Apologies, and In a Perfect World

I owe you all (all 6 of you?) an apology. Yarnhog took the time to let me know it was not possible to leave a comment on my wonders of nature post, below. Somehow or another, I'd managed to turn that option off. And since I didn't know I turned it off, it took me little bit of searching to figure out how to turn it back on and it's all good now. In all sincerity, I appreciate Yarnhog letting me know about the problem. It's like knowing I'm hanging out with people that will tell me if I have spinach stuck in my teeth, the label hanging out the neck of my shirt, or the fly on my pants is open. I like that. :-)

Do you ever wonder how long it will take to finish a project? Depending on the type of project, or maybe my mood, sometimes I'm happy just knitting along. Other moods or projects, I'm anxious to finish, either because there is a real deadline (rare for me, I just don't want the pressure), I really want to see how this turns out (frequent), or I've told myself I won't start another project I'm keen on until this project is done (fairly frequent).

Take for instance, the Hubby socks. They fall into the 'I just want to get it done so I can start something I really want to do' category. Hubby wants relatively plain (read boring) socks. His feet are almost always hot, so he finds wool uncomfortable. So I've chosen Maizy, by Crystal Palace Yarns, to knit his socks. I've used it before; its a corn fiber and elastic nylon blend that is holding up really well to wearing, washing and drying. It feels fine on the foot, but I don't like the way if feels on my fingers when I knit it. It feels harsh. Poor me, the socks are boring and I don't like the feel of the yarn. But I said I would knit Hubby another pair of socks, so by golly, I will get these done before I start a pretty, soft, luscious beaded pair for myself. Oh the sacrifice. At least I'm getting close to knitting the heel, I like that part, I think its interesting.

Speaking of interesting, I'm not sure what category I'd put Muir, my lace project, into. It's a bit interesting, but not riveting and I've told myself I will finish it before I start the Shipwreck Shawl. I try to spend at least an hour a day working with it, not something I can do while waiting in the car or watching television or sitting at my local SNB on Wednesday nights. I really want to start the Shipwreck Shawl, so I wanted an idea of how long it will take me to finish the Muir. Yesterday I decided to see how many rows I could complete in a hour, and found out that In a Perfect World, I can do about 8 rows per hour. Each pattern repeat contains 32 rows, so that means 4 hours per repeat, and there are 13 total repeats in the pattern. That equals 52 hours of knitting time, plus 2 end sections that I don't know how long they will take, but the pattern designer says one of them is a bit tricky.

I've already finished 2 pattern repeats plus about 16 rows of the third one, so I'll say I have 42 hours left, plus whatever it takes to do the ends. And I won't include blocking time. Ack! That's another month and a half from now - In a Perfect World. An hour in a World where the Cat doesn't come and sit in my lap while I'm knitting, the dogs don't come nudging their noses under my hands, where the phone doesn't ring during the hour, where I enjoy no beverage containing alcohol, I don't fall asleep, none of the family members need me to do something for them and an hour during which I make no mistakes in the pattern. Sigh. Maybe for planning purposes I should just plan on this project taking 3 months.

New Projects on the Needles

Last week I culled my Ravelry queue to things I'd like to start in the next couple of months, plus a few items that don't have a 'favorite' option. I leave those in my queue so I know where to find the patterns, remember the pattern names, and so forth. So I ended up with a nice tidy list of 9 projects. And then I promptly cast on for 2 projects that I didn't even have in my queue. Hey, I'm the boss of my knitting, right?



One is a pair of basic toe up socks for Hubby, he's been hinting about, and keeps mentioning how much he likes the first pair I made him. I'd been ignoring the hints, as he wants just basic socks and that's not very exciting to knit, but I finally realized that if I were knitting more socks, things would go much faster/easier with a new set of Addi circulars in size #1. :-) There is another good reason for these socks as well, my second project is a lace shawl, Muir, my first all lace project and I know it's a sit and knit quietly project, not a traveling project or a take me to the knitting group project.



I'd been eyeballing both Shipwreck Shawl and Laminaria (ok, I fell in love with the picture of the finished shawl draped over a rock like seaweed) as my first lace projects, I even have the yarn for Laminaria, and I got beads for Shipwreck, but then for some reason I decided I must use up this lace weight 2 ply tencel I've had in my stash for a couple of years. Its a multi color yarn, I wasn't sure how the colors would work out in a lace project, but Muir looked like a good choice to me.

Oh, I decided to block the clapotis, so it's all pinned out right now. I'll get new pictures posted up soon, but for now I need to wrap up, the power company is shutting down power to the neighborhood in a few minutes for some routine maintanace stuff.