A Return to the Old Ways

So I have a purple mess of yarn ends and untried potential to conquer

And a stack of hats just waiting to be blocked.

I was unusually efficient when I knit these hats.  I even wove the ends in as soon as I finished knitting each one.  It really is a quick soak and done situation.

But despite my previous efforts to be a monogamous knitter, to work on one project from start to finish without interruption, I have returned to my slutty yarn ways and decided to ignore my obligations and instead turn to the open arms of a new love

A little cake of unknown origin.

No ball band.  No idea how it came to be mine.  No information on fiber content, yardage, even yarn weight.

It isn't lace weight, but it isn't quite thick enough to be fingering.

Weighing in at 83 grams I'm not even certain it is an entire skein of yarn.  It might be someone's leftovers.

Who knows.

I just know I love its creamy/brown/blue goodness.

I must create something.

I'm feeling unusually scarfy.

Light, lacey scarfy.

Do you ever feel like you spend more time looking at patterns on Ravelry than you spend knitting?

That was me the other night searching for the perfect pattern for my mystery yarn.

Pattern after pattern after pattern.

Until I finally settled on a feathers and fan scarf.

I love feathers and fan.

Until the yarn pools in a weird vertical striping pattern.

And then I hate feathers and fan.

Back to Ravelry I go.

Only this time, in the interest of salvaging my ever dwindling knitting time, I picked the first "yeah, this could work" pattern I saw.

Yeah.  

This could work.

I'm a third of the way through this yarn and the scarf is going to be very short.  Unless I can stretch it long when I block.  When I stretch it it is a perfect size.  The mystery fiber content feels cotton/nylon/acrylicy.  None of which are super awesome at holding a block.  I'm feeling pretty confident that this will stretch and be long and block perfect.  And the second I remove it from the blocking wires it will shrink back up into its previously stubby proportions.

But since I like to flirt with disaster I just keep knitting.

Plus if it shrinks up too short I can always give it to one of the kids.

But realistically I will probably knit this and then shove it into The Abyss to be forgotten and unblocked for a year or two.  Don't worry.  It will have all those shawls I knit last summer to keep it company.

The Best Laid Plans

I had such plans to blog on Friday.

I knit, and I took pictures, and I had things written in my head.

And then Queen Bean just casually walked up and poured a cup of water on my laptop.

I'm not sure I have ever moved so fast in my life.

The laptop was tipped to pour the water off, and towel dried, and turned off, and flipped upside down.

And then we left it alone all weekend.

I crossed my fingers, and wished, and hoped, and prayed, and wondered how much rice I would need to submerge my laptop in a garbage bag of rice.

I held my breath when I booted up my computer, still fearful that things would go wrong and somehow water on my computer would cause the entire laptop to mysteriously catch fire.

Mercifully no pyrotechnics ensued.

Just the Microsoft logo.

Everything seems to be running just fine, and in the end I'm not sure water ever even got past the outer case.  The mysterious inner working of my device may never have even been in any danger.

But we took precautions just in case.

And I was once again reminded that I really need to back up my pictures (which I should be doing now but I am blogging for you instead.  That's called priorities.)

So back to friday morning.

I finished knitting my two sleeves.  The final elements of my purple sweater.

And I then carefully removed all the safety pins I could find.

And just to be on the safe side I had The Greatest go over the sweater looking for the knitwear destroying pins as well.

When none were found, at 10 am, I once again submerged my sweater in anticipation of blocking.

I sat down to watch the new episode of Grey's Anatomy with the grand plans to lay the sweater out when the episode was over.  And entire 47 minutes later.

But when the episode was over The Queen needed something, and then I had to run to the store, and then I needed to make lunch, and then the kids came home from school, and then I had to make dinner.  And it goes on and on and on.

I finally got down to the business of blocking at 7:00 that night.

Nine hours later.

Mold and rust free.

The sweater is blocked and dried and waiting for the moment of truth.

I need to try it on and see once and for all what I have created.

Did I finally achieve the perfect Grown Up Girl sweater I have dreamed of?  Or is it too small?  Or are the sleeves too long?  Or are there crazy textures stripes between the different kinds of yarn?

I'm feeling a lot of pressure for this sweater to be a win.

Pressure from where?  Who knows!

But the pressure is there, and I am not ready to fail yet.

So I'm going to let the sweater sit for a little longer before I take the chance.

In the meantime I knit four hats over the weekend.

But that is a tale for a different day.