navel-gazing

well, it worked! putting my poor UFOs on the web succeeded in shaming me into working on them. Over the weekend I put in the sleeves and seamed up Ribby Cardi. Now all it needs is a neckline and a zipper! i wore it around the house in its unfinished state - boy that Lana D'Oro Alpaca is warm.

On sunday morning I met with SpindleRose and other waltham knitters at a cafe. I worked on my Rosedale U again with the new Kureyon. i'm just about ready to join sleeves with body and do the yoke. excitement abounds.

(Saturday, i went to the Fiber Twist. That will need its own post. tomorrow.)

The navel-gazing came when i thought about why i stall aon projects. its most often when i make things for myself. (I'm pretty good at finishing gifts.) The best i can come up with is "fear of failure". I love starting projects. I love to pick the colors and dream about how awesome the finished sweater will be. I love to imagine myself wearing a fabulous finished product. But along the way my inner critic gets loud. She starts to nitpick every detail of the project. i should've used different yarn. a different cast-on. What if it doesn't fit exactly right in the end? what if after all that work, i actually don't like it? 2 sweaters that i knit for myself ended up as gifts to family because i was so over critical that i just couldn't wear them. The first kureyon sweater got frogged. So i think that i get close to finishing and stall because something in me is trying to avoid that self-criticism. if the project isn't really finished, then i can't hate myself for not doing it perfectly, right? there's definitely a disconnect in my brain somewhere.

right now i'm feeling really good about Ribby Cardi. And i'm almost done! maybe i'll break the mental hang-up and finish all my languishing projects. i can dream, right?

When UFOs attack

you've got to help me. they're following me around the house! "finish us! fiiiinnnnish ussss!!"



1) Ribby Cardi pieces are all done. I can't find my nice little chibi needles. that's what i'm telling myself at least. i don't hate seaming, in fact i kind of like it. but i'm dreading sewing in the zipper... so i'm stalling on the seaming. does that make sense? not really.

2) Skull sweater pieces are all done. Even though the seaming will take just a few minutes, i'm REALLY dreading sewing in all those intarsia ends! so, like an idiot, i'm dragging my feet on that one too.

3) i am now in posession of 2 more skeins of Kureyon, color 52. Ready to breeze through the yoke... hardly any seaming necessary!

so.... what did i do last night instead of work on UFOs? i... um... made swatches for the Big Orange Sweater.

i've got a problem. What is my hangup about completing things?!

Mysteries of the Yarniverse

here's a real brain-scratcher for y'all.

I had a stripey sweater that i made from noro Kureyon a number of years ago. It was gi-normous on me. (my own fault. i tried to size up the chest measurements and did the math wrong.) i wore it anyway, because i made it. I tried re-blocking it. i tried gently felting it. nothing worked. After 2+ years of wearing and hating that it was so large and mis-shapen, i decided to unravel it and make something else out of the yarn.

Try #2 would be Rosedale United with the yarn. I cast on for that sweater in may (of... um.... 2004 i think). Needless to say, it drifted to the bottom of my UFO pile. until a few weeks ago when i needed some really fast and easy car trip knitting. (It's such a simple pattern? why didn't i finish this ages ago?! who knows.)

Well i'm cruising along. i knit the body. i knit one sleeve. I'm getting excited about actually finishing a sweater. I knit the second sleeve.... and RUN OUT OF YARN!


I am utterly baffled. I started out with a turtleneck sweater with (easily) 6 inches too much ease. I re-knit something the right size, and i don't have NEARLY enough yarn?! maybe i misplaced some of the unraveled yarn? I've searched every corner of my stash and can't find any more of the yarn... AAARRRGGHH!! This sweater has corrugated ribbing, but i really don't think that could've used up an entire yokes-worth of yarn.

Luckily, color #52 is no longer discontinued (re-instated?) from noro. I gave in and ordered a few more skeins. Of course, once i finish the sweater with the new skeins, the missing yarn will magically reappear. And it will be somewhere that it should've been all along. probably right in front of my nose.

sulk central

hello everyone in blogland. I have not dropped off the face of the planet... and i DO in fact still craft. The first 2 months of grad school has, as predicted, eaten all my free time!

why am i posting today? because i am NOT AT RHINEBECK!!!! i have been looking forward to this weekend all summer. i passed up many of the smaller state festivals in late summer because i knew i was going to rhinebeck. But i've also been travelling nearly every weekend for the past few months. and grad school is eating my weeks. Now we're finally done with wedding season! (*whew*) And i completed my first grad school test (i did very well!!). But now the house is a mess; i'm tired, stressed, and broke. we're still living out of boxes. you know how it goes.

so at the last minute i decided that i really should stay home, rest, clean, unpack, study... not go to rhinebeck. even for one day. but i'm still sulking, even though it was fully my decision. Everyone is going to bring back such wonderful goodies. and i had so much fun last year! i'm going to kick myself for not going. i know it.

i think i'm gonna go crawl back in bed.