I’ve also been knitting on pair #1 of my aunt’s holiday socks. They’re coming along nicely, except that I keep losing needles.

No, I don’t know how I manage that. I just buy a new set and move on.

I kind of have a love/hate relationship with these socks. I went with this yarn because it wasn’t super girly (she’s not really a pink, girly person) but also wasn’t blue or green. She likes blue and green, but it seems like everything I’ve knit her for the past few years has been blue and/or green. I was kinda feeling like a one-trick pony. (I still am, actually, since I’ve done socks for her before, and this year will be pairs 3 and 4, but she doesn’t really wear sweaters. And, really, who couldn’t use more socks?)

Anyway. Some days I look at this yarn and I think it’s gorgeous and fantastic and has this kind of southwest desert vibe going. Other days, I look at it and I just think meh. What do you guys think?

Tarot Card of the Day: Ten of Pentacles

This weekend, I finally made it through all of the endless stockinette stitch on my Mom’s sweater. Let me tell you, cap sleeves never looked so good.

It’s still in pieces, and I need to get moving on weaving in the ends and sewing it up, but at least the knitting is done. I’m starting to get to the really antsy stage of deadline knitting, where I keep dreaming up other projects I’d like to start. This is very bad, though so far I’ve been good and stuck to knitting gifts.

It’s really, really hard though. And I’m looking forward to the day when I can finally cast on for something else.

Tarot Card of the Day: The World

One of the sweaters I’ve been knitting is my Dad’s Christmas sweater. The pattern is It’s On the Tab from the Winter 2003 issue of Knitters.

I finished the front earlier this week. I noticed an error in the pattern, however, where it only directs you to do half of the neck shaping. Since most people (including my father) are not lopsided, I went ahead and shaped both sides.

I’m not starting the sleeves, and knitting them one at a time. Usually I knit both at once, but this is complicated enough without getting tangled up in two balls of yarn. Plus, the vast majority of it is based on counting, not measuring so I’m far less likely to end up with two wildly different sleeves. But it’s coming along nicely, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I’ll finish it in time.

Tarot Card of the Day: Knight of Cups

I’ve finally reached escape velocity and made it out of the knitting black hole I was trapped in! Hooray!

I’ve had a rotating bunch of holiday projects I’ve been working on–two sweaters and two pairs of socks–and as I worked on them I noticed that I seemed to have slipped into the dreaded knitting black hole.  You know the one, where you knit and you knit and you knit, and you know you’ve been working on things for a while because you’ve watched everything you DVR’d during the week, plus the entire first season of Everwood (don’t judge) but you can’t  see any sort of progress? And it seems impossible that you’ve been knitting for THAT long and the front of the sweater is still stalled at 9″.

Yeah, I was there.

Then I had that moment. The moment where escape velocity is achieved, and you realize that the sweater is now suddenly 2 inches longer than you intended it to be, even though you swear it was only halfway done just five minutes ago. (For the record, I would like to state that I do not think this phenomenon has been adequatelly studied by the scientific community, and would like to demand that reasearch money be allocated to it at once.)

This weekend, I hit that magic number and was able to finish all of the pieces of my Mom’s sweater, most of the front of my Dad’s, and that the sock on the needles suddenly has half a leg. There’s still plenty of time for me to get bogged down–Dad’s sleeves, finishing, the other pair of socks–but overall I’m feeling a LOT better about this holiday knitting thing.

I still want to know what causes the black hole, though.

Tarot Card of the Day: Eight of Pentacles

I must confess, I’m starting to suspect that I’m not going to get my holiday knitting finished in time to send it off and have it arrive by Christmas.

In order not to stress myself out, I’ve come up with a plan B, which invovles by smallish gifts (books, mostly) for my family and mailing those off in time then following up with the knitted gifts at a later date. That still feels kind of lame, though, so I’m cranking away a the holiday gifts.

I’ve finished the back of Dad’s aran, and am now working on the front. As you can see, at this point it looks exactly the same as the back does. It is going faster since I’ve bascially memorized the charts, but it’s still a lot of knitting.

I am happy with the way it’s turning out, though, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I’ll have it finished in time.

Tarot Card of the Day: Seven of Swords

So it’s that time of year again, when knitters flock to Rhinebeck and tell fabulous stories of sheep and fleece and yarn and knitters galore. And I? I sit at home and mumble about the unfairness of it all, since I cannot make it to Rhinebeck.

(Stupid economy. Stupid election season. Stupid California for not having any huge west coast fiber festivals.)

It’s probably for the best, however, since I am trying to commit to knitting down my stash and not buying (too) much more yarn. I did finish the back of my Dad’s Christmas sweater the other morning. It was cause for much jubilation and glee, at least until I remembered that I still have a front and two sleeves to go.

It looks really good, but it seems kind of long. I can’t tell if that’s how it’s meant to be (the model has it kind of bloused out over the ribbing a bit?) or if my percpetion is just totally skewed from knitting way to many sweaters for my 5’2″ self (who likes them kind of cropped) and it’s actually exactly the right lenght for a guy who is 5’9″. I’m crossing my fingers that it’ll fit, since there’s no way to tell until he actually gets it.

Tarot Card of the Day: King of Wands

Believe it or not, there has been actual knitting going on!

While it was a bit too hot last week to work on this, I have been plugging away on Dad’s aran sweater.

The pattern is On the Tab, and so far I’m loving it. It’s time consuming though, and I’m worried that my recent lag in productivity is a bad sign. But it’s only September, so I’m hopeful.

I’m using KnitPicks Wool of the Andes in cream, with the accent yarn in avocado. I like the touch of green, and so far I’m really liking the way it looks.

Tarot Card of the Day: Princess of Cups