An Update on Everything
April 29th, 2007 | View Comments
Final exams ended on Wednesday, and boy has there been knitting in celebration of newfound freedom! Not only freedom from the semester’s relentless grind, but freedom from classes…FOREVER! I’ve finally finished all the course requirements for my programs. Dissertation, ho!
Update #1: Remember Prentice?
Yes, Prentice, the poster-tube carrier that I knit in a fit of grad-student geekiness. I had originally planned to make a yoga mat bag version, both because I need a second yoga mat bag for my second yoga mat, and because I figured slightly more people would want a pattern for a yoga mat bag than a poster-tube carrier.
Prentice #2, in summery shades of red and yellow, has finally been cast on. After practically a year of sitting on the pattern, I decided the original Prentice construction was fine and have no plans to fiddle with it, other than changing the proportions to be more yoga-mat-esque.
Update #2: The Mess of Laceweight
Some progress has been made on the tangled wad of Merino Oro. It now looks like this:
I have no idea how much of it I’ve wound; less than half, for sure. Every so often I get into the mood to wind it, so I do a little more. I’ve managed to untangle a significant number of the stubborn knots without breaking the yarn too many times (only twice, I think), and now it’s at a point where it’s unwinding off the box flap rather neatly.
Update #3: The Curved Shawl
When last you saw it, it looked like this, happily hanging out on top of some notes about olfactory neurons. Now it looks like this:
I’m kind of fed up with this project, can you tell? Part of it is my own fault, for not being bright enough to wind the needed yarn OFF the cone into a nice, portable ball—lugging around a 1-pound cone of yarn is not so much fun. And part of it is that the main body of the shawl boils down to a 6-stitch, 4-row repeat, with each row longer than the previous. It requires just enough concentration so that I can’t do it while watching TV, but is nowhere near engaging enough to hold my attention for any extended period of time.
Right now I’ve completed 23 of the 42 vertical repeats. I’m going to try to do a repeat a day and maybe it’ll be close to done by the time I go visit my parents at the end of May so it can be a belated Mother’s Day gift.
Update #4: The Un-Update
In the meantime, I’ve cast on for some socks. Behold, the beginnings of Denmark, from Nancy Bush’s Knitting on the Road.
You can see some finished Denmarks in the blogosphere at Grumperina’s and at On and Off the Needles. I’m using KnitPicks Essential Solid, and it was not love at first stitch. While the yarn is plush and squishy and promises to feel like butter against the feet, it also seems to be underspun (as if I know anything about spinning), which leads it to split and snag easily. I’m hoping that the cabling in Denmark will help lend the sock some durability; otherwise these are going to wind up being house socks only.
And that’s a wrap for now!
CogKnition posted this on April 29th, 2007 @ 12:30pm in Unfinished Objects | Permalink to "An Update on Everything"
cogknition
It’s encouraging to read that someone else is dealing with a tangled mess too, and you’re handling it in sort of the same way, except I tend to string the untangles bits around chairs and whatever piece of furniture is available. I haven’t had the courage to post about it.
Do you work all your socks on two circs at once? I did the toe up way once and wasn’t really that keene about it, I prefer cuff down. On the other hand, getting both done at the same time is so rewarding.