December? It Can't Be!

I have been living real life big time in the last few months. My knitting has suffered and also benefited from it. By "real life" I mean suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, taking arms against a sea of troubles, going through the heartache and thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. Forgive me Mr. Shakespeare. It's been a rough few months in my life and that's enough said about that. On to knitting . . . and not knitting.

Lo and behold the vanilla vanilla socks got finished. That's one good use for ER waiting room, hospital and nursing home visits. The trouble is those visits do not lend themselves to the concentration needed for Kitchenering ("Kitchenering"?) the toes. Too many interruptions. So no pictures of the completed object yet. Further, the 2009 beach socks are moving right along. They should be completed before it's time for beach socks 2010, I should hope. The Butt Ugly Shrug is coming along as well. Lots of time in front of the TV hunkered down knitting. It has given me a good excuse to order the "blocking blocks" from KnitPicks. They should be here any day now and I can block the body and sleeves, sew them together and pick up stitches for the ribbed collar and band.

I rejoined Netflix, only one movie at a time this go round, and I bought a Roku box (since I have no X-Box, Play Station 3, Blu-ray or Ti-Vo) so I can stream movies to my television screen. I'm in movie heaven which makes for mucho knitting time.

The bathroom renovation is almost complete. The main part, the shower room I designed, is totally complete. I love my shower! My next water bill, not so much.

My studio is gradually being filled. I am not liking the wake-up call it is giving me on my yarn stash. I was better off not knowing. I have enough sock yarn to to keep all four of my sock machines humming and two Magic Loops at a time singing forever. I have just begun to move the sweater, jacket, shawl and afghan projects including ones bought as kits. OMG!!! All I have to say about the number of those is I'd better get to knittin'!

I'll leave you with a picture of the chair in which I plan to sit while knitting the winter away in my studio. I just ordered it. Draped in an afghan, a DVD or audio book playing and the knitting should be easy.
Bona Fide Knitter

What to Do? What to Do?

My life is in limbo. I am at sixes and sevens. I have finished one knit project and can't decide on what to do next. Actually what should be done next is to sew the last finished project together. However, my dilemma has me immobilized. What to do? What to do?

In the meantime I'm working on the ultimate vanilla socks . . . slowly, very slowly. You might wonder why I would even want to make plain white Regia wool with cotton socks. Sometimes, especially in spring and summer, I need white socks and not of the athletic or terry type.

I've agonized over what to start (or continue) so long that I've considered starting something brand new that will be of marathon proportions and use up a lot of my sock yarn stash. I even took it with me to cast on this morning when I knew I had an hour of waiting time to endure. The monumental project is Rings of Supersock, a shawl made of sock yarn. I bought the pattern a few months ago when I saw someone in my knitting guild working on one. I have a sock yarn stash to die for, enough sock yarn to hand knit forever and knit on sock machines indefinitely. With new fibers, colorways and techniques happening daily, this project would be a good way to use up some of my old inventory, get rid of some of the first purchased and make room for some new. In a way that would be working on old stuff, not UFOs, but at least *FIFO instead of **LIFO. Okay, so I can rationalize anything.

I didn't get the Rings of Supersock cast on this morning. It calls for a monumental number of stitches to be cast on to begin and I had a brain blip and couldn't get the long tail cast on started. Was that a sign? Was that a hint I should really start working on something else? The projects in the running are UFOs. Remember, what I just finished was something new and my new rules call for a UFO next.

Since it is spring now I have considered going back to the lacy flirty skirt. However, the weight I wanted to lose to be able to wear it is not going off as quickly as I had envisioned. My new toy, a Belgian waffle maker, is not helping the weight loss issue. This is what I had for dinner night before last:

But I digress. The next UFO under consideration is a sweater from Knitters Spring 2008, Faded Ribbons, I started last summer hoping to finish in time to take to Italy last September. I didn't. After Italy it went into the UFO pile. If I remember correctly, I have half the front finished.

Another UFO being considered is a sweater from Knitters Spring 2007, Sectional Citrus. I ordered a yarn pack and by the time I got it spring was over and I got only as far as swatching by casting on and working a few rows of the pattern.

There were others under consideration, but spring sprung while I deliberated, vacillated and generally got on my own nerves. So now I think I'd like to go with something not wool. In the meantime maybe I will cast on for the Rings of Supersock. The cast on is a project in and of itself. It calls for 1,800 stitches!

Bona Fide Knitter

*FIFO = First In First Out
**LIFO = Last In First Out