likely to occur during the next Fiber Friday. I also started to pull together some stash yarns and fiber for a throw for our bedroom. I love the warps that Sweet Georgia makes and want to do something similar, completely spontaneous and simple, for this throw.

Here is some of the fiber I dug out of my stash. Some is Romney, Color Bits from Judith McKenzie McCuin, I got it at SOAR last year. Some is random dyed scraps from Detta's Spindle, they just happe to be the right color. Since I tend to spin with a high twist when I drop-spindle, I am spinning these on a drop spindle. I have one small skein completed, about 30 yards. The weft will be a solid color, perhaps a fine mohair. I will have to play around a little. And I will definitely make a small sample.

More later