unfinished musings

Thanks so much to all of you who came by to say such nice things about my ridiculous biker jacket! And particular thanks to those who agreed with how ANNOYING Debbie Bliss's schematic-free ways are. My current theory is that Ms. Bliss made her fortune designing baby clothes, which are basically square and hence need little finishing finesse. Perhaps some day she will realise that women and men are not actually giant babies, and that their clothes can't quite be put together like dinky infant sleepsuits. Some day.

OK! Enough snark, more constructive talk. First of all, I have finished one of the falling leaves socks, look:


Hmmm. No, honest, that IS a lace pattern. Look! Do you believe me now?



See? Yarnovers? Anyone? Ach, this is a funny yarn. I was hoping that when it knitted up the splotches of black and yellow and purple would resolve themselves into some kind of pattern or stripe or something, but no. It's just splotchy, or perhaps porridgey. Which is probably why it was on sale. It doesn't show the falling leaves pattern very well, but it doesn't look particularly great on the stocking stitch sole, either. O well. This is not my favourite project of all time, but I am loving my handmade socks so much that I will certainly wear them into the ground in any case.

And next up? Next up is going to be the dread Christmas Knitting. One good thing about my crazy eBay yarning habit is that at least I have a large and varied stash from which I can pick nifty gift projects. And I am trying to be very very sensible, and to follow two simple rules, viz:

1) only plan to knit four presents, because otherwise I'll be swamped

2) make one present between every project for myself.

So once these socks are finished, Present No. One goes on the needles. Alas, I'm not going to be blogging the presents till after Christmas, because although I'm reasonably sure that my family have no notion that I would have so nerdy a thing as a knitting blog, you never know, do you? But I might show you the yarn for the projects, yes. Such as this one. On eBay it looked a bright pink, you know, jolly and a bit extroverted; but once it arrived on my doorstep, I realised that it belonged to an entirely different species, perhaps a different planet of pink. As in, look. This is just how pink it is:



Yes. Pretty damned pink, no? But I think that the recipient will like it, and it is fun to knit with. All the same, who on earth thought of dying plain four-ply yarn such a colour?

And after that comes the teal-coloured tweed. Alas, I started swatching for the Verena cardigan, and although I got gauge, once I lashed into the back of it I realised that there was no way that the yarn would last out for the whole cardigan. It's only 550 grammes, and in terms of chunky pure wool, that's not enough for a big long jacket, alas. So *deep breath* I think I may design my own jumper. Eeek. My hippy heatwave cami doesn't look like it'll be the greatest of successes, so I am not convinced by my designing (read: Hard Sums) skills. But if I do a v. simple top-down raglan, based on the Übernatural, but with a couple of cables? And just keep knitting till all the yarn is used up? I can't go THAT badly wrong, can I? Can I?



Poor teal yarn. What fate awaits you?