Saturday, January 04, 2014

FO 2014

I haven't written a knitting post for a long time, it seems. But I've been knittin'!

Tons of Christmas presents this year (it's a little easier when you make them all year long, not just in November/December. Go figure!) Maybe I'll post them later. I'm starting fresh in 2014.

Yesterday, inspired by my friend Stiney, I decided to pull out the knitting projects I had started at one point or another. There were more than I thought, but not as many as I feared, if that makes sense. I think I counted twelve of them. I still like most of them, so I'm going to try to finish them all by the end of the year.

(I know, they're all in bags and you can't see them. But you will!)

One of them was a half-finished dishcloth that had been languishing on (or under) the end table for MONTHS. It took me MAYBE 20-30 minutes to finish it up. Why did I wait so long?



The next project was a hat made out of Noro that I'd started, oh, sometime when I lived in Lexington. I added that yarn to my stash in 2007 and I probably started the hat not too long after that. TWO THOUSAND SEVEN. That half-finished hat has been sitting in my closet for six or seven years?!?



I thought about finishing it off, it really only had maybe an inch more and then the decreases at the crown to do, and I've given away a few of my hats lately. But I decided I'd rather have a cowl right now, so cowl it will be. I'm alternating with a ball of grey wool (actually, I think it's a ball of grey Encore wool/acrylic blend) and it's just a simple feather-and-fan pattern. Cast on 120 stitches, four rows of garter stitch and then start in with the pattern. Knit until it's long enough (I know, these are DETAILED instructions here) and then another four rows of garter stitch, and bind off.

By the way, I really struggled with that feather and fan stitch for a while. I've had problems with it for YEARS. It's one of the oldest and easiest lace patterns out there, but apparently I have trouble counting to eight. I had to frog this thing a couple of times because I kept getting off count. But I finally got it down.



I still have more of the grey and the Noro yarn left; maybe I'll make the Turn a Square hat. But not until I finish up some more of these languishing projects!

Finally, what's a blog post without a cat picture? Well, a blog post without a cat picture, I suppose. Here's my latest foster: Chimney. He was kind of a bitey bully at first, but he's rather charming and warming up to all of us here chez Melly.



Plus, who doesn't like a cat who walks on a treadmill of his own volition?