Of Monsters and Babies

It will come as no surprise that in the nearly four months since I last posted, I have hardly knit on anything.  I tend to go through my various creative activities in cycles, which is bad for blogging; some months I'm really into cake decorating or baking, some months into nail polish and makeup, and some months really into knitting.  It didn't help that I wasn't feeling particularly inspired by any of my in-progress projects. 

Then last week, it was like the knitting gods decided I need to get my act together.  I started listening to my backlog of knitting podcasts and immediately wanted to buy all the yarn and needles.  A fellow blogger and friend posted Instagram pictures of her Kool-Aid dyed yarn, and I immediately wanted to run to the grocery store for Kool-Aid, and order bare yarn from KnitPicks.  I had a little over a week until a friend's baby shower, and theorized that I could finish a knitted monster toy in time (because I'm crazy).

I decided to use a yarn I've had in my stash FOREVER, because its bright and kid-colored.  This is KnitPicks Stroll in the colorway Cartoons.

I hate it.  I think it looks happy and bright in its little yarn-cake, but knit up I think it looks like a muddy mess.  My friend Sam insists it will still be cute for a baby boy.

My current plan is to finish the monster (who will hopefully be ugly-cute), but then overdye the rest of the skein into something less barf-worthy.  It will give me a chance to practice (for freebies!) this whole food coloring/Kool Aid dyeing thing, as I have a ton of gel colors from my aforementioned cake/cookie decorating adventures.  I like when my hobbies magically intersect.

Curse of Dumbness?

...I don't know what's going on with me, you guys.  I was working on my mitten last night and things were going well, but then I noticed I had a weirdly loosey-goosey stitch.  This led to a series of problems I will not list here, but which ended in the frogging of my mitten (grumbleSOBgrumble).

I don't know if its my state of mind (not enough concentration?) or just some weird knitting curse (those exist, right?) but this is super frustrating!  I'm trying to actually work on things only to get thwarted at every turn (by my own mistakes)!

On the plus side, the needle I was using for my mitten was kind of annoying me (it wasn't really as long as I would've liked for magic loop), so maybe I can use this as an excuse to buy one >:)

Knitting would be easier if I wasn't so dumb.

I've been making an attempt to start my Raphaelite Socks for several days now.  First I thought the beginning of my toe looked weird, so I pulled it out.  Then I wasn't sure I was really doing the increases right, so I pulled it out, looked it up and started again. 

Things were going well until yesterday (still working on the toe, mind you), when I counted my stitches and realized one of my needles was missing one.  I assumed I'd accidentally forgotten to increase on one end of the previous round.  Alas, I had just finished a knit round, so I had to tink back that entire round and half the next to get to the trouble spot...but both my increases were there.  Which meant I either dropped a stitch (which I couldn't see), or I forgot an increase SOMEWHERE ELSE.  So I pulled the entire thing out again, because I didn't want to keep un-knitting for forever.  UGH.

I don't know how its possible I have managed to muck up this project four times and I'm only ON THE TOE OF A SOCK.  !!

An attempt to break away from monogamy.

You would think that having had two weeks of vacation during the holidays would have prompted knitting, or maybe even a finished project, right?  Alas, in my case you would be wrong.  I spent the majority of my vacation sitting on my bum playing video games (nerd alert).

Now that I'm back at work and doing a task that allows me to listen to podcasts, I've been making myself listen to the knitting ones because I know that they'll inspire me.  Indeed, it seems to be working because I've been staring at patterns on Ravelry again, and even played with Judy's Magic Cast-on last night (in preparation for starting a pair of socks.)

I'm going to try something new this year.  Typically, I only knit one thing at a time (though, technically I've had the Chroma Striped Scarf lurking in the background for awhile), but this usually results in things languishing forever when I'm not in the mood to work on them (all the pairs of socks I've ever knit, my mittens....).  While listening to an episode of the Knitmore Girls podcast, Gigi mentioned that she liked having a few things going on at once so that she had knitting for every situation--i.e. something easy for when you're maybe waiting in the doctor's office.  I thought it was a great idea, so I'm making an effort to start some more projects.  I plan on continuing to work on my Bella Mittens, I'm going to start my Raphaelite Socks (FINALLY), and I want to break down and finally do a knitted toy (which I've been wanting to try forever)--likely a knitted monster. 

I'm also hoping this will actually give me enough to blog about, instead of the usual posts where I talk about NOT knitting, haha!

BAM.

Guess what I finally finished over the weekend?

I'm still alive!

Sorry for the lack of updates, everyone.  I hit another dry patch, due to knitting frustration, so I had to let it sit for a bit.  I'm happy to report that I'm back at it again, so there should be proper updates coming soon!

Grumble

I attempted my Traveling Woman again last night.  I even pulled out my chart keeper and its fancy magnets to keep everything straight.  I very, very carefully knit Row 5.  Things seemed fine.  Back across Row 6--things were still matching up.  I looked at the clock and thought, "I have plenty of time to do rows 7 and 8!" and started Row 7.

Immediately things seemed amiss.  I carefully counted my stitches, double-checked the pattern...but my purls weren't lining up.  Instead of trusting my knitter's instincts and checking the chart (I've been following the written instructions--its easier on my brain), I plowed ahead, assuming it was just how the pattern was.  Got to the end, where I was supposed to have 8 stitches left...and only had 7.  Panic.  Anger!  Then I realized what I'd done:  I'd forgotten to do a yarn over before the last two stitches of Row 6.  That's why I was a stitch off and a stitch short.  ARGH.

So now I'm in the process of tinking back Row 7.

For the record, the entire stockinette portion of this shawl has you use stitch markers at either end, to keep that yo k2 (or k2 yo depending on the end) straight, but when you start the lace section there is NO MENTION of the markers!  The stockinette instructions had always had instructions to slip the marker, but there wasn't any sign of it in the lace instructions, so I assumed I was to remove them. 

I am totally putting them back so that I don't have another airhead moment and forget to yarn over!