Road Trip Knitting

Tomorrow Matt and I are moving to Canberra for work. Even though my work offered pay for flights to Canberra, and to freight my car up, we opted to drive up there ourselves. I'm almost ashamed to admit that this decision was partially motivated by the fact that driving up would provide me we substantially more time to knit than if we flew up, particularly given that knitting needles are still banned on Australian flights. I'm also looking forward to the road-trippiness of it all. Not that we have time to take in the sights, but it's my first long drive without my parents doing all the driving. Yep, I've officially made it as an adult, get me a medal struck, stat!

Anyway, back to the knitting. Picking a project to take with me has actually been kind of difficult. I wanted to make sure I had a project that was easy enough that I can still take in the scenery, and be able to tolerate any sort of background noise, and work up fast enough, so the fruits of my labour would be more than 2cm, but not so fast that I'd have it finished in an hour. Oh, and it had to be in the pile of WIPs that I want to get rid of. So, taking all of that into account, I've decided to take my brown cabled jacket.

I don't actually have any photos of the jacket in its current state, and the light is so dim at the moment that it'd look like a furry lump languishing in the middle of the photo (which I suspect is how all my photos look, but anyway). I did attempt to knit this jacket with Patons Inca ages and ages ago, but it turned out terrible, and prompted this temper tantrum. Now I'm using the yarn specified in the pattern, I'm hoping for a happier ending, or something that doesn't involve road rage as we hurtle down the Hume highway tomorrow.

Stash Flashing

It's nowhere near April 1st, but as I'm moving to Canberra next week, I've been forced to go through my stash and reorganise it, so the removalists don't get scared and run off when they see the jungle of yarn this house has become. This is what it was like before:



Admittedly, the black bag (a repurposed Apple Mac Classic bag. I don't know why I felt the need to mention that, but now you know.) was only half full, but never the less, it was still a surprisingly large stash, given that I've only been amassing it over 3 years, and on a uni student's income. After buying the biggest clear plastic tub I could find (which was surprisingly difficult task - it seems that the pink and blue transparent container fad had crept up on me unawares, and I hadn't managed to get the rest of my decor aligned with that trend in time), and sending what I could to the op shop, this is what I ended up with:



When I was taking the 'after' photo, I was doubtful that it was an improvement. Clearly I was deluded - the 'before' photo is hideous.

The downside of organising my stash is the realisation that I can't fit all of my yarn into a 110 litre container, a situation which doesn't lend itself to being able to justify buying more yarn. I never really intended to make 2007 a year of knitting from my stash, it looks like it's inadvertently going to be that way, or until such time as I can contain the stash in that tub.

Seeings as it's now 2007, it's as good a time as any to get back into blogging. As a staunch believer in not making new year's resolutions, I'd like to point out that it's a mere coincidence that I've decided to post on January 1.

However given that it's 2007, I can now properly look at my knitting report card for 2006. Ladies and gentlemen, I can say without a shadow of a doubt, that I failed 2006 in terms of knitting. I was trying my darndest to remember how many projects I finished, and I'm pretty sure it was less than 10, and most of those were simple scarves. What's probably even worse, is the fact that my pile of works in progress has increased from just a small basket, to now starting to muscle the furniture out of the lounge. Without doing an official audit (I fear that I may go catatonic if I do), the WIPs count would be at around about 11... E.L.E.V.E.N!

So I guess it goes without saying, a substantial amount of 2007 will be devoted to clearing out the WIP pile. With uni over and done with, I'm hoping that the same amount of time that I spent chained to my desk, and crying into text books last year can be devoted to knitting this year.

I can just feel my hands and wrists seizing up with RSI at the thought!

Official Hiatus

While I think there's probably a readership of zero and falling for this blog, I thought I'd just post to make the hiatus official.

Although I'm still knitting, being able to blog about it is nigh on impossible, because of study commitments (honours year is hell). I'll be all done with uni by the end of November, and between looking for a house in Canberra (I've got a job up there next year), I'll have a lot more time to knit and blog.

See you after the exams!

False starts and ends

While we've finally finished moving all our stuff into the new house, I couldn't actually say that we've moved yet. There are still boxes everywhere, letting me know that I need to unpack them by getting in my way and making me trip over them several times a day.

In the same vein, I've been doing a bit of knitting, but I wouldn't say that I've actually been productive. I'm mere rows away from having the last sleeve, and last major piece, of Cosmopolitan completed, but I've run out of yarn. Knitted to gauge, purchased the required number of balls, but still, inexplicably run out of yarn. Luckily, it's just a couple of rows at the top of the sleeve and the ribbing that will more than likely be a different dyelot. However, the sad part is that it's going to cost me less to buy the Australian Designer's yarn from the UK than here, so I'll just have to wait for it to be sent over and it's a kind of sad reflection of the 'designer knitting' scene in Australia.

