Finished Object! Now with Picture!

I have, at long last, finished the Boy Scarf. It is currently drying in the bathroom. Now the question will be how long it'll take me to mail it.

Pattern: Yarn Harlot's One Row Handspun Scarf
Yarn: 2 skeins Takhi Sable
Needle: US size 9
The only pattern changes I made were to cast on 40 stitches and then I knit until I ran out of yarn. I didn't really block it, just shaped it a bit while it was wet. It's about seven inches wide. I don't know how long it is.

In celebration of the FO, I'm tempted to work on my own Queen of Cups sock, but I really should work on the Critters instead. I may work on the Critters for an hour tonight, then switch to the Queen of Cups. That would get me the best of both worlds.

1/31/09 Update: I can't find the Queen of Cups pattern print out. Yes, I know it's a Knitty pattern and I can just go print another one, but that seems rather wasteful of paper and ink, when I know there's a pattern here somewhere. Can you tell I really need to overhaul what I do with printed out patterns? That's high up on the list of de-cluttering/re-organizing tasks. I don't think I'll get to it this weekend, but perhaps next weekend.

Knitting Motivation

I am slowly regaining my knitting motivation again. I didn't get burned out with holiday knitting though. Mostly I just ran out of time to get knitting done on a regular basis. Time to finish up the niece and nephew's Critter Knits. They really ought to have them before winter ends, don't you think? Then I think I'll finish the 2nd Queen of Cups sock so I can wear the silly things. A gorgeous new pair of socks can't help but brighten one's day a little bit more, right? I'm beginning to get a hankering to work on the Errold's Grove wedding shawl again too. I haven't touched it since the yarn had that unfortunate meeting with the vacuum.

So, for a first step in returning to knitting regularly--I'm going to finish nephew's Gator Mitts by the end of the weekend. Then I'll work on the Gator Scarf. That will leave just the two hats and I'll be done! The hats ought to knit up pretty quickly.

Knit Compliments

I received compliments on the sweater I wore to work on Friday. It's a simple bulky pullover from a mid 1990s Vogue Knitting and, for several years, was my default favorite sweater on a cold day. It began its life as a men's XL pullover from Land's End. Of course, it was large enough to fit me and at least one other person at the same time, so I rarely wore it. I got the wild idea to unravel it and knit it up as something I would wear. That was a pretty adventurous approach to my very first adult-sized sweater, if I say so myself. (Oddly enough, I think I'm less adventurous about my knitting now that I know how much could go wrong.) Anyway, in this particular case it worked out quite well.

My coworkers were amazed when I thanked them for complimenting my sweater and commented that I knit it myself. I thought they knew I knit, but either they didn't or they forgot. I showed off my handknit socks too. This started a really nice craft/hobby discussion. One woman crochets afghans for her grandkids. We all did cross-stitching at some point. Someone else would like to try quilting like her mom and grandmother.

At the group movie I went to after work, I knit on the Boy Scarf. This led to all sorts of amusing comments, particularly since the theater appeared to be unheated. One woman leaned over and asked if I could knit her a pair of socks because her feet were cold. I replied that I could, but they wouldn't be done before the movie was over. I did get a good bit of the Boy Scarf knit during the movie. (We saw Last Chance Harvey, which was very cute and not nearly as sad as I expected.) I even managed to join a second ball of yarn in complete darkness, which I thought was impressive. I might get this scarf done in the next week!

Brrrrr!!

It's a mite nippy here this evening. My mousing hand got exceedingly cold at work today, mostly because the heat was off at work and it was 15 degrees out at 8am. With any luck, the boiler will be fixed during the night and we'll have heat tomorrow. Nonetheless, I'm taking my mouse hand's fingerless glove tomorrow. I knit this glove over five years ago and I have always intended to knit its mate. I even left one of the DPNs stuck in the ball of wool so I wouldn't forget what size needle I used. Yeah. Never quite got around to that one. I am, however, infinitely happy that I have the mouse hand glove. (My mouse hand is always much colder than my other hand. I'm sure it's a positional thing and the glove does really help.)

Project Update
This will be easy. There's really nothing to update. The Boy Scarf is about a foot long. I haven't knit anything else. Nothing. Between traveling and being exhausted in the evenings, until tonight, I just haven't gotten anything done. This may or may not change in the near future. You see, I came across a free, open source 3D animation suite today and I really really really want to play with it. Knitting may get put off a bit. I really should finish the niece and nephew's cold weather stuff soon though or else we'll run out of cold weather! *sigh*

New Books
I did acquire several knitting books recently. I was given Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines and Poems of Color as gifts. I bought myself No Sheep for You and A Fine Fleece. I have carefully put them on my bookshelf and am avoiding looking at them so I don't start yet another knitting project before I get a few other things finished (like niece and nephew's cold weather stuff).

I'm Baaaaaack!

Can you guess where I went?
Knitting did happen on two evenings. I now have a scarf which is about 14 inches long. I did not knit while at any of the Disney parks. I was either too busy taking photos of my surroundings or riding rides where it would have been disastrous to drop a ball of yarn. The lines weren't very long at all, which wouldn't have allowed for much knitting either.

Although I didn't get any knitting done, I did start percolating ideas for knitting patterns based upon images, shapes and colors I saw in the past week. Flipping through the Delta in-flight magazine today spawned a sock pattern! I have some loose ends to tie up in the next week or two, but will get to work writing after that.

On Vacation!

I'm out of town this week. I do have knitting with me (a black wool/angora version of the One-Row Scarf, aka the Boy Scarf), but am not getting much done. I didn't even knit on the plane, mostly because I got sucked into a pretty good book and was taking photos of clouds out the window.

Anyway, hope you all have a good week! I'll be back soon.