The L Word

L for looooser. As used in: "I've been a knitting looooser this week."

You wouldn't believe me from my lack of posting, but I've been knitting A LOT this week. Really. I have. I've been knitting, but I haven't knitted anything. Big difference. I think I might have angered the knitting gods this week, they stripped me of any good luck I had in me. Why would they do this to me? Maybe because instead of diligently working on my sockpal socks and casting on for the second one, I tried and tried to get some selfish knitting in. I have no idea why all of a sudden I just needed to cast on for something, ANYTHING, else. Sometimes I would pass the time by staring at my stash, as if somehow enlightenment would strike me. It didn't.

I did finish the first sock in the sockpal marathon:

This week has been a haze, but I think I finished it on Thursday, maybe Wednesday. I knit till I had an 8 " leg, I could have kept going since I still have half an ounce of yarn left from the first skein but my soul couldn't take it. I promised myself, after all the bad knitting mojo, that I would cast on for the second one tomorrow. I'll admit that the sock knits up pretty quickly, it's my lack of attention that's been slowing it down. The easy pattern makes it the perfect "on the go knit", or in my case the perfect "sitting on my ass in front of the computer while bloated Photoshop takes a year to load". Hopefully I'll see some significant progress this week, something like casting on would be good.

For your enjoyment, here are some of my knitting failures and one success (for now):

I swatched for Diamonique last weekend and was so excited when I got gauge right away. In all my glory I forgot to check how much yarn is in the stash. I'm about 200 yards short and I don't have any other yarns in the stash that are the right weight. Thwarted!

Undetered to start something new, I decided to cast on for bpt with no gauge swatch or anything. I had swatched this yarn before, what was I worried about? Do I even need to tell you what happened? Yep, I had swatched for it AND I got the same gauge while knitting this, BUT it's not the same as the pattern gauge. For some reason I had remembered this yarn knitting at 5 spi, though I'm not sure where I got that number from (I could guess where) because this knits at 4 spi. Sure, I could swatch again on bigger needles. I could. The only thing stopping me is that increase row. I nearly died trying to figure out what the pattern wanted me to do. I need to rip this out and come up with my own pattern. I'm thinking a zippered jacket with a high collar. When will that happen? Don't know.

I started to think that maybe what I needed was a palette cleanser. Kerrie had sent me a partial skein of her cashmere sock yarn, in pink no less. The yarn is sooo soft, I constantly stop to pet it. I would be further along if it wasn't for the gripping fear that I won't have enough yarn to knit two ankle socks (with having two feet and all) and the mindnumbingness of straight stockinette. Do I keep going? Or do I knit something else with this yarn? Like what? I think I have just a little over 200 yards and I'm knitting with 2 mm's.

The one winner, which was so close to being a looooser. This is Sauniell's cabled hat pattern. (pdf). I orignially started it on Saturday afternoon, but the first time I twisted the caston, the second time I fell asleep while knitting (I was really tired yesterday) and the third time is what you see. Finally! I love everything about this hat so far. I'm using a lone skein of Malabrigo (sealing wax) that I had in my stash, it works as my first April knit for project spectrum (it's orangey I swear), and I get my cable fix in a quick knit. I'll try to post a detail shot tomorrow because I love the cables. With my luck though I may have to find a kid to give it to.