To keep myself amused while I procrastinate about buying the last ball of yarn, I decided to make a scarf. Pretty easy right, just cast on, knit, cast off? Wrong. I've had two false starts so far, and possibly running headlong into another one, if I've miscalculated the yardage.

First I tried Checkered Scarf from Vintage Knits using some variegated handspun from the spinners and weavers guild, and some Bendigo wool, but the more I looked at the pattern, the more I disliked it. The colours I used were a bit lairy as well. It's currently languishing under the bed, still needing to be unraveled.




Unfortunately, I knit such a small amount that my hand was necessary to show the scarf for the second photo. I didn't think my fingers were so pink and chubby sausage-like; I'd like to blame the altitude of the new house (the new house is on a hill, where the old house was in kind of a valley). I might try this scarf again, using the slip stitch pattern in its entirety, instead of just on the ends, and swap the colours around so the brown is the main colour, instead of the variegated.

After that false start, I tried interlocking balloons from Scarf Style, using some alpaca I picked up an eon ago. After half a repeat, I decided that it just wasn't doing it for me like I thought it would.





It's pretty much a case of another time, another place with this pattern. It could look good with the right yarn, just not this yarn.

The alpaca has since been doubled and now makes up a part of an Irish Hiking Scarf. While I consider the pattern to be quite plain, it suits the yarn quite well. The cables pop out nicely, and if it ends up being long enough, it should be a nice warm riding scarf for Matt when it gets cooler.



As soon as the scarf's done, and the remaining Cosmopolitan yarn turns up, I'll start to go over some of the projects that have been sitting around for a while. A prime example of this is Matt's diagonal rib jumper, which only needs the rest of one side seam done, and it's finished, but I just can't be bothered sitting down and doing it. I will have to get bothered soon, so it can take up room in the wardrobe instead of in my knitting basket.

Goals

Ok, the sleeves didn't even come close to getting done. In fact, I think I had negative progress, in that I had to rip back one of the sleeves, because I had done something inexplicably stupid (I haven't worked out exactly what) to it. Because of the yarn, a wretched mohair blend that is typically hard to rip back, the mistake was irreparable, and the sleeve had to go.

I should probably point out that I like to knit both sleeves at once. It most importantly means that I can knit two sleeves of equal length, and so I can get the painful process of sleeve knitting over and done with. I thought this was always the way to go, until this project. Getting rid of tangles between the two balls of yarn is just that much harder because of the mohair, so it ends up impeding progress.

I'm now planning to have the sleeves done by the end of next week, which should hopefully be doable. Normally, such a goal wouldn't be a problem, however I'm in the throws of moving to our new house (the news came through late on Thursday), so I'm a little occupied with getting utilities disconnected and connected, getting quotes on getting carpets cleaned, and all the other joys that comes with moving from one rental to another. I'm hoping that this will be the last move before we buy a house.

As the new place is exponentially lighter and brighter than my current drab, light-deprived abode, I think I'll put off taking any more photos until the move is well and truly done. I'm hoping that the more favourable conditions at the new place will improve my photos somewhat. There is also the fact that I haven't really made enough progress to warrant taking a photo, but I'll just stick to my original reason.

The joys of the sleeve

The back's done on Cosmopolitan (every time I type that word, I'm impressed by how many 'o's have been jammed in), and I'm now down to the sleeves. Whenever I get close to finishing a project, no matter how enjoyable, I start wistfully dreaming of the next project. This time is no exception, besides it making me seriously think about my stash. A quick stocktake when I was in the shower revealed that I have enough yarn for the following planned projects:

- 3 jumpers/cardigans, 2 of them fine gauge
- 2 scarves
- 2 vests
- 2-3 pairs of socks
- 1 pair of fingerless gloves
- 1 hat
- 1 pair of slippers

This doesn't even count the 3 neglected projects still on the needles (a vest, a plastic bag bag and floor cushions), nor did I think about it too hard (we're in a drought you know, too much thinking in the shower would have caused the reservoirs to run dry). If the above list were to be my finished objects list for this year, both Matt and I would be very happy - I would feel productive, Matt would have less yarn to fight his way though when trying to get from one room to another.

I wonder if I can either refrain from buying any yarn this year, or more realistically, I wonder if I can have a net decrease in my stash by the end of this year? I think I'll add that to my yarn-based challenges for 2006.

Getting back to the project at hand, I'd like to think I can get the sleeves done this weekend. The only thing I can envision stopping this from happening is house hunting. We're trying to find a nicer house than we are living in at the moment, and we're hoping to hear about our application on a really nice house today. All going well, our house hunting will have only lasted around 2 weeks this time round, instead of the 5 months to finally get the place we're at now. May the house renting gods be smiling upon us today......