A moment of reflection.

I've been knitting like a fiend the last couple days - which is cool - but lately I've been working at remembering that lesson. You know the one. About how knitting is a HOBBY (at least for me, and most of the rest of us), and as such, getting all worked up over deadlines and knitting stuff we hate totally defeats the purpose and should be avoided at all costs. I think that's going to be my secondary theme for the year- "Life's too short to knit annoying crap." Or something like that.

That said, this is what I'm up to.

I'm into pattern repeat two on the Faux Russian Scarf.

Those are my fingers stuck in there, for scale. With the second pattern repeat, it's going a bit more smoothly; I'm in the groove, so to speak, and have the hang of how it all works. This will never be my favorite knit of all time, but I've gotten a lot better at managing the splitty yarn and making the whole thing go. As with all lace projects, I am chanting to myself "It will look better when blocked."

There are beads in it.

I think the whole bead thing has gone to my head. Anyway, these are glass, #20s just like before, only they look like metallic gold, which I think looks nice against the russet color. I'm putting in the same way as the shawl, but I'm using a crochet hook stuck through the center of the bead to pull the stitch through, instead of thread. This method MIGHT be faster, but not a lot. Thankfully it's not too many beads.


My father-in-law's sweater should be finished by the time he gets here. Right now it looks like this:

By any standard, I think this counts as 'almost done'. If anyone remembers the Steeked Jacket, I'm doing the shoulder decreasing the same way. If you look at my directions here, find the photo where I trace the line of the decreases in three different colors, third photo down. I'm at the end of the red line of decreases and starting on the yellow part. After that it's just the shoulder straps (which suck but go fast) and viola. Done. I'm hoping by the end of the week. But we've heard that before.

I'm not big into cable knits, so much, but I'm really enjoying the texture on this. I did go a little wild with the overall cable pattern I chose. It's kind of angular and curly all at once. Love it.

And I've run a more circular, less angular cable up the outside of the sleeve, and intend to run it all the way up and across the shoulder strap - the motivation for using this shoulder decrease method. (Though on further thought, the raglan would have accomplished the same thing with less thought. Oh well.)



After it's done, the question is, do I finish the Russian Prime that's been languishing for a year (good news, the moth-proofed yarn appears to also be carpet-beetle proofed), or something else? The 'something else' I'm considering is a light jacket for the Goob, knit with some handspun I did ages ago.

It would be knitting out of the stash, so it kind of counts as finishing something. Particularly if I were to actually... you know... finish it.


I've also been looking at German lace patterns, with an eye toward travel knitting; the Goob and I are headed to Florida for a couple weeks with my in-laws, in February. Lace doesn't take up much space, and it's entertaining. And could certainly fill two weeks' worth of time. I DO have nine miles of crochet cotton in The Pit, after all. I'm thinking 0000 needles and tatting thread. I haven't done any extreme knitting in, what, a month. Time to do something crazy, I'd say.

It's gonna be interesting, regardless.